The Battle Of Britain: Attack Of The Eagles

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The explosions were so unexpected, so shattering, their effect on my Spitfire so devastating that I thought I'd been hit by our own heavy ac.

White smoke filled the cockpit, thick and hot, and I could see neither the sky above nor the channel coast twelve thousand feet below.

Centrifugal force pressed me against the side of the cockpit, and I knew my aircraft was spinning.

Panic and terror consumed me, and I thought, Christ, this is the end.

Then I thought, Get out, you bloody fool Open the hood and get get out.

With both hands, I tugged the handle where the hood locked onto the top of the windscreen.

It moved back an inch, then jammed.

Smoke poured out through the gap, and I could see again.

I could see earth and the sea and the sky spinning round in tumbled confusion, as I cursed and blasphemed, and pulled with all my strength to open the imprisoning hood.

If I could not get out, I had at all costs to stop the spin.

I pushed the stick, hard forward, and kicked the rudder, opened the throttle.

Nothing happened.

The earth went spinning on, came spinning up to meet me.

Grabbing the hood toggle again, I pulled with all my might, pulled for my life, pulled at last.

With success, I stood up on the seat and pushed the top half of my body out of the cockpit, pressed hard against the fuselage, half in, half out.

I struggled in a nightmare of fear and confusion to drop clear, but could not do so.

I managed to get back in the cockpit, aware now that the ground was very close.

Try again, try the other side, up, over, and out.

I slithered along the fuselage and felt myself falling free.

Seconds after my parachute opened I saw the Spitfire hit and explode in a field below.

A flock of sheep scattered outwards from the cloud of dust and smoke and flame.

For a few moments there was silence and peace.

Then the ground swung up fast, and I remembered to bend my knees and roll over and bang the quick release catch of my parachute harness.

I lay under a hedge by the side of a wood.

Two or three hundred yards away my Spitfire burned.

My left leg was sticky with blood, and my left shoulder, badly dislocated, hurt abominably.

And that is Hugh Cocky Dundas of 616 Squadron describing the events of the 22nd of August.

Yeah.

Welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, Luftschacht um England, episode 3, Attack of the Eagles of our Battle of Britain series.

And that, I mean, that literally puts you right in the cockpit.

It's unbelievable.

That's an incredible account.

Yeah.

Yeah, it really, really is.

I mean, the sense of terror, the panic sort of how confusing but also the training this this it goes from crisis is the end to get out you bloody fool open the hood and get out that the training cuts through his his moment of uh you know of of of

your plane's going around and round and round and you've got to somehow get up and get out and

i mean

it doesn't bear thinking about does it it must have been absolutely terrifying 100 anyway we left the first episode where we were going through kind of the events of battlebridden with with with phase one

sort of just going tickling into the

beginning of August.

And while all this has been going on, you know, the canal camp has been going on, plans have been going ahead for Operation Sea Lion, which, as we know, now had a name.

And what they're discovering is any number of stumbling blocks.

So Computer Admiral Earl Fricker, who is the guy who's going to be given sort of operational command for Sea Lion, is only seeing endless difficulties.

There's no landing craft of any kind.

Navy, which is only 15% the size of the Royal Navy.

I'd say that's the problem.

The big problem.

There's also no coordination whatsoever between the services.

So if the army wants to land at dawn, which means crossing by night, which also means endless mines.

The tide

has to just go out so the barges can run easily onto the beach.

That means...

you know, you're quite limited to when you can do it.

Fricker reckons he needs a minimum of six weeks to get the shipping together, which will be mostly Rhine river barges.

Yes, which will gum up German trade after all.

Yeah, and he warns that taking a thousand barges and 24,000 men from the German shipping industry will have a massive detrimental effect on the German military and civilian economies, of course,

and not least that great waterway, the Rhine.

Yes.

You know, domestic water transport will all but cease.

All of which is put in front of Hitler at the Führer conference on the 31st of July.

And Fricker also suggests landing on a much, much shorter front than that put forward by the army.

Yeah.

Because the army wants a very wide front.

And Hitler does what he quite often does when he doesn't know what to do.

He just differs.

I mean, it's interesting that, isn't it?

Because I think people's sort of impression of Hitler might be that

he would chew the carpet at this point and say, don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions.

