The World at War (20 page)

DR STEPHEN AMBROSE

American historian

The biggest single criticism I would make of Churchill during the war was that he overstrained the British economy for victory, that he did more than had to be done. Britain was the most mobilised nation in the war. The rail system was worn out, the industrial plant was worn out, the transport system was worn out. In addition the Americans drove a very hard bargain. The
Lend-Lease Act [1941], which Churchill called 'the least sordid act in all human history', may well have been that, but there was much about it that wasn't pretty. The Americans insisted that the British sell their overseas assets; this meant that at the end of the war the income that the British counted on and depended on for so long from her overseas investments was no longer there. They had been sold at American insistence. Beyond that, the Americans had also forced the British to break up the sterling bloc to open it up to American investment and the United States had all kinds of excess capital available for overseas investment when the war ended. The Americans then moved into the areas that had previously been British colonies, whether simple or
economic colonies. So Britain was in a much weaker position at the end of the war than she had been at the beginning and was not in a position to recover. Added to that was the sentiment around the world that had been built up by Allied propaganda that this was a war for human freedom, liberty, freedom from hunger, freedom from fear, from exploitation, so that you had a universal sentiment to end European colonialism, which was in the large part British colonisation.

CHAPTER 7
BATTLE OF BRITAIN AND THE BLITZ

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz were the first major military campaigns fought entirely in the air. The battle for daylight air supremacy over southern Britain was fought from early August to the end of October 1940, and the attempt to break British resolve by night bombing ran through the following winter and spring until Hitler redeployed the Luftwaffe against the Soviet Union in May 1941. During the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force (RAF) enjoyed the decisive advantage of defending against attacks launched from widely separated airfields (thus profiting from what strategists call 'interior lines'), optimised by Britain's system of radar tracking and guidance, with the added comfort of fighting over friendly territory so that pilots who crash-landed or parachuted out of their aircraft could return to battle. The Luftwaffe had been built around the concept of close air support for ground forces (which had worked so well in France) and was singularly ill-suited for the task Hitler and Göring called upon it to perform over England. There was no outstanding difference in the technical characteristics of the fighter aircraft employed by the two sides, and the tactical advantage that the German fighters had developed in earlier conflicts was negated once they were ordered to provide close escort to the bomber formations, which had expensively discovered they were unable to defend themselves. Even so, had the Luftwaffe persisted in attacking British airfields it is likely a transient air superiority would have been won, but once the German bombers were turned against London the RAF quickly recovered and established daylight air supremacy. It was Britain's very great good fortune that the Luftwaffe had never subscribed to the concept of strategic
bombing, because anti-aircraft and civil-defence preparations were entirely inadequate and if the German bombers, which roamed the night skies almost at will, had been capable of carrying more significant payloads the results might have been as devastating as they were to be for Germany when the boot was on the other foot. During the Blitz more German bombers were lost to flying accidents than to British anti-aircraft guns or night-fighters.

ANTHONY EDEN

British Secretary of State for War

Winston rightly called it our finest hour and it was true, but it was also our grimmest hour, without question. And there must have been moments for all of us – there certainly was in my mind – when I didn't see how we are going to find a way through, just couldn't see it. There were moments when I thought the only thing that might be left for us to do would be to take a German with us into another world.

FLIGHT LIEUTENANT ROBERT WRIGHT

Personal Assistant to Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, C-in-C RAF Fighter Command

Dowding was the supreme realist, knowing his job was to defend the United Kingdom and prevent the possibility of the
Germans launching an invasion. He said he knew full well he could never win the war but he was very conscious of the fact he was the one man who could easily lose it. By the time of the Fall of France, Fighter Command had been depleted in strength because of the squadrons going to France to support the battle there. Dowding's initial establishment was fifty-two squadrons – that was the absolute minimum that was considered necessary for the defence of the United Kingdom. He was way down in strength when the time came for fighting the battle and that was a thing he was always fighting for, to maintain at least his basic, initial establishment of fifty-two squadrons.

ANTHONY EDEN

Personally I think Hitler was right not to attempt the invasion. I suppose the only outside chance would have been in June/July, before we got anything in order as far as the Army was concerned, if he could have then put one hundred thousand men ashore and attempted to march on London or something. But then how could he do that? He hadn't the ships to take them. If you think it took us four years of tremendous effort with all the resources of the United States behind us to prepare for the invasion of France, it's hard to see how Hitler, occupied still with defeating the main enemy on land – France – could find the resources to switch quickly to attack Britain. He could only succeed if he had command of the air, which he never got, and if he got command of the sea, which he never got either, and, thirdly, if he could build such an armada of ships that he could bring all the supplies and munitions and artillery and all the rest across with him. And none of those things were possible for him.

COLONEL ADOLF GALLAND

Luftwaffe Jagdgruppe 26

Göring's task, as he felt it, was to establish the Luftwaffe's superiority over the intended invasion area, and he had influence in all the steps of the various phases of the Battle of Britain. In the first phase he ordered that only fighter units should overfly England and force the RAF pilots to attack fighters against fighters. This did work for a short period, but then the Fighter Command held back
British units from fighting. The next step was that the High Command ordered that some bombers should go along with us and should drop bombs, and, by doing so, would force the RAF Fighter Command to present itself in the air. This also worked for a certain time. Also at this time we made some low-level attacks on British bases. But the big step would have been the whole strength of our bombers escorted by our fighters attacking the British fighter bases, and I believe that this was a quite successful operation but it was a mistake that we did not continue for a longer time, attacking bases, depots, plants for engines and for fighter fuselages.

