The Battle Of Britain: Attrition

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In the afternoon, we had a free hunt in the area of the Thames Estuary, and the number 2 Staffel was attacked out in the sun by some hullikins.

In a dramatically short time, three of the 109s were diving down, trailing smoke.

I saw this clearly, and when the enemy came diving through, I managed to push one to the side and get away from the sheaf's tail, getting a few shots from behind.

Then my Grottenhund took it up, firing with cannons.

Kooler got another in front of his guns.

Then we beat it, satisfied with two more victories.

But there is no reason to be glad when some of our people are missing.

Mother, during these last days, I am frequently thinking of you at home, how you must be continuously waiting for news, and how easy it might happen that I should come to stay over there.

Sometimes I wish, and please don't get upset by this, that I had nobody who would be grieving for me, or who would have to bear the pain of hours and days waiting for news.

I am writing to you to ask that you never do that.

You shouldn't believe that we are wanton or careless in our flying.

If we were, we wouldn't last long.

Here, nothing but the call of duty will help survival.

One knows that what one does has to be for one's country, and I'm glad that I am permitted to do it.

Should I get through this for, I shall be proud of it.

And that was a letter to his mother by Leutenant Ulrich Steinhilper of JG52, written on the 27th of August 1940.

Welcome to We Have Ways to Make You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, episode four of our Battle of Britain series.

Now we're into the attritional phase.

We absolutely are.

And as that letter revealed, you know, German fighter pilots have feelings too.

Yeah, they do.

But, you know, they started it.

The thing is, is in our last episode, we laid out how what the Luftwaffe is attempting to do is in four days, three days, maybe four, destroy the RAF over England.

And of course, they've not had three days, maybe four, of the weather to allow them to do that.

So immediately there is a hitch.

But also, the direction of travel in that fighting is very much in favour of Fighter Command.

Fighter Command's losses are a fraction of the Luftwaffe's losses, and Fighter Command's ability to make good those losses, to replace the pilots and to replace the airframes it needs, and to fix the airfields that are attacked, and to maintain the early warning the RDF systems that are in place.

They're in excellent shape.

Obviously, there are days of great anxiety, and obviously, it's no fun being attacked by the Luftwaffe like this in what seems like a random and uncoordinated effort.

And the reason it seems like that is because it is.

It's because it is.

But if you're German, it's all going swimmingly.

Because that's what's being reported in the press.

That's also their attitude.

You know, the fact that he says nothing but the Call of Duty will help, you know, we're not reckless or wanton in our flying.

He's telling himself and his mother that things are going swimmingly.

Yes, yes.

I mean, you know, but as he writes in context to that letter, they all knew that it wasn't even by that stage.

Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, I mean, as with

in British cinemas or American cinemas, you know, you have your major feature film, but you also have newsreels beforehand.

They're repeatedly playing a song in Germany called Bomben Auf England, which is a suitably stirring march, accompanied by footage of Stukas diving and, you know, down on ships and 109s tearing over the white cliffs of southern England and all the rest of it.

And it's got a very catchy tune and lots of people are kind of sort of in the streets sort of repeating this and chanting it.

Comrade, comrade, get the enemy.

It ran.

Bombs on England.

Do you hear the engines singing?

Get the enemy.

In your ears, it is ringing.

Get the enemy.

Bombs, bombs, bombs on England.

Well, I mean, Galand after the war said we pilots could not withstand this song from the very start, but that's after the war.

Yeah, you've lost, mate.

I think there's every chance that Galand didn't mind it at the time.

Yeah, well, good.

Galand has been summoned.

So it's now not just the kind of major commanders that are being summoned to Current Hall.

It's also the more junior commanders too.

And Galland is already in a bad mood on the 17th of August by the kind of faulty tactics and close escort of bombers and all the rest of it.

When suddenly he's, you know, he's given the call.

So he flies to Berlin on the 17th of August and then finds himself kind of sort of completely transported to what feels to him like a completely different world.

You know, people are just sort of out in the streets happening, going about their business.

No one seems to be interested.

in the kind of the life and death struggle that's going on across the channel.

Beautiful weather, you know, Germany's swathed in peaceful serenity.

You know, it seems to him that the burden of the German war effort is now resting on the kind of shoulders of him and, you know, his fellow comrades in the Luftwaffe.

Anyway, he

goes off to Karinhall on the 19th of August, joined by his fellow junior commanders, but also Kessering, Milch, Yashonik, and are all in

attendance.

