Inferno - Max Hastings [60]
The assault remained incoherent: the attackers had begun by seeking to destroy the RAF’s defensive capability, then, before achieving this, switched to attacking morale and industrial targets. Their relatively light bombers carried loads which hurt the British, but lacked sufficient weight to strike fatal blows against a complex, modern industrial society. The RAF did not destroy the Luftwaffe, which was beyond its powers. But its pilots denied the Germans dominance of the Channel and southern England, while imposing unacceptable losses. Fighter Command’s continued existence as a fighting force sufficed to frustrate Göring’s purposes. Throughout the battle, British factories produced single-engined fighters faster than those of Germany, a vital industrial achievement. Fighter Command lost a total of 544 men—about one in five of all British pilots who flew in the battle—while 801 Bomber Command airmen were killed and a further 200 taken prisoner; but the Luftwaffe lost a disastrous 2,698 highly skilled airmen.
Churchill’s personal contribution was to convince his people, over the heads of some of their ruling caste, that their struggle was noble, necessary—and now also successful. The Battle of Britain exalted their spirit in a fashion that enabled them to transcend the logic of their continuing strategic weakness. “Our airmen have had a gruelling time, but each day that passes the more magnificently they seem to carry on the fight,” wrote an elderly backbench Tory MP, Cuthbert Headlam, on 20 September. “It is odd to see how much we owe to so small a number of young men—here are millions of us doing nothing while the battle is being decided over our heads by a chosen band of warriors drawn from here, there and everywhere … They must be a superb body of men … one would like to know the difference in material strength of our RAF and the Luftwaffe: some day presumably we shall know—and then, more than ever, I expect, we shall salute the gallant men who are now doing such untold service for their country.”
Britain’s people endured the nation’s ordeal with some fortitude. Those who lived outside conurbations were spared from Luftwaffe attack, but fear of invasion was almost universal. If Churchill was committed to fight to the last, he was also brutally realistic about the implications of possible failure and defeat. Brig. Charles Hudson attended a senior officers’ conference in York in July which was addressed by Anthony Eden as secretary for war. Eden told his audience that he had been instructed by the prime minister to take soundings about the army’s morale. He proposed to ask each general in turn whether, as Hudson recorded, “the troops under our command could be counted on to continue the fight in all circumstances … There was almost an audible gasp all round the table.” Eden intensified the astonishment when he said that “a moment might come when the Government would have to make, at short notice, a terrible decision. That point when … it would be definitely unwise to throw in, in a futile attempt to save a hopeless situation, badly armed men against an enemy firmly lodged in England.” He asked how troops might respond to an order to embark at a northern port for Canada, abandoning their families.
Hudson wrote: “In dead silence one after another was asked the question.” The almost unanimous response was that most regular officers, NCOs and unmarried men would accept such an order. However, among conscripts and married men, “the very great majority … would insist either on fighting it out in England … or on [staying behind to take] their chance with their families whatever the consequences