THE SUMMER OF 1940

AND THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

Europe basked in almost continuously magnificent summer weather as the temporary lull in large-scale hostilities caused all the combatant nations to take stock, regroup, redefine their priorities and discuss what the other side would do next. In France on July 1st, the French Government moved once again, this time to the town that was to become synonymous with French collaboration with Hitler - Vichy. Nine days later, on the 10th, the French National Assembly at Vichy gave Petain full powers to govern by a massive majority of 569 votes to 80 with only 17 abstentions. The next day, President Lebrun resigned, and Petain proclaimed himself "Head of the French State", abolished the 1875 constitution and dismissed the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

On July 3rd came the "Mers-el-Kebir affair". Believing with some justification that Hitler's and Mussolini's guarantees of the neutrality of the French fleet, given as part of the Armistice agreements, were not to be relied upon, Churchill ordered Royal Navy "Force H" under Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville to secure for the Allies the naval squadron of Admiral Gensoul, currently at Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria, or sink them. After protracted negotiations, the French Admiral refused to join the British fleet, and, at 1656 hrs, the British ships opened fire. The French battleship Bretagne was sunk, with the loss of 977 lives, and the Dunkerque was badly damaged with 210 lives lost. Provence ran aground; Mogador was badly damaged. Only the battleship Strasbourg escaped to Toulon.

A similar tragedy could have happened at Alexandria, but for the good sense and co-operation of the two admirals concerned, Cunningham of the British Royal Navy, and Godfroy of the French. Despite his orders from Churchill to achieve results by nightfall on July 3rd, Cunningham held his fire and continued to negotiate. Godfroy, despite the appalling news from Mers-el-Kebir, did the same. On July 4th, agreement was reached. Godfroy's eleven ships were to be immobilised in Alexandria Harbour and land their fuel stocks, and the breech blocks of their guns and the detonators of their torpedoes were to be handed over to the French Consulate in Alexandria.

Nearer home for Churchill and England, French ships in British ports were seized on July 3rd, with some fighting on board the giant submarine Surcouf and the destroyer Mistral . Nor surprisingly, the Vichy government in France was not happy, and on July 5th Petain broke off diplomatic relations with Britain. On the same day, as a reprisal for the Mers-el-Kebir incident, Vichy French warships captured three British merchant ships.

The U-boat offensive was beginning to bite. On June 20th, the British cargo liner Avelona Star was sunk by U-43. On July 2nd, another British liner, the Arandora Star , carrying 1,500 Italian and German internees and POWs to Canada, was sunk by the U-47 off Ireland with the loss of 670 lives. Three days later, HMS Whirlwind , a destroyer, was sunk by U-34 South West of Ireland, and the soon-to-be famous U Boat base at Lorient received its first boat, the U-30. Then, between July 6th and August 2nd came a series of devastating blows to the Royal Navy. No less than five British submarines were sunk off Norway - the Shark, Salmon, Thames, Narwhal , and Spearfish . In August, British submarine operations in the area were temporarily suspended.

Germany moved to occupy its first and, it proved, only British territory of the war. On Sunday June 30th, German troops landed on Guernsey in the Channel Islands, and, on the following day, occupied Jersey and the remaining principal inhabited islands. To assert German power and establish a suitable fear of the Fatherland, the Germans had bombed and strafed both Jersey and Guernsey on June 28th, killing 33 people and injuring 40.

Meanwhile, on June 27th 1940, Britain had announced a general blockade of the European coastline from the Bay of Biscay to the North Cape of Norway. In the air, the Allies had scored some successes, balanced by some devastating failures. Sunderland flying boats of the RAF, between 27th and 29th June, worked with destroyers of the Royal Navy to sink four Italian submarines and damage three more in the Eastern Mediterranean. On July 1st, Guy Gibson, later to become famous as the leader of the attack by 617 Squadron RAF on the Ruhr dams, dropped a 2,000lb bomb near the Scharnhorst , and his companions hit Prinz Eugen with two small bombs. The next week, on the 9th, a small force of 12 RAF Blenheims made a heroic attack on Stavanger airfield in Norway, from which not one returned unscathed. Seven aircraft were lost, five were damaged.

The Battle of Britain Begins

The comparative hush that had descended upon Europe with the Fall of France was not to last long. Hitler was already planning Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain, and was studying closely the entirely new set of strategic considerations that such an assault made necessary. Comparisons between Hitler's career and that of Napoleon Bonaparte are both inevitable and, perhaps, hackneyed, but there can be little doubt that, when approaching the problem of invading England, both recognised the same difficulties, each attempted to solve them, and both failed.