And going frustration with the way the battle's going is absolutely clear, even though

all those present at the conference are insisting they've inflicted huge and very crippling losses on the RAF by this stage but they clearly haven't destroyed the British fighter force or probably the RAF will stop in the three days as planned.

Yeah.

I mean and they know that because every time they turn up they're attacked by a fighter command.

So they're expecting, clearly expecting.

Every day bombers are going over and hitting airfields.

Yes, yeah, but they're clearly expecting some sort of magical sortie when they get to

the point.

Exactly, where they get to Kent and there's no one about.

But it hasn't happened yet.

Goering is groping around for other people's mistakes.

So tactical reasons for things having gone wrong.

He says it's obviously the fighters who are to blame here.

Well, it can't be the dive bombers.

Yeah.

It can't be the store.

And because he's a fighter pilot as well, he has some, he can claim expertise, right?

Yeah.

And then he says what we need is three gripping of fighters should protect one gripper of bombers.

Yeah, which he's already done on the 15th, hasn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

His conference on the 15th,

on the day that was supposed to be banned over when actually it was sunny.

And you know, he reiterates this, close escort of the fighters, which is exactly the opposite of what he said a month earlier.

Well, but this shows, because he was right a month earlier, but he doesn't know he was right.

You can't credit him with having got it right, really.

No,

he's finger-pointing to hide his own deficiencies, isn't he?

You know, the problem's the bombers, not the fighters.

The problem is he hasn't got enough aircraft to do the job he needs to do, which is to pulverise airfields.

You know, these are huge areas, they're sort of 100 acres in size of grass.

You know, you need a hell of a lot of bombs.

General Wefer, you know, in 1936, he was the chief of staff of the Luftwaffe, was planning a long-range heavy strategic bomber force, you know, four-engine heavy bomber force, and he dies, gets taken over, his position takes over by Kasserich.

Even if they'd had that.

They wouldn't have had enough.

They wouldn't have had enough.

They wouldn't have had enough

because the task is too enormous.

But clearly, dive bombing, on which they've put so much emphasis, their bomber strategy for the war, isn't working.

That's become apparent.

during the canal campf and then into the lead.

He says, I'm now going to withdraw the Stukas.

Yeah, that's an incredible decision.

When you think the whole German bomber policy of the Luftwaffe is based around dive bombing.

First of all, the Stuka, then to give dive bombing capabilities to the JU88.

They're now developing a heavy bomber, the Heinkel 177, which now has to have dive bombing capabilities.

Dive bombing is central to their whole bombing strategy.

And he's now withdrawing his dive bombers from the battle.

He thinks he can turn it around, right?

With these new measures.

But obviously it's not going to happen.

There aren't enough fighters to provide that.

And also, he's just giving some bonkers, totally bonkers instructions.

So he says, there's, you know, right, now we're going to, we're not just going to attack the airfields, we're also going to attack the aircraft industry as well.

So during the day, these should be carried out by lone raiders, he says,

the odd JU-88 or whatever, making the most of cloud to enable them to carry out surprise attacks.

But the point is, is if it's cloudy, you can't see the target.

So that's problematic.

You know, and opportunistic attacks mean they don't use their guidance techniques, which is nicer binding and excavate, which are sort of radio guiding beam beams, exactly.

Which need to to be fixed beforehand and which you need a lot of aircraft for.

So that doesn't work.

Further attacks are going to be carried out at night, but the problem is that so far night bombing attacks haven't been any more successful than those of the British, i.e.

not really very much at all.

So so for example, between the 14th and the 23rd of August, the Bristol Aeroplane Company at Fulton, near Bristol, has been selected to attack eight times, but bombs only fell on it twice and none of them actually hit anything critical.

And in the same period, the Western Rolls-Royce and Gloucester works had also been picked out nine times, but only two of these missions had bombs landed within five miles of their target.

In fact, in the whole of that time, only one night bomber claimed to have successfully hit the Rolls-Royce Works crew, but actually hadn't and got that wrong.

Right.

So in other words, there's just not enough bombers.

But and it's bloody difficult.

This is really, really, really hard what they're trying to do.

Clearly, the best way is to go in low and on your own, but as that attack on Middle Wallet proved, the rub is you then get shot down yourself.

But navigation at low level is very hard anyway.

You need a rolling map, you can't tell where you are.

So clearly precision bombing doesn't work.

So the only way you can do effective bombing is mass bombing over an area in 1940.

Yeah.

Well, I mean it's interesting to see the Luftwaffe arrive at a conclusion pretty much straight away that the British take a lot a long time to come to this.

The problem is that's massed bombing and they don't have mass bombers.

Yeah.

They've got 100 or a few hundred at any one time, but they haven't got a mass.