In fact, he goes,

well, yeah, I don't know.

We'll have to think about this then.

Yeah.

Because he doesn't know what to do because he didn't expect to be in this situation.

No.

But he still insists planning goes ahead.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Without giving Fricker an answer.

Yeah.

We'll just get on with it.

Well, yes.

And then there's another conference a week later where it becomes clear.

that so fricker goes in and presents all this and says this is a problem it's going to have a massive detrimental effect on on shipping but we can't agree with the army we want to be on a on a narrow front because we've got you know got a clear mind and all the rest of it he goes yeah yeah okay okay then von braukich and halder come in and he says well just prepare for a broad front yeah what the heck have you not been listening to a word minefuhrer well no he doesn't does he though hitler does that often have in these organizational situations have a tendency to agree with the last person he spoke to because after all he's not where he expected he'd be and so the following week the 7th of august there's another conference and it's clear that there are real big differences emerging between the Army and the Navy, bigger differences, even.

The Kriegsmarine wants to land between Beachyhead and Folkestone, and the Army saying that's not big enough.

I mean, it may be what you've got actually here is two organisations to think there's no way we can ever pull this off.

So, what we're going to do, whatever they suggest, we'll say no to.

Whatever we suggest, they'll say no to.

So, we'll never have to do it.

I don't sense that that is the case, but it's quite interesting to think about it.

Well, yeah, yeah, because

they all know it's impossible.

Well, and again, you know, on the 7th of August, it's not resolved at all.

No.

So separate plans just continue.

So McCrivenry are still absolutely terrified about mines.

The problem they have is they have to clear channels through the minefields to protect the flanks.

But as soon as they're swept, then the Brits just lay a whole o' more again.

Yeah.

Well, you know, the Royal Navy can lay 300 mines in a night.

Yeah, but and if you look forward to the D-Day invasion in June of 1944, the anti-mine effort that the Royal Navy puts in the night before...

Well,

it's done the same night.

It's done just ahead of the invasion fleet.

In order to get it done, because you know they're just going to lay some more.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, the Luftwaffe is getting ready.

Yeah.

And they're tweaking tactics quite a bit.

So fighters are now subordinated to new formations called Jagdfliegeführer or Yafu for short.

They don't like acronyms.

No.

They like short names.

They like abbreviations.

So this is effectively a fighter core within a Luftflotter.

So Yafu 2, for example, is in Luftflotter 2.

And they're pressing for free hunts and this is where they just take off stooge around just shoot up whatever they can yeah and that means that they can fly the altitude they want speed they want anyone kind of bothering them yeah they're not just tethered to the bombers no they're not tethered to the bombers and they're finally given permission and one person who's exceptionally keen on this is adolf galand in jg52 yeah uh the yellow-nosed monsters he he's very keen on this so is gunter roll for example another fighter pilot

who's um in jg 54 i think And they like this idea because, let's face it, the reason Galan likes this idea is because he's an expert and it means he's going to get to shoot down loads of hurricanes and sports.

On his own terms.

On his own terms.

So without boring people on radio saying what to do.

Exactly.

So like Douglas Barder, it's not true.

And no wonder they got along in later life.

So this is a decision that pleases people who've got the wrong idea about how to go about things.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, they're still doing fighter escorts of bombers, but they're also in between they're allowed to do this.

So, for example, Gunther Rawls, H.

Staffel of JG 52, shoots down three hurricanes for no losses at all on the 29th of July.

And that's because they can go over, get the height, some behind them.

Yeah, that is how that ought to go against hurricanes, though, as we established in the last episode.

So, then on the Thursday, the 1st of August, there is a Fuhrer directive for an air war against Britain.

So, it's actually going to happen.

The German Air Force is to overpower the English Air Force with all the forces at its command in the shortest possible chance.

And it's to start in four days, on or after the 5th of August.

And in the meantime, they're still attacking coastal convoys.

And again, trying to get the RAF, the fighter commander to come fight.

But we talked about Good Torollan JG52 in the first episode, the fact that he was wondering

why on earth these Spitfires were suddenly appearing.

How did they possibly know they were coming and all the rest of it?

They're so badly hit, his fighter group, that they're withdrawn from the battle due to combat lessons.