For both, a successful invasion of Britain could be achieved only if mastery of the English Channel and the North Sea could be attained. In 1940, that implied mastery of the skies, as well as of the seas, and Hitler had to weigh the comparative strengths and strategic ability to fight of both his own Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy on the one hand, and of the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force on the other. At sea, Hitler lacked the comparative strength that Napoleon had been able to claim in 1805. The crippling naval losses of the operations in Norway had brought the German Navy to a low ebb, with only one pocket battleship, four cruisers and a dozen destroyers. The Home Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, was enormously superior, but already had bitter experience of the strength of the German U-Boat fleet as an adversary, and of the devastating effectiveness of Luftwaffe dive bombing against slow-moving ships. Hitler knew that it was very unlikely that the Admiralty would risk its big ships in the Channel, where manoeuvrability would be limited and vulnerability high.

Hence, he reasoned, the matter would be decided by air power. The Luftwaffe remained the finest air force in the world. Goering, always a powerful influence upon Hitler in matters concerning air power, believed it to be invincible, and promised Hitler that the Luftwaffe would not be beaten. On paper, it seemed likely that that prediction would be fulfilled. Hitler therefore resolved to pit the Luftwaffe against the Royal Air Force to secure mastery of the Channel for the invasion of England, set at this stage for shortly after August 25th.

The date of the beginning of the Battle of Britain is a matter of some debate. To the Germans, August 13th was designated Adlertag - the Day of the Eagle. Historically, that date marked the beginning of the Battle. And yet the availability of aircraft, the morale and tenor of the crews, was determined on both sides by air operations against England that began on July 10th. On that Wednesday, Luftwaffe raids on the British mainland began in earnest, with 60 Junkers 88 twin-engined fighter bombers attacking the ports of Falmouth and Swansea, the Pembrey Royal Ordnance factory in South Wales, where 30 people were killed, and Martlesham airfield near Ipswich. On the same day, 25 Dornier 17 twin-engined bombers attacked a convoy near Dover, which produced the loss of one ship. Two days later, on Friday July 12th, night raids on Aberdeen caused 60 casualties, and Cardiff was bombed.

Amidst the growing threat, the recently arrived Poles and French pilots who had escaped from the German invasions of their countries began to form the Free Polish and Free French squadrons of the Royal Air Force. The first Free Polish Squadron, No. 302, was formed on July 13th, equipped with Hurricanes, and was rapidly to be drawn into the battle. Having experienced the terrors of Nazi invasion at first hand, the Poles particularly were fearless, dedicated, almost fanatical in their opposition to the Luftwaffe . Many had lost their families, their homes, everything to the German invasion, and had but one wish - to kill Germans. This made the Polish squadrons magnificently brave to the point of recklessness, but almost uncontrollable in battle, drowning conventional RT procedure with Polish language broadcasts on what they regarded as the dubious parentage of their opponents.

On July 18th, RAF Bomber Command struck back for the bombing raids on United Kingdom targets with night raids on the Krupp armament works at Essen, on targets at Bremen and on the Hamm marshalling yards. The next night, Dornier 17 bombers hit the Rolls Royce aero engine factory at Glasgow. Each day, air raids by each side on shipping and land targets continued, and the pressure on the aircrews mounted. In late July, Goering formed the Luftwaffe's first night fighter squadron with Messerschmitt 110 twin-engined fighters, and claimed the first night fighter "kill" of the war - an RAF Whitley bomber over North West Germany. On July 22nd, only two days later, the RAF night fighters claimed their first night "kill", a Dornier 17 near Brighton, shot down by a Blenheim using the new AI radar.

By July 28th, the battle was warming up. The South African fighter ace "Sailor" Malan, based at Biggin Hill, shot and wounded Germany's top fighter pilot Molders, who crash-landed (and survived) in France. At the end of July 1940, Germany had lost 139 aircraft during the month; the RAF had lost only 52.

By August 1st, Hitler's provisional date for the invasion of Britain had been put back one month to September 15th. During the first two weeks of August, the pattern of air attacks on convoys at sea, attacks by night on primarily military targets, and occasional skirmishes between rival fighter formations continued. Then, on August 13th came the beginning of Goering's mighty thrust to destroy RAF Fighter Command, and clear the skies over the Channel for the invasion of Britain. The Battle of Britain had begun in deadly earnest.