The Luftwaffe's problems stem from the people who are in charge of it, right?

Yeah, and the terrible intelligence and all the rest of it.

Yeah.

And the fact that you're using a land army supporting weapon to try and perform a task the other side of a strip of ocean in a strategic role.

They're trying to re-roll and they can't do it.

The 18th, you've got Croydon, Thorney Island, Ford and Polling are the four principal targets.

Croydon's a fighter airfield, fair enough.

Thorney Island is a coastal command station.

Ford, it's the fleet air arm.

Ladies and gentlemen.

It's not even RF at all.

And Polling is an RDF station.

But whole points of RDF is there's so much overlap anyway, so that they can do their range cutting that you you can knock one station out, but it's it's covered anyway and can be repaired.

So, everything they're doing well, it's amazing.

Of the 21 biggest attacks on airfields and RAF stations since the 13th of August, nine or just over 40% were nothing to do with fighter command at all.

But then, if you don't know if fighter command exists, you might make that mistake.

Well, this is a bit interesting.

It's not really clear whether Schmidt and Lufthrov I Command do know whether the commands are not commands, but there's no mention of it.

So, it suggests that they don't.

Anyway,

makes his pep talk, which and he's been doling out some some medals at this occasion as well, isn't he?

So Galland is decorated.

There is a sort of bauble culture.

Certainly, if you fall under Goering's purview, he'll give you some medals.

That'll keep you happy.

That'll shut you up.

And it kind of works.

Lots of these people are susceptible to that stuff.

But basically, he says at the end of this, and your Goering is better than mine, so.

We have reached the decisive period of the air war against England.

The vital task is to turn all means at our disposal to the defeat of the enemy air force.

Again, yes, Haven't we already been doing that?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Anyway.

But there's a critical moment.

And we've just talked about how difficult night bombing is, how precision bombing is basically, you know, it's a complete misnomer.

There is no such thing as precision bombing.

24th to 25th of August, several German bombers, they're trying to hit the air.

No one seems to be able to hit Rochester.

Yeah, no one could.

I mean...

Do you remember how to talk?

Don't miss it completely.

Where is Rochester?

I'm not entirely sure.

Maybe that's the problem.

Somewhere on the Medway.

Exactly, there you go.

And they mistake the Thames for the Medway on their way way to Rochester and they hit London.

They drop bombs on London in Millwall, Tottenham, and Islington.

And interestingly, Hitler and Goering have both ruled out bombing London, central London, certainly.

They've said we can't do that.

Interestingly, the Nazis are concerned about escalation against Britain.

Because they also imagine a bomber can always get through situation.

The next morning, Churchill and the War Cabinet say, right, well, we're going to attack Berlin then.

Yeah.

Because they don't know this is an accident.

This means that bomber command then makes its way to Berlin.

And this is an interesting escalation, an a completely accidental one.

But there's a really interesting fellow who's involved in this.

He's got Group Captain Tommy Elmhurst.

He then later becomes Air Commodore Tommy Elmhurst and is Mary Cunningham's right-hand man.

That's right.

When they both move out to join the Desert Air Force.

And sticks with him, you know, the creation of the First Tactical Air Force.

Yeah, all the way through.

All the way through.

But at this point, he's working at the Air Intelligence.

He's one of the guys from Air Intelligence.

He's on the Joint Intelligence Committee, JIC, which still exists to this day.

And he thinks this is a terrible mistake because he says at that moment you know on the on the 25th of august the luftwaffe of raids on the air force haven't really caused huge amount of damage in the big scheme of things so he thinks well it'd be quite good if they continued on the other hand any attack on berlin is bound to bring retaliatory raids on london which he then thinks might actually prove pretty bad well yeah because because after all people are very very worried about bombing civilians and and the political effect it'll have yes yeah yeah exactly so he mentions his fears to the deputy chief of the air staff, who then puts his case to the prime minister, but you know, the war cabinet is not to be swayed.

Yeah.

So you know, Bomber Command has been sending over bombers over Germany since the night of the 16th, 17th of May 1940.

And have sent way more bombers over Germany at night time than Luftwaffe has sent bombers over Britain.

Yeah.

By miles over the past few months.

You know, bombs, they've been spraying bombs all over the place.

They haven't really hit anything.

Although they did have one success when they hit the Dortmund-Ems Canal on the night of the 12th, 13th of August.

And 10 days later, the canal is still blocked.

But they do go over on the night of the 25th, 26th of August.

It's a complete damn squid, really.

50 bombers sent.

Berlin's swathed in cloud, they can't see anything.