Yeah.

On the 1st of August.

Yeah.

What the heck?

On the same day, the 1st of August, Galand is awarded the Knight's Cross.

And Kesselring is presenting it to him.

And at that point, two Rekki aircraft fly over.

Kesselring.

What are those?

Galand.

Spitfires, Hergenalfeld Marshall.

The first to congratulate you.

Oh yeah, there was such good humour at this point.

But by the 5th of August, I mean they're jumping to it though.

By the 5th of August, all the three air fleets are ready.

Left Flotter 2 in northern France.

Yeah, that's the biggest.

It's the biggest, and that's Kesselring.

Yeah.

Left Flotter 3 in Normandy, the Channel Islands.

Yep, and then Luftflotter 5 in Norway.

Yeah, but there's no agreed plan of action.

None at all.

You know, in the last episode, I said, thank goodness the Germans are bad at radio and are disorganised.

Thank goodness there's no agreed plan of action.

Although, as we'll see, because as the battle progresses, the Germans sort of switch emphasis and change.

They haven't got the means to deliver on any of the objectives that they pick on as they pick and choose as they move forward.

So, you know, Goering is dithering and Hitler is dithering.

So Goering's waiting to be given the green light from Hitler because the British haven't haven't sued for peace as expected.

Hitler then doesn't do that, give Goering any idea of what he wants, until the 31st of July.

So Goering is getting his people, his commanders, to come up with what they think they should do.

So he's got three Luftwaffe-Flotter commanders.

He's got Kessring in two.

He's got Sperler in three and Stumpf in five up in up in

up in Norway.

It's okay.

We'll come up with a plan then.

They'll submit completely different plans.

Because of course they do.

Because this is a tactical air force trying to come up with a strategic gambit.

So none of them know what they're doing.

And he calls lots of conferences.

And they're always at Clarinhall.

So they've got to go back to his place.

So he's not coming forward to meet anyone.

Although I suppose if you've got...

They are on in different places.

I mean, they could meet in the middle, right?

Yeah, you know, Paris, something.

Yeah,

France.

But no, they've got to go back to Germany.

And there aren't final plans until the 6th of August.

So although they're on readiness on the 5th, there is no plan that they're on readiness for.

No, and Beppo Schmidt is doing his updated intelligence briefings, which are obviously absolutely on the money.

Yeah.

He reports that there's only 500 fighters left, 350 have been destroyed in July, and reckons there's only 133.

Very precise figure.

Spotify's hurricanes and Defiance have been produced between the 1st and 25th of July.

As we know, this is absolute nonsense.

There's something like 400 and nearly 500.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm glad to see that Beppo Schmidt likes the Defiant, though.

Because fans of the Defiant, we've got to stick together.

You're Beppo, you see.

Beppo, we love the Defiant.

I bet he really likes the black one.

First of all, you've got all three Luftlotter coming up with different plans.

There is no strategy, and their current information, which is based on their previous understanding, is all wrong.

Well,

they're shooting down twice as many as are being built.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the final conference is on the 6th of August at Karinhall, and they decide on the Adler Angriff, the attack of the Eagles.

The Luftschach.

Luftlach England.

And the opening day of the Adler Angriff is, of course, going to be called Adler Tag.

Yeah, of course.

If you've got Attack of the Eagles, you're going to have the Eagle Day.

Yeah, exactly.

And the priority, I mean, they get this right.

The priority is to knock out the radar, the RDF, and then proceed.

But whenever we talk about air combat, air battles, you know, good weather, clear skies in Northwest Europe, you can't bet on it.

No.

You can't bet on it.

So you can't plan on it.

We're recording this in August.

We've had clear days, we've had grey days.

And this is exactly the problem they run into.

And they also don't have any weather information about England.

There's nothing.

They've got no source of information at all about what the weather might be doing the other side of the channel.

They've got weather ships on the Azores.

Exactly.

No, exactly.

Right?

And so, but so the weather's a bit...

Looks a bit dodgy, but their weather reports suggest that there's going to be high pressure on the way from the 10th of August.

So Going goes, great, we'll do that.

He reckons that the destruction of the Irish is going to take three days, but just to be on the stage, I'll give himself four.