In fact, Goering's much-vaunted assault that was to destroy the Royal Air Force in four days began more with a whimper than a roar. The early morning raids on Britain that were to launch the attack were cancelled, and the only enemy action to disturb the English forenoon that Tuesday was the arrival of 70 unescorted Dornier bombers that dropped their load on Eastchurch airfield near the Thames. A squadron of Junkers 88 fighter bombers that were scheduled to dispense high explosive medicine to Farnborough failed to find their target.

By afternoon, the Luftwaffe was beginning to get its act together, and another raid made up of Junkers 88 aircraft started a number of fires in Southampton Docks, but a Spitfire squadron claimed nine Stukas over Hampshire, thereby leaving the RAF with the day's honours. In fact, on the first day, the German air force lost 42 aircraft, the Royal Air Force 13 fighters. The ratio of losses was even more in the RAF's favour on the following day 19 German to four British aircraft destroyed.

On August 15th came the first major show of strength by the Luftwaffe over Britain. Luftflotten 2, 3 and 5 arrived in force to attack airfields from the South Coast to the Tyne, in North-East England. Luftflotte 5, coming from Scandinavia to the Northern parts of the country, was soundly defeated by the RAF, but in the South of England much damage was done. One of Goering's elite units, Erpr. Gr. 210 , bombed Croydon Airport with considerable effect, killing 62 people. My mother, who lived nearby at the time, recalled watching from her bedroom window as the German aircraft approached, and realising with stark amazement that the objects falling from them were bombs. Despite the damage done, even this first-class Group lost six Messerschmitt 110 aircraft and its commanding officer during the raid. Total Luftwaffe losses on August 15th were not the 144 aircraft gleefully claimed by Britain's most vocal newspaper, the Daily Mirror , but 76. The Royal Air Force had had a bad day, with 50 aircraft destroyed.

Next day, RAF Tangmere in West Sussex, in the extreme South of England, and seven other RAF stations were bombed. Captured records show that the Luftwaffe Command Staff estimated the RAF to be down to 300 aircraft by this stage, probably because each destroyed RAF aircraft was being claimed by the gunners of several different German aircraft. In fact, the RAF had some 700 fighters still in active service, and most of them were in the air again on Sunday August 18th when the Luftwaffe once more launched fierce raids on Air Force bases and various other targets in South East England. Again the Luftwaffe came a poor second when the cost was counted, for they lost 19 Stukas, eight out of an escort of 50 Messerschmitt 109 aircraft, and many others. By evening, 62 German aircraft had failed to return to their bases, and 34 British planes had been lost.

After a summer that had so far been almost unremittingly dry, sunny and clear for the deadly business of war, the few days from August 19th to 23rd were wet and dismal, with plentiful low cloud. Although there were intermittent raids, the pilots of the RAF were able to take some desperately needed rest. Ground crews worked feverishly to repair damaged aircraft and equipment, runways were patched, grass airfields were levelled and the craters filled. In Germany, Goering fumed at the wasted time.

By Saturday August 24th, the respite was over, the sun shone, and the Luftwaffe resumed its assault with massive raids on airfields across the South East of England, the area designated for Field-Marshal von Rundstedt's forces to land when the invasion began. RAF Manston in Kent had to be evacuated. Hornchurch, across the Thames in Essex, was badly damaged. Residential areas in coastal towns Portsmouth and Ramsgate were bombed. Most significantly, London was hit by incendiary attacks from a group of aircraft who were targetted to attack the Short flying boat factory at Rochester, but became lost because of British radio countermeasures. The consequences of this single mistake can be argued to have lost Germany the Battle of Britain, and ultimately the war. For the implications of the swell of public and government anger that followed the accidental bombing of London, and of all the events that followed, were immense.

Winston Churchill, incensed at the attack on non-military targets in London ordered the RAF to bomb Berlin, a hazardous long-range task for the aircraft then available. Of the 81 twin-engined bombers that took off for the raid on the night of August 25th, only 29 reached the German capital, (the remainder got lost on the way) and the actual damage done was comparatively slight when compared with the loss of the eight RAF men who were killed and the 29 that were wounded. But Hitler, who had been specifically promised by Goering that no enemy would bomb Berlin, was put into a towering rage, and made the first of many emotional and ill-conceived strategic decisions that were against Germany's military interests. Forgetting the strategy of concentrating all Luftwaffe effort on the annihilation of RAF Fighter Command, he ordered that London be subjected to airborne Blitzkrieg , as Warsaw and Rotterdam had been before. The preparation for this campaign of terror bombing, and the raids themselves, which began on September 7th and continued for 57 appalling days and nights, dispersed Luftwaffe effort, and took the pressure off RAF Fighter Command.