Only a handful of bombs actually fall on the city.

They destroy a wooden summer house and they wound one person.

On the way back, having encountered heavy winds, the Hamptons particularly struggle to get back.

Three are lost and three have fallen through

all six down.

But anyway, they're still sent again on the night of the 28th, 29th of August.

And this time, some Wellingtons are included.

At this point, of course, crews are flying completely independently, given absolutely zero guidance about how best to get there.

So, there's no kind of you know, dodge the flack at the hook of Holland or anything like that.

You know, off you go and just see what's what.

Again, they don't cause a huge amount of damage.

12 people are killed, 29 wounded, a little bit of building damage caused.

There's an American journalist in Berlin at the time called William Shari, who wrote a good book about it all.

Doesn't think that Berliners are affected at all.

Yeah, except that there is some psychological shock to this.

Well, Goering has famously said, if bombs hit Berlin, you call me Maya.

And there's some disagreement about what he means by Meyer, because

that's like a German surname like

Smith or Williams or Jones or whatever.

Or is he saying it's a Jewish name?

And you can call me a Jew for doing that, for letting this happen.

But Berliners call him Meyer.

They take him at his word.

And of course, the German press, this is a fantastic piece of propaganda, isn't it?

Look at how cowardly the British are.

The British talk about a high moral plane, but here they are bombing civilians, all this sort of stuff but it actually means this is the beginning of a big distortion of the German war economy you've got to defend Berlin so you need anti-aircraft guns you need to build shelters you need to you need to crack on with the point and if you've got anti-aircraft guns over Berlin they can't be on the battlefield yeah exactly you know and and 18 you know shelters huge shelters for 18,000 people that's gonna cost you it's gonna cost you exactly so they fly over a fourth time on the 31st 30th, 31st of August, aiming for Tempelhof, again, the damage isn't considerable, but again, it proves that Berlin is far from impregnable.

That's the key point.

It reminds the Germans that the war's not over at all, and the Edel of the victory summer has sort of been shattered.

I mean, do you think at this point, in the Ukraine war, there's always certainly in the sort of once it obviously wasn't working out for the Russians in the first sort of year, there's a lot of talk of off-ramps, off-ramps for Putin.

What's his off-ramp?

Clearly, he's not interested in off-ramps.

But what's Hitler's off-ramp at this point?

Do you, because

he controls the German press, Goebbels controls the press, they'd be able to say, well, you know, we're going to leave the British Empire to stew and discontinue this, because this is going nowhere, this campaign of theirs.

They're frittering away and absolutely essential.

They are ever on their knees.

They're just about to win.

No gym.

One last effort.

No gym.

One final push.

Yeah, but

this is what's so interesting, isn't it?

Because

I think, you know, we often talk about when does Germany lose the Second World War?

And

you're like Christmas 1941.

It's here.

Well, this is where

we're now escalating our estimation of that.

But the point, they've lost the Battle of Britain.

They've already lost the Battle of Britain, the Germans.

Hitler knows that he must beat Britain or lose a war.

Yeah, but

isn't there another way out for him here?

Because the British government is also reliant on German aggression at this point to shore up its current policy and position, right?

Entirely reliant on German aggression.

You know, Churchill needs Germany to struggle with it.

Well, why do you think they're attacking Berlin?

Well, yeah, exactly.

It's just so interesting because if the Germans had any clear sense of what's going on, they'd sack this off now.

They'd say, Britain is irrelevant.

It's a faded power.

It's done.

Our concern is the continent of Europe.

And then they kind of leave Churchill hanging.

How can he possibly maintain a continued aggressive position?

How can he entertain that the Americans are a continued aggressive position if the Germans don't carry on being aggressive?

Do you see what I mean?

And that there's actually a moment,

there's a moment here.

And here, because he controls me, he just says, I've decided decided actually not involved with Britain anymore.

Exactly.

And the media go, Britain's irrelevant.

We've subdued the RAF.

But they've got bombs on England.

But they can say, they can say we've won.

They can lie about how they've won, but they don't.

Because there never was a strategy ever in any of this, because it's one long tale of mission creep, this.

That extracting yourself.

for the Germans is basically impossible.

And I think this is a really interesting, you know, because it's a turning point for the British, yes,

that they defeat the Germans.

It's a turning point for the Germans that they can't extricate themselves from this and

they maintain the war with Britain as much as Britain maintains the war with Germany.

Do you not think?

Yeah, I do.

I completely agree with you.

It's obviously the sensible thing to do because if you're not going to win immediately, that's very much the German way.

