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Digger
examines the roles of the Spitfire and the Hurricane, together with
the role of strategy, in the winning of the Battle of Britain and
tries to explain why the contribution of the beautiful and remarkable
Spitfire is often exaggerated
In the summer of 1940, things had never looked bleaker for Britain.
The British Expeditionary force - over 300,000 men - had been beaten back to the
French coast, along with tens of thousands of French troops, by the Nazi war machine.
They had to be evacuated from Dunkirk back to Britain, leaving their equipment
and many of their dead and wounded comrades behind them. In stoical
British fashion, this rescue by a 'little Armada of ships' was
represented as a victory.
In the Atlantic, merchant shipping carrying the supplies and raw materials
that were Britain's lifeline was taking a pounding from German U-boats
who were seemingly attacking and destroying their targets at will.
Over 100,000 tonnes of shipping went
down in just one month at the hands of the U-boats.
It was to be two years before Britain was to score its first major land
victory against the German army at El Alamein and three years before advances could be made in detection technology and tactics in hunting
for the German navy's 'wolf packs' of U-boats, rendering the seas tolerably safe for
allied shipping.
Anyone looking out to sea from Dover in 1940 could clearly view the colossal
German armaments along the French coast 25 miles away and witness overhead
the daily troublesome Luftwaffe flights probing Britain's defences. Nobody doubted
that it would be long before the Germans tried to invade Britain and it was obvious
that, as a preliminary to such an invasion, Britain's air defences would
need to be destroyed and its Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) rendered inoperative.
In the mid-30s in the build-up to war, the R.A.F. had ordered 600 fighters from Hawker Aviation
and 300 from Supermarine, whilst the Nazi Luftwaffe had stepped-up production of the Messerschmitt Me109.
Designed by Willy Messerschmitt in 1934, and ironically originally powered by a Rolls-Royce Kestrel V engine,
the Me109 won a fighter competition in October 1935, although it
wouldn't have won any beauty contest. The Messerschmitt had a very cramped
cockpit, visibility was poor, the undercarriage was notoriously fragile and the plane was harder to fly than either of
the main British fighters. However, at altitude it performed better than both of its main opponents and
overall had similar firepower and capabilities.
Messerschmitt Me109.
Hawker's response to R.A.F. demands was to produce a plane built from traditional materials in a traditional way
based on the methodologies learned in the production of bi-planes - thus making its manufacture and repair relatively
quick and economical. Sidney Camm - Hawker's chief designer, was able to farm-out the production of components
and assembly so that large numbers could be built. The Hurricane was considered generally
more sluggish than its comrade-in-arms the Spitfire and it was a bigger plane
than the Spitfire, but it was tougher and able to withstand greater damage.
The Hawker Hurricane
Supermarine's ailing designer R.J. Mitchell had gone 'back to the drawing board' to create the first all-metal
fighter plane with a distinctively sleek shape and oval wings. The Spitfire's pedigree was
based on the Supermarine seaplane's ability to win the Schneider Trophy year after year
in seaplane races. Without doubt a beautiful-looking machine and arguably
more of a joy to fly than its chunkier comrade-in-arms, the Spitfire was to get the lion's share of the good press
in the ensuing battle, despite the Hurricane outnumbering the Spitfire in kills as well as
in the actual number of planes taking part.
The Spitfire
Several other planes on both sides played a significant role in the ensuing battle,
yet it is these three planes -
the Me109, Hurricane and Spitfire that are identified as key to the events of that summer.
For Hermann Göering, then chief of the German air forces, the view from France in the late spring of 1940 was
decidedly rosy and clear. The Germans reckoned that they could destroy the R.A.F. in four days and the
British aircraft industry in four weeks. They had seriously underestimated the strengths and
tactical abilities of the R.A.F, their ability to predict and to respond to attacks and their
aircraft production capabilities. Göering's plan was to attack coastal defences and radar stations along the
coast. The Luftwaffe would then progress to attempting to destroy aircraft on the ground and facilities at airfields and to entice British fighter squadrons away from their bases
so that German bombers could wreak their havoc, whilst his fighters,
with their numerical advantage, helped themselves to the British
fighter planes.
What Göering failed to recognise was that Britain had a number of advantages over the Luftwaffe.
They had RADAR and the Royal Observer Corps (R.O.C.), both which gave early warning of the approach of the German fighters. In fact, he seriously
underestimated the significance of these early warning stations and the sophisticated British command and control network and,
indeed, soon told his commanders not to bother to attack these. He was
also blissfully unaware that the British had a de-coding complex at
Bletchley Park which was able to unravel the German coded messages
within hours, sometimes within minutes, and so know exactly what the
German targets and tactics were likely to be.
Led by Chief of Fighter Command Sir Hugh ('Stuffy') Dowding, the British command and control network was based on an impressive use of ground to air communications and heavily-defended
and protected control rooms dotted around the south of England. With the aid of information from RADAR and the R.O.C.,
the R.A.F. had the ability to pinpoint exactly where the enemy were and in what numbers so that British
planes could be deployed accurately. This meant that the Germans were soon surprised by the apparent British superiority
in numbers and started to believe that their intelligence was wrong and that the R.A.F. had much greater strength than they actually had.