FLIGHT LIEUTENANT WRIGHT

The last week in August, the first week in September were the worst for us because that last week in August the Germans had been pounding the airfields mercilessly and 31st August was probably our worst day.
Fighter Command was very nearly on its knees and Dowding was very conscious of that, and he was wondering how much longer he could hold out, because he was still having to face the problem of denying the Germans air superiority and yet here they were knocking the airfields to pieces. Any man under that strain would start to show it, and by the first week in September he was showing signs of strain although he was in complete control of himself. The day after the visit of the King and Queen, 7th September, an invasion alert was issued and all that day things were remarkably quiet and all of us were beginning to wonder what the devil was going to happen next. Then, late afternoon, the Germans launched the heaviest attack we had ever known – but the
attack didn't go to the airfields, it went to London. So we were able to pull ourselves together, repair things and, most important of the lot, it gave the pilots more of a chance for a little rest.

WING COMMANDER 'MAX' AITKEN

601 Squadron RAF

We didn't think the Germans had a chance. We had fought them over France, over their own aerodromes. We knew that the Hurricane and Spitfire were as good as anything they had got, we knew our morale was as good or better than theirs and when it came to fighting over our own homeland, if we had to get out we'd be all right by parachute. And of course we had the biggest asset any Air Force ever had, which was
radar. Radar really won the Battle of Britain because without it we would have been doing standing patrols and with the limited number of aircraft and limited number of pilots you couldn't have done it. As it was we could wait on the ground and then radar would watch and through various controls we'd be told to take off when the Germans were over Calais or over Boulogne and so we wasted no petrol, no time, no energy. In fact we could sleep in between sorties and then we'd take off and would be directed towards the German formation and given height, distance and their numbers, which was very important. So we'd go into battle feeling fine and fresh and fit and we would be at an immense advantage, we'd have the advantage of height, we'd have – well, we didn't have larger numbers, naturally they were far greater in number than us – but each squadron knew exactly what it was doing. We were controlled from the ground; we were never lonely.

FLIGHT LIEUTENANT WRIGHT

As soon as he knew where the aircraft were coming from and how many there were, he would immediately pass instructions to the sector stations for them to be scrambled. 'Scramble' being the code word that was used for just getting to the air, they would immediately take off without any instructions about what they were to do, but the moment they were airborne the sector controllers would then give them instructions, where they were to go and the height at which they were to fly. The
pilots still were under control by the sector command and the very elaborate and sophisticated radio telephone called the RT. RT control from the ground and the fighters that were airborne were strictly under control until the leader of the formation could see what he was being directed towards. The moment he saw the incoming raid he would say the famous word 'tally-ho' and everyone would shut up and get on with it. The Germans came sailing in and always found something in their way; it might be a very small formation, but something was always there.

COLONEL GALLAND

The first fact was that the RAF losses we reported were from time to time overestimated. And our High Command made the mistake of discounting all these losses from the inventory of the RAF, and very soon there came these negative figures. Secondly we were confronted very soon by the British fighter-control system based on radar, which we didn't have at the time, and this radar system and fighter control were very effective. The next argument can be used that the defence on central lines is easier than attack from a wide radius. The defence took place over their territory and we had the Channel with a lot of water in it between our bases and the targets. Secondly our range was very limited and could only cover a small part of the British Isles, including London. But over London we could only stay for ten minutes to come back to our bases. So this limited range of our fighters, the escort, was perhaps the main point which prevented an effective air offensive against Britain. Without any doubt the British fighter pilots fighting over England defending their own country showed extreme bravery, and their experience was very high: their morale, and the material performance of their fighters was about equal to ours.

SERGEANT PILOT RAY HOLMES

504 Squadron RAF

I think we were just getting on with the war as one would play a game of rugby or cricket – to win. That was all and if you just played your hardest the other man had to come down. I don't think there was any worry about losing at all – we were out to win.

WING COMMANDER AITKEN

Although there were a lot of aircraft about suddenly, when you were fighting a particular man, him in his machine and you in your machine, the sky became empty and you didn't see anyone else, you saw nothing except this one man you were trying to shoot down and he was trying to shoot you. It was just one against one and sometimes you knew he was very good, sometimes you knew he wasn't so good and so you could assess the situation fairly closely as to whether he might be lucky to hit you but otherwise you can get him.

SERGEANT PILOT HOLMES

We used to say we must shoot down these German bastards and I think we built up a sort of synthetic hate against them, but I think it was a bit artificial. We were after the aeroplanes, at least personally that was my view. I wanted to shoot an aeroplane down but I didn't want to shoot a German down, I really did not. We did hear stories of Germans shooting at our fellows in parachutes and we thought that was pretty horrible, but we weren't sure whether it was true or not. I know I had an experience of a German aircrew getting draped over my own wing; he baled out of a bomber and got caught on my wing with his parachute and I was jolly careful to get him off as easily and as quickly as I could by banking the aeroplane and shaking him off. I was very glad when I heard he'd dropped down in Kennington Oval safely. So I had no feeling of wanting to kill that fellow personally.
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WING COMMANDER AITKEN

I'd say there was no chivalry at all – you mean between the German Air Force and the British? I'd say absolutely none at all, not as far as I was concerned. I hated them, they were trying to do something to us, to enslave us, and I wasn't going to have anything of that if I could possibly avoid it. I would say there was none, but I know there seems to be some of it about now, these days. But not from me – never.