In fact, after a bad start during the August 13th-17th period, when Germany lost 255 aircraft, the Luftwaffe had been set to win the battle from the 24th onwards. Although more German aircraft than British were being lost daily, the Luftwaffe had started from a better base (1,137 fighters against 620 Hurricanes and Spitfires), and many of the planes that were being lost were bombers. Hence, the fighter strength of the Luftwaffe by comparison with the RAF was becoming greater as the 1,000 pilots with which the RAF was left by the end of the third week of August became progressively more tired. For as long as Goering could keep up the pressure on the airfields of the South East corner of England, there was little doubt that the RAF would go under eventually. Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, head of Fighter Command, accepted that this was the case, and was on record as informing Churchill of the fact. Perhaps this contributed to his being relieved of his command shortly after his pilots had won their heroic battle.

Hypothesise as one will as to what might have happened had Hitler maintained his original strategy, the facts are that he did not, and that the diverting of resources to the London Blitz enabled Fighter Command to gain the upper hand in the battle for mastery of the Channel airspace. In the last days of August there were daylight raids by the Luftwaffe on airfields across the South, around London and in Essex, air battles overhead to entertain the population every day, and a gradual increase in German night raids on civilian targets. Birmingham, Coventry and Plymouth were bombed on August 26th/27th, Liverpool on August 28th, Liverpool and Merseyside again on August 31st/September 1st. The crews and aircraft of RAF Bomber Command were not idle, and bombed Berlin again on the 28th, the 30th and the 31st.

September opened with another major assault on Fighter Command bases, with Biggin Hill in Kent badly damaged on September 1st, and Detling, Eastchurch, and Biggin Hill again hit on September 2nd. The RAF celebrated the first anniversary of the start of the war on September 3rd with the first of nine raids during the month on Berlin. On the same day, Hitler postponed the invasion of Britain from September 15th to September 21st. The 4th and 5th saw heavy and successful German attacks on the Vickers aircraft factory at Brooklands in Surrey, stopping production of Wellington bombers for four days, and again on Biggin Hill and Detling. The 6th brought the bombers to the Hawker aircraft factory at Weybridge in Surrey.

Then, on the 7th September, the London Blitz began, and the daylight raids on the airfields and military installations slowed markedly. But there was to be one last major assault before the Luftwaffe acknowledged that the Battle of Britain was lost. On 14th September, the Luftwaffe had considerable success with daylight raids on Southern England, and met with comparatively weak resistance. Encouraged, Goering decided to launch an all-out offensive on Sunday, September 15th, the nearest Sunday to which is now commemorated each year in Britain as "Battle of Britain Day". Two major raids in daylight on London were massacred by the RAF fighters, which claimed in its enthusiasm 185 aircraft shot down, although the actual number was 53, with 16 damaged. The RAF lost 26 planes and 13 pilots. Bombs fell all over London; even Buckingham Palace was hit on September 13th.

The next day was strangely quiet in the RAF control rooms. Little happened. On the 17th, it seemed that the pressure might be on again, as large formations of Messerschmitt 109 aircraft carried out sweeps over Kent. But as the day turned to evening, and the 18th came and went without the massive attacks that RAF personnel had come to regard as normal, everybody realised that the men of Fighter Command whom Winston Churchill had called "The Few" had indeed won a great victory and vanquished a mighty enemy.

On that same day, Hitler put off Operation Sealion indefinitely. The postponement was a historic decision of considerable magnitude and far-reaching consequences. The invasion of England was the only amphibious invasion that Hitler planned, and the only invasion that he planned and did not execute. By failing to take England, and therefore failing to complete his domination of Western Europe before turning East, he committed Germany to war on several fronts. By failing to quash the spirit of defiance that had sustained England through its ordeal, he unwittingly inspired the world, particularly the USA, to recognise that he could, and would, be defeated.

The Battle of Britain was the first setback for Hitler as assuredly as the Battle of Midway was later to prove the first setback for the Japanese in the Pacific. As the summer of 1940 became autumn, the world waited anxiously to see what would happen next.