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Sir Hugh Dowding
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Hermann Göering
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At the same time, the German planes had to fly from their bases in Germany or France to Britain and often could spend as little as 15 minutes over the British mainland. If a German plane was shot down or seriously damaged, any survivors would most likely be apprehended
by the British authorities, thus ending that unfortunate airman's involvement in the future battle. Conversely,
R.A.F. pilots in similar circumstances could be rescued to fight another day. British planes could land and
refuel or reload their guns and continue their operations. British fighters could also,
relatively easily, attack unprotected German bombers.
The British didn't get everything
right. Some of their tactics were from the old school and soon needed
to be updated. Squadrons would often fly into battle in tight
formation, rendering them sitting ducks for the enemy, particularly
the 'tail-end Charlies' who were at the back and outside of such
formations. British pilots had to spend as much time trying to avoid
hitting each other as they did in scanning the skies for the Germans.
Fortunately, feedback from pilots soon meant that these old-fashioned
and deadly formations were abandoned. One successful tactic that
emerged, based on what the R.A.F. had seen the more battle-experienced
German pilots doing, was for groups of two fighters to fly in close
formation. Another controversial innovation which ultimately proved
successful was the R.A.F' s 'big wing' approach, where several
squadrons (often most of the R.A.F' s strength) would all join up at
height at a rendezvous point before engaging the enemy in large
numbers.
Although severely outnumbered and battle-weary as a result of endless
sorties that summer, the R.A.F. pilots also had psychological
advantages knowing that they were defending their own skies and that
their planes, the Spitfire and the Hurricane, were seen as
superior, feared and envied by the German pilots.
Far from being an all-British affair, the R.A.F. actually consisted of pilots from all corners of the globe - American, Australian, Belgian, British, Canadian, Czech, French, Irish, Jamaican,
New Zealanders, Palestinians, Poles, Rhodesian & South African all took part in significant numbers.
The Battle of Britain raged over the skies of southern England
throughout that late summer of 1940 - the Luftwaffe lost a total of 1,733 aircraft from July to October, the RAF 915.
Had he but known it, Göering was only 24 hours from victory at one
point according to British Flight Command. All our reserves were spent
and our pilots were exhausted.
Göering soon decided that he
couldn't cope with the severe losses that his bombers were sustaining
and insisted that German fighters fly alongside the bombers, and
obviously at their lower speeds, in order to protect them. This loss
of speed and surprise rendered the German fighter escorts extremely
vulnerable to attack.
Although the Germans bombers were being
very successful in damaging the British defences and airfields, they
were under strict instructions not to bomb the same target on two
consecutive missions. This gave the British time and opportunity to
make repairs and get some planes off the ground even at the most badly
bombed airfields.
Incredibly, Göering (influenced by
Hitler's anger at Britain attacking Berlin in response to some rogue
German bombs landing on London) also decided that the
Luftwaffe were taking too much of a punishment from the British
fighters. He ordered his planes to switch their attention away from
the British airfields and towards the British cities. Whilst this was
bad news for the civilian populations of the industrial cities, this
gave the R.A.F. and the aviation industry a reprieve and a crucial
breather to re-arm and re-stock. It also meant that a German invasion
of Britain had to be postponed and that Germany was soon to turn its
attention eastwards - a decision which was arguably to cost them the
war.
Some people claimed, and continue to
claim, that The Battle of Britain ended-up a 'draw' and that the
Battle had no real significance. This is utter nonsense. The criteria
I would use to decide would be:
1) Did the British succeed in stopping
Hitler from gaining air supremacy over the English channel?
2) Did the RAF out-perform the
Luftwaffe?
As we know, Hitler abandoned his plans
to invade Britain as he could not guarantee the safety of any invasion
force because the RAF still dominated the skies. The statistics show
that German planes were shot down at a rate of 2-1 compared to British
planes. The Battle of Britain was one of the most important of all
time and a 'clincher' in terms of keeping Britain in the war and
boosting morale. It was also a great testing-ground for tactics, men
and equipment that would prove invaluable later in the war. Radar and
the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park were heavily-tested during
this period and this led to the birth of the first programmable
computer.
The allure and beauty of the Spitfire has created a
reputation for it in many people's eyes as the sole reason that
Britain won the Battle of Britain. The impact and contribution of the
Spitfire was significant, but not any more so than that of the
Hurricane and, arguably, less so. Certainly, pilots of both planes are
on record as extolling the virtues and superiority of their particular
plane over the other. The effective use of both of these planes, the
British command and control network and superior British tactics
coupled with the German's misreading of the situation and errors in
judgement were, in my view, the main factors for British victory
in the battle.
What is clear and without argument is the bravery and skill of 'The
Few', so named by Winston Churchill because there were so few
air crew protecting so many British citizens. 'The Few' consisted of
2353 young men from Great Britain and 574 from overseas, pilots and
other aircrew, who are officially recognised as having taken part in
the Battle of Britain. Each flew at least one sortie with a unit of
the Royal Air Force or Fleet Air Arm during the period 10 July to 31
October 1940. 544 lost their lives during the period of the Battle.
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by
so many to so few." - Winston Churchill
The Spitfire
Many thanks to the Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial at Manston in
Kent. More information can be
found at http://www.spitfire-museum.com/
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