Just

change the Luftwaffe when you attack the Soviet Union once it's gone stale, gone cold with Britain.

But it's also assuming that your enemy hasn't got a vote.

And

this is the point, It's actually that VRF have been flying over continually.

And they're not just flying over Berlin.

They're not just flying over targets in Germany.

They're also attacking airfields.

And, you know, they're flying over Germany nightly and even Italy.

Blenheims, particularly, are continuing to do daily missions on those airfields in the Paducah, that target-rich environment.

You know, on the 23rd of August, for example, 19 Blenheims sent over.

I tell you what, if I have to pick being in fighter or bomber command at this point for what I've been picking fighter command every single day of the week.

Because

this is terrible, terrible bloody work.

The crews are really copying it.

And they don't really know what to do.

They don't know whether they should come up.

So they're now going off in pairs.

So one's going in at 20,000 feet and the other's cruising at 50 feet.

I mean, it's sort of, you know, the idea to sort of pull off the defence from one and then tap with the other.

I had the diary of Arthur Hughes, who was a flight lieutenant in 18th squadron flying in Blenham's.

And he writes in his diary, it sounds all right in theory, but against the sort of flak defence the Jerry's have and their almost instantaneous response, I doubt whether an aircraft climbing from 50 to 700 feet at relatively low speed would stand an earthly.

Yeah, that's the problem.

Yeah, and they switched to night bombing.

They switched to night bombing.

And then he writes, night ops in good weather are seemingly less dangerous than daylight hit and run and perhaps more effective.

At least it will keep the blighters awake.

And it's quite right.

And there's plenty of evidence that suggests that bombers coming over at night is keeping the Luftwaffe awake because they talk about it when they get captured.

And their conversations are bugged up at Trent Park.

They can't find their targets because they're low cloud.

There's high cloud covering the moon, you know.

But the bottom line is, you know, yet again, you know, we've said it before, say it again, you know, this is this is all new.

Yeah, I mean, people are kind of working it, working it out, but clearly going over in daylight is not good.

But there's a point for the Luftwaffe of that, that because they've got new airfields, and because they've got an air defense system, how do you protect your airfields while the others are out attacking Britain?

Well, you have to have two back.

defending the airfields.

So you have observers on the coast.

You know, they raise the alarm.

You are, as a pilot, strapped into into

your Messerschmitt 109.

As soon as someone gets a call, off you go and you try and intercept that Blenheim.

But that's not great because that's two planes that then can't be flying over England.

Well, should we take a quick break?

Yeah.

And then, well, return with the battle continuing at considerable intensity.

We'll see you in a moment.

Cheerio.

Welcome back to We Have Ways of Make You Talk, episode four of our Battle of Brits series.

This is the point for the Germans to throw in the towel and give up.

But they're not giving up.

They're not going going to do that.

And what's really clear is that the fighter pilots, Luftwaffe fighter pilots particularly are feeling very put upon.

They're being overworked, overflown, they're not being appreciated.

And you know, I think it's also interesting that the Luftwaffe has a has a far greater culture of sort of talking shop than fighter commands.

So in fighter command, you know, once you've stood down for the end of the day, don't talk about it.

Yeah.

You know, go off and think about something else.

But that's not the way.

You know,

after the Luftwaffe has stood down, you write up your reports and all the rest of it.

I mean, Oberloitn and Hayu Hermann, a fellow I was

met several times and terrifying individual he was.

But you know, he would spend his evenings writing up papers on his theories of how bombing should be conducted and you know, spent most of his time in contemplative study every evening.

Then in the first group of JG52, which is where Ulrich Steinhilper is, you know, there's a huge amount of tactical discussion amongst the pilots.

And, you know, they'd have supper in the evening once they stood down and that'd be eaten in and around their bell tents.

And then they would sit and talk and, you know, maybe some wine, a glass of wine or two, but they'd there'd still be just talking shop.

Yeah.

And Steinhelbert, all of the pilots, NCOs, and officers would gather, and lively discussions would usually ensue.

These were generally toned by the events of the day.

Losses would quieten this down and bring a mood of introspection.

That as success would bring in a surplus of energy and excitement.

Yeah, rather than tomorrow is another day.

Yeah.

But they're all really pissed off about the close bomber escort, which makes no sense.

You know, these are the guys having to do the flying.

They know.

They know what they're about.

They know this is a terrible idea.

And it's really interesting, isn't it?

Later on in the war, when Ira Aker insists on close escort for the fighters, it doesn't work.

Doolittle comes in in January 1944 and says, forget that.

Your job is to take out any fighters you see and strafe the airfields and all wrestle, which is exactly what they should have been doing in 1940.