So four days of clear weather, and Adelatag will begin sometime from the 10th of August.

I mean, Goeing's glass is always half full, right?

Yeah, I mean, you know.

When it comes to the fuffer operations.

Well just generally.

Well it depends on where you know it depends on his state of mind because you know that that's the problem with drug taking is that you know you have you have moments of being very high and moments of being very down in the dumps.

Oh god.

So he you know he too

prevaricates.

Yeah he prevaricates yeah.

So Adeltag is going to be sometime around the 10th of August.

Meanwhile the fighter pilots have been gathering in Normandy and the Paducah.

So Ulrich Steinhilbert you will remember was in the first group of JG52 under Adolph Gallen.

He's the guy who was desperately trying to get radio into cockpits, but failing badly.

He's stationed at Cockel.

He gets there on the 1st of August.

Quickly discovers that the German ground crew have plundered large amounts of British equipment, including tents.

Yes, he says it's like a supermarket at Dunco.

You could just help yourself to anything you want.

Yeah.

They kind of prefer them.

They dig holes in the ground.

They make use of Nissan huts.

And a Morris triple-axle truck is converted into a mobile tool store.

Barrels of wine that have been recovered from Calais Harbour.

Electricity rigged up.

Giving them sort of, you know, reasonable billet, but nothing to get too excited about.

And they've got a record player as well.

Oh, good.

That's all right then.

They're all happy.

But, you know, there is this, you get this feeling, don't you, that this is all a bit kind of make-do in men.

This is sort of on the hoof.

Yep.

You know, there's a sort of lack of permanency about it.

Nearby at Gheen South, Hanzek Odd Bob, who is a tremendous fellow.

I've got to say, he was in the third group of JG54.

And he was just amazing.

I remember he had JG54 incorporated into his number plate on his car.

Did he?

Yeah and I remember the last time I saw him he was about 94 or something like that.

It was winter in Freiburg.

He lived in Freiburg, which is where the National Archives are.

And I met him for a coffee and it was sort of snow and ice on the ground.

He had his come on his bike.

Really?

Yes.

He said, James,

just be careful.

It's very slippery.

Fantastic.

He says, when I fly, I will touch the wings of eagles.

Something like that.

They can't leave the eagles alone, can't you?

No, no, no, they just can't.

He was tremendous.

He found his own field pretty rudimentary.

You know, the aircraft were hidden in woods and ground crew also living in captured British tents.

Lodge tent serving as a repair hangar.

And he lodged in a village nearby.

And he's accompanied by his own fox terrier called Chica.

Yeah.

He flew with him whenever they moved.

Absolutely love flying.

Really?

Yeah, just love the whole thing.

Sat on his lap.

Incredible.

Just amazing.

They're getting ready.

It's all very rudimentary.

These sort of, you know, shorn fields.

You know, it's just grass.

But they're all, you know, they're gathering.

The gathering of the eagles.

Yeah.

And so operations on the 11th of August, because after all, the 10th is kind of ideal.

Yeah, so they're building up for episodes.

It's not quite, quite a Luftslach on England yet.

Yeah.

But it's still preliminary operations.

Yeah.

And so on the 11th, Steinhilper flies four sorties in a single day.

That's a lot.

Yeah, shoots down a Blenheim bomber, which of course is a reminder that Bomber Commander, they're coming over regularly and are involved in all of this and are part of the fires that the Luftwaffe are having to put out, as well as try and do their own thing.

Yeah, although in this case, the Blenin was trying to attack a Heinkel 59 rescue sea plane, right?

Which the Germans all thought was very terrifically bad form.

You know, rescue, you know, they can't possibly do that.

But doubting things, no, you know, Red Cross doesn't count for anything.

These guys are, you know, rescuing them, so they can then come back and attack us.

Yeah, dowding is a great example of actually the British attitude to the Second World War is entirely ruthless.

You can dress it up in sort of of

keep calm, carry on all you want, but it's about killing the enemy.

Much bigger operations on the 12th of August.

This is actually quite a major day of air fighting, and you know, you could be confused if you were a you didn't know that Eagle Day was the 13th of August.

For being this was Eagle Day, there was substantial air activity, and this was mainly directed at RDF masts.

