The Storm of War - Andrew Roberts [55]
Führer Directive No. 17, issued on 1 August, stated that very soon the verschärfter Luftkrieg (intensified air war) would begin, in which ‘The Luftwaffe is to overcome the English Air Force with all means at its disposal and in the shortest possible time. The attacks are to be primarily directed against the planes themselves, the ground organization, and their supply installations, also against the aircraft industry, including plants producing anti-aircraft material.’15 This would have been devastating had it been adhered to. The second phase of the battle of Britain began at 09.00 on Thursday, 8 August, with a series of vast, virtually continuous German raids against British targets over a 500-mile-wide front. The 1,485 sorties undertaken that day had risen to 1,786 by the 15th. Owing to the invention of radar in the mid-1930s by Professor Robert Watson-Watt of the radio department of the National Physical Laboratory, and its enthusiastic endorsement by the Chamberlain ministry – which also produced the majority of the fighters that won the battle – the country was ringed by a network of radar stations that transmitted generally accurate information about the position, numbers, height and direction of Luftwaffe planes to the RAF sector control stations. Dowding secured funding for Watson-Watt’s research and encouraged Air Ministry officials to attend trials. Sophisticated ground-to-air communications meant that once RAF squadrons had been scrambled, usually only minutes after receiving warning of a raid, they could be constantly updated by radio-telephone with virtually real-time intelligence as they flew off to intercept. In what was known as the Dowding System, radar operators, Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) plotters, sector controllers, ground crew and of course pilots each had their interactive roles efficiently allotted, and although there was some tension between Dowding and the Air Staff in Whitehall, the System ran remarkably smoothly during the battle. The life-or-death stakes generally surmounted the usual pleasures of departmental infighting and blame-gaming.
By contrast, as the German flying ace Colonel Adolf Galland of Jagdgruppe (hunting group) 26 was to complain, ‘When we made contact with the enemy our briefings were already three hours old; the British only as many seconds old.’16 Since, as Galland also pointed out, ‘The first rule of all air combat is to see the opponent first,’ the RAF started off with an edge over its opponents. Of their radar and ground-to-air control, Galland wrote that ‘The British had an extraordinary advantage which we could never overcome throughout the entire war.’ Wing Commander Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook’s fighter-pilot son, thought that ‘Radar really won the Battle of Britain… We wasted no petrol, no energy, no time.’17
The standard German plane, the Messerschmitt 109E (Me-109), was a shade faster than the Supermarine Spitfire fighter and the Hawker Hurricane, and better in diving and climbing, although crucially not at turning.18 ‘The bastards make such infernally tight turns,’ reported one German pilot. ‘There seems no way of nailing them.’ The Me-109 had three 20mm cannon and two 7.9mm machine guns, a top speed of 350mph and a ceiling of 35,000 feet, but it could only carry enough fuel to keep it airborne for a very little over an hour, which meant that, with twenty minutes spent flying across the Channel and back, it had very little time for fighting. The twin-engined Me-110 had greater range but much less manoeuvrability, a distinct disadvantage when pitched against the highly mobile Hurricanes and Spitfires.
The Me-109’s effective range of only 125 miles was likened by Galland to ‘a dog on a chain who wants to harm his foe, but cannot’. As a result, much of the dogfighting took place in 1940’s glorious summer weather above ‘Hellfire Corner’, the region of southern Kent around Folkestone, Dover and Lympne that is closest to France: more fighter pilots on both sides died over Hellfire Corner than over the whole of the rest of the UK during the battle.19