So it's kind of in reverse.

It's really interesting how the same mistake is repeated.

Most believe that they should be having free hunts.

that they should be allowed to go off and attack what they want and clear the skies ahead of the bombers.

Then comes Churchill's great speech of the 20th of August.

So he knows this is a sort of big moment in the air battle and repeats his line about the feud.

But he also singles out bomber command, I think, which is interesting.

On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers.

Well, he's spot on about that.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, because he's seen the casualty figures.

He knows exactly what's going on.

And proportionally,

they're sky high, aren't they?

I mean, and you think, if you go to Hendon, to the RAF Museum at Hendon, look at that, look at the fairy battle.

Single engine, and it's a Merlin but on a much bigger plane than a Spitfire Hurricane there's three chaps in the in there the pilot radio operator and a rear gunner I mean that is that is no joke and and the the losses they take trying to hold the the Wehrmacht up I mean just look at them since the 10th of May yeah 693 aircraft lost 191 since the fall of France so they've really they've really really really 235 men just in August yeah it's a shocking business the fighter pilots of the poster boys the one of the guy laughing at you who's got the head with his leather helmet on and all the rest of it, and that's the one that's on Picture Post.

It is the iconic picture of a member of the few.

Gilman's only 19 at the time, and it doesn't appear on Picture Post until the 31st of August, by which time he's been killed six days earlier.

God.

Flying on the 25th of August.

God, imagine being his family.

Well, they don't know he's dead at that point.

He's just missing.

No, but they know he's missing.

I mean, it's there he is.

It's absolutely cruel as hell.

Anything, isn't it?

And we always said the British and Ruthless.

We've got the after-action report for that because he's in 32 Squadron with Pete Brothers flying hurricanes.

12 Dornier 215s escorted, which they weren't in their 70s, escorted by about 36 ME 109s were intercepted at 14,000 feet south of Dover.

Squadron Leader Crossley shot down a Dornier 215 in flames and sent an ME 109 spinning into the sea.

Flight Lieutenant Proctor shot down an ME 109 in flames off Cap Grenade.

Pilot Officer Rose was shot down, was downed and bailed out, landing in the sea, but was rescued after one and a half hours.

Pilot Officer Gilman is missing.

That's it.

And that was it.

But while the kind of sense of panic might have gone, and the sense that the British are kind of sort of getting used to this, and the chatter of machine guns overside, and the drone of engines and contrails high above the Serulean skies, etc., etc., and kids are rushing around capturing bullet casings, there is this respite between the 19th and the 23rd of August, where Park and Dowding, particularly, can sort of dust themselves down, patch up the airfields, rotate some squadrons, exhausted pilots can catch up on sleep, and all the rest of it.

There is also a sense that there's more to come, and Dowding and Park very much feel on edge about pilot shortage or experience pilot shortage.

That's the big thing.

So, on the same day that Goering has his conference at Coronhall on the 19th of August, this is where he's berating Galand and then sort of giving him the medal at the same time.

Air Vice Marshal Park of 11 Group takes the opportunity to circulate kind of his new instructions to his ground controllers in 11th Group.

And this is really interesting because Park is repeatedly adjusting things.

This whole idea that he's rigid and can't sort of change his tactics is not true.

He's honing

all the time.

Yeah.

All the time.

And high on the list of orders not to venture far from land.

Don't go out oversea.

You know, we cannot afford to lose pilots through forced landings in the seas.

Yes.

And as a rule of thumb, partner orders Spitfires direct against the enemy fighters and hurricanes against the bombers.

At the same time, only a minimum number of squadrons are to engage the enemy fighters.

Because obviously, the more you engage, the more casualties you're going to have.

So you want to keep them to absolute minimum.

You need to protect your airfields.

So really, the most important thing is to not be on the ground when the when the Luftwaffe come and obviously you want to shoot them down but actually shooting down is not the priority priority is survival yeah and it's not that he's worried about numbers of spitfires and hurricanes he's worried about pilots yeah so if you're not in a fight you're not going to get shot down because they're in for the long haul they're not trying to win this in three or four days no like the other side it's about holding on yeah what they've also been asking is that 12 group which is the which is the middle north middle of england so east anglia mercia wales that stripe across the middle of the country.

They're being asked to protect airfields.

They're being scrambled to protect airfields in 11 groups.

So once 11 groups aircraft are up, you then protect the airfields.

So the controllers are calling 12 group to the fight.

And this is going to become a bone of contention, isn't it?