Volta Rubensderfer.

Yeah.

He was commander of the elite Erpro Bungsgruppe 210.

No one says it like you, Jim.

Erpro Bungsgruppe.

Erpro Bungskrupper.

You're going to

linger over the Val sound.

Yeah, okay.

This is all quite targeted stuff.

So they're attacking the stations at Rye, Pevensey, and Dunkirk.

And

really going for those radar RDF stations properly.

Yeah, and Airpro 210, this is a favourite unit of Goering's because they're Sestruj.

Yeah.

Or Sestur.

Sesturen.

Yeah, they're Sersturn.

They're going to destroy us at ME1110.

And they are, you know, they're all made up of sort of former test pilots and Spain veterans and all the rest of it.

They're kind of like considered a super elite ground attack unit, given the job of hitting a lot of

the RDF chasing.

So they're attacking Rye, Pevensey and Dunkirk.

There's Dunkirk with a K in Kent.

JU-888 is bombing Ventner on the Isle of Wight.

And actually they do knock out Ventna.

But that's it.

Yep.

And they also attack Portsmouth.

Big time.

Yeah, the Naval Dockyard.

That's 63 bombers.

If you're going to attack anywhere in the British military establishment on the south coast, Portsmouth makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

HMS Victory disappears under smoke and dust for the first time since Trafalgar.

God die me.

Don't you touch on it?

Exactly.

They're getting a bit too close to my taste there, Jim.

A British witness, a guy called Joe Steele, says he sees railway tracks twisting in the air from the blast, the cookhouse chimney disintegrating,

and as you say, victory disappearing.

And then they're also attacking airfields.

I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?

Because this is what you need to do, is knock out the RDF and knock out out the airfields if you're going to achieve air security but there's lots more RDF stations than they've addressed themselves to in this instance.

No absolutely.

And there's lots more airfields than they.

But they attack Limp and Limp gets bombed heavily and rendered unusable for a day.

Manston right on the tip of Kent is badly cratered.

Workshops hit hangars.

Hawking suffers destruction of two hangars.

Just about usable though.

But you know, this is the point.

You know, despite all this damage, they're grass runways and they prove pretty robust.

And, you know, Dowding has already ensured that every airfield is stocked with rubble hardcore and you know graders and bulldozers and all the rest of it and steamrollers.

So they can repair these craters really, really quickly.

You shovel them in, get the steamroller over them and off you go.

But the German estimation is that they have to punch a 93-mile hole in Fighter Command, create a 93-mile gap.

We are not looking at a mile gap here, are we?

No, no, no, no, no.

So Venter's knocked out, but it's substituted by a mobile transmitter to make them seem like it hasn't been knocked out.

I mean it's amazing that German reconnaissance mistakenly concludes that you know huge amounts of destruction have gone and you know the RAF is already on its knees.

It's so hard to know though when you think because they've not got a spy satellite sat over Surrey and one over Kent.

It's so hard to know.

You've got the pilots' individual reports and I imagine if you're part of that well you just see lots of smoke going on.

Well you're part of that KG KG-51 attacking Portsmouth.

That probably looks like it went pretty well in your rearview mirror.

You see the city's on fire and you think we see lots of bombs that explode.

Exactly.

So, well, we did it, right?

And also, you've been told the British are brittle, weak, ready to collapse, and all that sort of stuff.

So, no wonder they all they return going, well,

I think that went pretty well.

We're on track here.

Yeah, day one going pretty well, and then actually, or it's minus one, then actually, you Eagle Day, Adler Tag is the 13th of August.

Yep, this is it.

However, it gets off to an inauspicious start.

Very much so.

KG2, yeah,

heading for East Church, church led by uber johannes fink

the fink the think is at the controls my friends yeah

however weather we talked about we talked about the problem with the weather and their fighter escort doesn't show up or rather does show up and attempts to attract his attention well it's been cancelled yeah has but the message hasn't got through to kg2 yeah so they take off so a whole load of me110s flying around as well keep flying and buzzing in front of him trying to tell them that it's been cancelled but he just thinks what are they doing yeah and carries carries on flying.

Yeah, so they fly over, they fly over regardless.

They're of course intercepted by Spitfires and Hurricanes who see them coming.