Yeah, it is going to become a bone of contention because 10 group do exactly what they're asked to do and 12 group basically don't.

But they've also got another asset which is the Poles and the Czechs which are assigned to come in.

And the big problem with them has been language.

Because this is a system.

You have have to have it you know where you're being ground controlled you have to be able to understand this is not a free-for-all flying

so you know the Germans might be able to kind of incorporate a different language squadron but fighter command cannot until they can all understand what they're being told yeah so this is why there's been these teaming issues now the Poles are all Czechs are all chomping a bit wanting to get going but there is a reason for this so they bring them in gradually I think 302 at Duxford gets in by literally about the 20th of August something like that but 303 squads a little bit later it's based at Norfolk in an 11 group and what they are allowed to do now is patrol inland airfields and patrol yeah north london yeah particularly when the older you know the the more experienced british squadrons are are refueling and on the ground yeah but they are slowly but surely being brought into the into the other the other issue if you're a polish pilot is the throttles are the other way around isn't it yeah yeah yeah so you've got to learn all this you've got to relearn things and yeah you know you could they it's it's it is vital that you know there is this sort of sense that the kind of the British are all too conservative and too stuffy and therefore you know not using this fantastic asset.

That is not the point.

There's a very, very good reason for not using the poles until they do.

Because you're being directed onto target, the idea is everyone knows where everyone is.

If you're just randomly tooling around, you might be mistaken for German aircraft, even though we do have IFF and we do have HuffDuff and all that sort of stuff.

By the observer core, you might be mistaken for someone else.

And so fighters might be directed onto you.

And you waste time and effort in the process.

That's the point.

Everyone needs to know where everyone is because that's how the downting system works.

Anyway, the air battles renew with a vengeance on the 24th of August.

Sunday the weather clears again.

So Maniston's so heavily bombed that it's decided to completely evacuate it at that point.

Nine people are killed at North Weald, which is just on the junction of the M11 and M25 now.

If you happen to be driving around, you just sit on the right-hand side as you're heading up towards Cambridge.

And on that same day, Flight Lieutenant B.

Beaumont of 87 Squadron is coming back from a 48-hour leave.

And he drives straight to the perimeter track to see how B-flight are getting on before heading into Exeter to get change.

But actually, they're scrambled immediately.

And

just after five o'clock he hastily puts on his main west and harness over his over his uniform and dashes to his hurricane takes off the off of the rest of them and so 16 aircraft in all and they're now flying fours which i think is really interesting so they speed towards worn well and and b beamont spots eight dots which then become twin engine bombers then another five then another six then another five and before he knows where he are there's a hundred of the bastards and he's desperately scanning the skies for for enemy fighters and as he does so the squadron tear into the leading bombers and beamont opens fire on a Dornier 17, which he sees roll over and just after one burst and head down to the ground.

And he now wonders whether he should be using the speed of his dive to make a split turn and then head back into the fray.

But glancing back at the lines of tracery, he sees 109s are already in amongst them.

This all happens so quickly.

You get a sense of sort of the melee and the sort of confusion of it all.

So he continues diving and when eventually pulls out briefly blacks out a result of negative G.

Now he's at around 5,000 feet above Dorchester.

But up above him, he looks up and he can still see this sort of incredibly incredibly confused action flying on.

And suddenly, a hurricane, a burning hurricane, hurtles past him, a livid ball of flame, followed by a wheel leg from a bomber.

So again, this sort of incredibly violent.

He climbs back up again, sees a 109 dart from a cloud, evidently intent on heading back home sneakily.

So Biemont turns on his tail and the German plight spots him and breaks left.

But he fires across the turning circle and the German kind of half rolls and dives and Biemont follows him, unleashes another burst, and this is the crippling blow on the 109 and suddenly it's slowing and the 109 is trying one more turn but Biemont is positioned for the kill.

And so the German deliberately stalls and drops and he dives down and sideslips into a field near Abbotsbury with a sort of thick trail of smoke following him down.

And Biemont watches it hit the ground and the meshes of it slews amidst a cloud of dust and smoke.

He then circles over and sees the pilot clamber out on the wing far into his machine with his flare gun.

Flames lick from the cowling and then the German raises his hand

as Biemont roars over him.

And actually we know who this pilot is.

He's Gefreiter Brocker from the first staff JG 53.

Amazing.

But he's already been set upon by a Spitfire

and another hurricane.

As far as Beaumont's concerned, he shot him down, but he hasn't.

He's already been hit.

Then he flies back to Exeter, finds the squadron are back.

Sergeant James Cowley's been shot down and wounded.

And then, and then, I mean, this is a terrible postscript.