Five bombers shot down, a whole load more badly damaged.

Fink is absolutely furious because he thinks, Where are my fighters?

Yeah.

Terrible dereliction of duty.

And they attack Eastchurch, which isn't even a fighter command airfield, but one used by Coastal Command.

They report that they shoot up lots of Spitfiles, but there aren't any Spitfiles there.

No, they're Blenheims or something on the ground, aren't they?

It completely, everything that could go wrong with that does go wrong, basically.

And there's this fantastic story of Paul Temmer, Oberloinen Paul Temmer, who is the intelligence.

He's a grouper adjutant of JG2.

And he's shot down near Shoreham and immediately captured.

He's taken to the local kind of anti-aircraft battery.

And the commander says in perfect German, Ah, Erin Scherfuhrergast.

Basically means a very early guest.

Brilliant.

He says, well, I don't really know what to do.

Have you had breakfast?

And Temmer has had breakfast.

And so immediately he says, well, you know, I'm fine.

Thank you very much.

He goes, oh, go on.

He smells kind of bacon and eggs and things.

Thinks, well, all right, be polite not to.

Well, who knows when I'll eat again?

Who knows when I'll eat again?

So he goes, okay, well, you know, Danker.

And

has his

breakfast.

Then they take him off to the kind of, you know, to Brighton to the next sort of royal artillery base.

And they say, well, I don't know what to do with you.

We'll probably better hand you over to the RF, but do you want some breakfast?

By this point, he sort of thinks, well, I can't really say no.

So he has another one.

Then he gets picked up by the RAF and then take him to Farnborough.

And when he gets to Farnborough, they say, Have you had breakfast?

So he ends up with three breakfasts.

Oh, yeah, no.

Including his own.

So four and all.

Yes, these Englanders, they're so

polite.

They love the breakfast here.

He loves his breakfast,

maybe we should sit down and eat bacon and eggs together and make peace.

And make peace, there'll be no need for this foolish war.

It's foolish war.

I'm only a simple pilot.

Yeah, and the Germans don't generally eat a cooked breakfast.

See, the seas used to.

He'd have like cold cuts.

He'd have cold cut at Chociteri, wouldn't he?

Yeah.

It's been spoiled lavishly.

But anyway, Adotai kind of carries on in this sort of...

It's this haphazard, completely uncoordinated,

willy-nilly, lacking any kind of proper direction kind of way.

So shortly after midday, 23 ME-110s, the Stollen, fly from Kong, intending to lure RF fighters away.

So the bombers could then arrive unopposed.

Of course, it doesn't happen because they get intercepted by three hurricane squadrons.

And they're forced into defensive circles.

This is going around and round and round and round circles, which is fine until you have to break.

Yeah.

And at some point, you do.

At the time the engagement ends, one's crashed on land, six have fallen into the sea, and seven more were damaged, and only nine returned intact.

I mean, that's a very bad day at the gestore office, isn't it?

And they're meant to be gestoring, not being gestored.

They're not very much being destroyed by the hurricanes.

And then, which are, after all, inferior.

Which are absolutely inferior.

And then, of course, in the afternoon, there's more.

Stukas attack Middle Wallop.

Yep.

Major Paul Hotzel is leading them from Dienard, and he's escorted by fighters of the second group of JG53 under von Merzan.

Yeah.

And this is just really, really weird because if you remember, going back to the kind of, I think it was the first episode, one of those Fuhrer conferences where Goering says, no, of course, you know, our fighters have to be able to fire their full capacity and do the thing.

You can't have close escorts.

No, that's not going to work at all.

But despite those very specific orders, fighters are on a lower level of ordering told to stick to the bombers.

And you know why?

It's just absolutely bizarre.

Well it negates it negates it's a Reichsmarshall.

He's the world's first six-star general.

He's ignored.

I know.

That's what's going on.

What about German discipline?

But no, but it's interesting, isn't it?

Because actually this shows that it's a befail culture, supposedly, an orders culture.

But actually, lower down, they're going, well, we're not going to do that.

And it's basically the stookers.

It's the bombers saying...

No, we're pressure stookers.

Well, but also

them saying, where are the fighters?

Unless we see the fighters, we won't feel we can go out.

They're flying 150 miles an hour.