Peter Cumley flies in.

He's the last man back in his hurricane.

And as he's approaching the airfield, his plane suddenly flips and dives towards the ground.

And it's been completely shot up.

And he's basically not made it at the last gasp.

I found that particularly kind of striking episode because, as always, you know, you're getting some victories, but they're getting some victories.

You know, on one thing, it may be the machine, not the man.

but you suddenly get these reminders that it is about the man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then on the 25th of August, you know, there's some super aces emerging amongst the Luftwaffe.

Galland is one, Helmut Wick is another.

He claims two on the 25th, two the previous day.

He's now the leading scorer in the Luftwaffe with 22 in the Battle of Britain.

Yeah.

He's awarded the Knight's Cross a couple of days later.

But the Germans have this culture of experten.

The idea is that you're experienced pilots, squadrons of staff allen are built around them.

The idea is you let the ace do his thing and everyone else is his wingman, basically.

So in this essence, Galand is a team player as long as he's captain right and and everyone knows that people want to be want to be the expert and they're not allowed to flaunt it but everyone knows that that's what they're secretly doing yeah you know when you're accused of being having a having a sore throat yeah for wanting your knights crossed yes and and they're also known as dirdle or there's the other end of the scale which is which is canal crank where you're you're channel sick you're sick of the English channel.

It goes in both directions, doesn't it?

Because for some people, that means they're desperate to get across and shoot the enemy down.

For other people, it means they are really obsessed with the fact they're flying over the sea and they hate it.

Yeah.

There's the two ends of the scale isn't there?

Yeah.

Encouraging the sort of superhero pilot and then the other poor schlubs at the end are meant to cover his tail.

Exactly.

The other thing about

you know this is Goering's mob.

So he likes his costumes and he likes his good look and they're the newest, shiniest part of the Wehrmacht and you know he wants them to look good.

So they all have a dazzling array of uniforms.

You know they have leather jackets and dark blue summer jackets and they have breeches and leather trousers and boots and you know all sorts of stuff whereas you know the RF get a blue suit basically and and the the kind of nod to their own exceptionalism in the in fighter command is that you have the top button undone rather you know that's your sign uh on your suit and you don't have to wear a tie because you're constantly craning your neck so you don't want to get you don't want to get chafing around your neck both sides you become an ace when you've shot down five but it's it's an unofficial thing you get a distinguished flying cross when you've got five well and the idea is that it's a team effort isn't it there are aces but I think most people you know anyone who knows anything about the Battle of Britain might have heard of Ginger Lacing, but that was meant because he wrote a very famous book about his time.

But has anyone heard of Eric Locke?

Nope.

Has anyone heard of Arthur McCallan?

Nope.

Okay, well, they were number two, and they were one and three in the highest scoring aces in the Battle of Britain.

The contrast in cultures is really, really

everything, isn't it?

Yeah.

And everything in the mismatch, as it were.

You know, they are everything.

But there is a commonality.

The commonality is that both sides, by this last few days in August 1940, are really feeling the strain.

Really feeling the strain.

The expectation on these young men flying these planes is absolutely enormous.

And I thought it was really telling.

Do you remember when we were talking to Clive Denny?

Yeah.

He was flying a hurrigan, and he was going, seriously, you don't want to be flying more than about an hour a day in this.

Yeah.

And you know, these guys are, fighter command, less so.

Occasionally, you might fly four sorties.

You know, one or two might be an X-ray, which is, you know, something that turns out to be nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They send a couple of you up to have a look.

Yeah.

Yeah, but you know, one time a day is quite a lot.

Two times is more, four times you're really, really pushing it.

There are Luftwaffe of pilot pilots that are flying kind of five or six times a day because of this pressure on the fighter pilots to escort the bombers.

And there's not enough of them, which means they're having to fly more to maintain the effort with the bombers.

Yeah.

And of course, the German campaign is supposed to have ended by now.

They're being promised jam tomorrow, aren't they?

And there is none.

And every time they go, someone's lost and doesn't come back.

Whereas an RAF squadron might go into the air, someone might get shot down, but he might turn up that evening.

There's not a sense of invulnerability in Fighter Command, but there's at least a sense of regeneration and a possibility of regeneration.

Whereas it, you know, it's all very fun.

Once you head across the channel, if you're a Luftwaffe pilot, that could be the last time anyone sees you.

Pressure's mounting.

Berlin has been bombed, which means the gloves are off in terms of what might happen with bomber forces going forward.

And in our next episode, we'll look at how the battle shifts and how we make our way towards Battle of Britain Day.

Yep.

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