Message Met 109s are almost falling out of the sky.

Yeah.

And they've run into 609 squadron.

Yes, whose radio frequency is almost identical.

So they can hear what's going on.

I love this guy, David Crook.

He wrote just a brilliant book called Spitfire Pilot.

Just does what it says on your team.

Published in 1942, I think.

What are you going to call it?

No, I was thinking Spitfire Pilot.

No, surely the burning blue, the azure sky.

No, no, Spitfire Pilot.

I'm a pilot.

I fly Spitfires.

And And it's a wonderful book because it's based on his diary that he kept over summer of 1940.

And you could absolutely see his character.

And you can see that he's just a really, really good bloke.

You know, you'd have liked rugby and, you know, straight up.

Well, I was going to say,

one of the qualifications for being an RAF Fighter Command pilot is you've got to like your rugby, right?

Yeah, you could be a good ex.

Lots of ruggerbuggers.

Well, there are other than the auxiliary squadrons, definitely.

Yeah, tons of ruggerbuggers.

You've got to be a chap.

Yeah.

Tip, are you a chap?

Do you like rugby?

Yes, yes.

Yeah, you You're seen in the right sort.

You're in the right sort.

Carry on.

There's a spitfire over there.

Mind you don't crash.

Yes.

And he takes down an ME109 and they absolutely give these Stukas a proper going over.

Oh my god, they have this great day.

It's a bit like the Sherwood Rangers at Rorway Ridge.

You know, there's 13, they shoot down 13 on the 13th of August for no loss of their own.

Yeah.

And they're absolutely crying.

They've had a bit of a tough time in July.

These are the quadrants that have constantly been going down from Middlewater up to Warnwell on the coast and having having to fight over Portland and so on.

And they have a terrible day, the Luftwaffe.

I mean, it's a, you know, Adler Tag is not...

Well, and what's interesting about this is that they're 10 group, aren't they?

We talked an awful lot about 11 groups so far and will carry on talking about it, but this is actually

doing its job without any whinging or moaning or feeling that they're not in on the action because they are very much in on the action.

But both Stuka groups lose around a third of their aircraft and a whole load more get damaged.

Yeah.

Some bomb the wrong airfield, of course.

Yeah.

Other raids, there's raids at Dettling.

They do inflict a bit of harm on Coastal Command, but, you know, fail to touch Spider-Command.

Rochester's missed entirely.

Because of the weather.

Yeah.

Well, mists coming in, a bit of low cloud, whatever.

And so by the end of the day, Adlatog, the day of days, the RF has lost 15 aircraft and only four pilots.

But the Luftwaffe has lost 39 planes and 66 aircrew.

The RDF stations are all pretty much intact, apart from Fentna.

Airfields have been quickly repaired.

And Fighter Command's operational strength was undented.

It shows that not only is the intelligence bad, but their estimate of how the day has gone is gone smoothly.

It's wildly at odds.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Because a lot of the pilots don't know it's Adler Tag, though.

The fuffer people.

They're unaware that this is.

I mean, it's absolutely amazing.

I remember talking to Hanzek Abob about this.

I said,

at the time, had you ever heard of Adler Tag?

Well, after the break, the RAF is fighting commands can be broken in, what, three days, maybe four?

So that's day one.

Let's come back for part two and find out what happens.

The destruction of fighter commands.

Well, you know, that's why we're doing this podcast in German after all.

We'll see in a tech.

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Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk, Battle of Britain, Episode 3, Lufschlacht um England.

It's going well so far for the Lefersnagym.

I mean, if you're reading, if we were reading their intelligence,

but if you're reading their intelligence reports right now, it's all going swimmingly.

Exactly.

The biggest air battle, though, is the 15th of August.

That is the biggest air battle, but there's a whole load of other stuff that's also going on at the same time which Britain has to contend with.

Right, and that's a point worth making after all.

It's that the Italians are now in the war.

Yep.

Because there are

Italian squadrons do take part in the Battle of Britain.

Briefly against Arton, yeah.

Yeah, they have an over East Anglia.

Extremely rough ride.

The British decide that what they've got to do is actually do something about the Italians in the med, don't they?

I mean, well, they've got to fight back generally.

They're not just fighting back in the skies of southern England.

It's about kind of, you know, having a wider footprint, showing that they mean business.

You know, they've trounced the French fleet at Merz-el-Kabir.

Yeah.

They've done that.

They've got to give the battalions a bloody nose.

So, you know, that means fighting back in the Mediterranean.

The decision is made.

A conscious decision is made.

Yep, we will keep going there.

So hurricanes are being sent to Malta, that tiny but very important strategic.

strategically important island in the middle of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, as well as a whole load of anti-aircraft guns are sent out there as well.

More importantly, 150 tanks.

This is a true.

I think this is a true

this is a really revealing decision this right if the thing you're worried about more than anything else is invasion of england

why on earth would you send tanks to egypt why would you do that because you know you because you know you're going to be all right when people talk about the the state of play in 1940 and how the invasion fear is this that and the other if you want to see some absolute crystal clear appraisal of Britain's situation it's this decision that tells you everything and and you know Churchill won't have made this decision by himself by any stretch the imagination he's only been in the job a couple of months the advice he's getting isn't from the famous people that we know about like brooke the the garlanded people who win the war this is at the stage of the war where where you know supposedly the right you could for some people the writing's on the wall you send 150 tanks when you haven't got any tanks or enough tanks yeah it's fascinating it really really is yeah and at the same time 14th of august the destroyer deal with the americans is agreed in principle this is very important this is 50 out-of-date destroyers that the americans don't want.

And this is Churchill's way of hooking in the Americans.

Yeah.

You know, materially, financially, and hopefully eventually in terms of actual boots on the ground as well.

This is a slow drip.

It's the breadcrumbs

that Churchill's laying.

And also, he's showing what kind of deal may be on offer with a bigger commitment.

So this means means bases in the Bahamas, Caribbean,

elsewhere.

It means sharing some secrets.

RDF is shared, for example.

This gets the disapproval of Joe Kennedy, who's a defeatist and kind of frankly pro-fascist and not a very nice man at all.

He was the ambassador to Britain at the time.

And Churchill tells Joe Kennedy, This war will go on till Lena Les Hitler is beaten.

I think the more we get together with you people, the better it will be for the world.

Well, I'll meant to that.

Yeah.

And a week earlier, the U.S.

have agreed an order for 4,000 tanks.

Oh, that's why you can send 150 tanks to each other

night.

no but you know what i mean i mean there's a longer term plan in in gestation yeah yeah but by the middle of august you know dowding is already fretting about pilot shortage this is going to be his big concern it's a big concern of park in 11th group as well you know elementary flying training has already been snipped back from eight weeks to seven weeks you know specialization is also to begin earlier the otus this is the really big thing also reduced from one month to a fortnight that is where i think some people have got the impression that yeah so people are arriving with only 10 people people arrive with only 10 hours.

But

on type.

10 hours on type, on the Spitfire of the Hurricane, or the sweet, sweet Defiant.

But the point, the point...

The oh so sweet.

Especially in the black

top to bottom.

Anyway, this is, I think, where some people get the impression that Fighter Command's pilots aren't everything they could be.

But they've still been through the entire...

They're still arriving at their frontline squadrons.

And they're selected.

150 hours.

And they're selected as fighter pilots.

So they've been selected because they're really good.

Yeah, yeah.

And trained for that purpose.

Yeah, it's not, it's not just can you fly great, get in a Spitfire, have 10 hours on offer.

And just to be clear about this, no one is arriving from an OTU with 10 hours on a Spitfire and then being flung straight into the frame.

No.

That isn't happening.

This is the problem, is that because they're so green and wet about the ears, they can't really be used because they're not going to be any use to anyone.

They're just going to get shot down, so there's no point using them.

But the projected increase means that you've got from 1,632 pilots being processed in June to 2,108 in September.

So you might think to yourself, oh, that sounds alright.

Yeah, I mean, if I were to.

What's the problem?

The problem is, there is a huge difference between being a qualified pilot and an experienced battle-hardened fighter pilot.

I mean, there's no numbers to whistle at there, so I can't do that.

I mean, that's a good, that's a great increase, isn't it?

But there's also other people who've come to the party.

Oh boy.

Yes.

And on the 10th of August, at various operational training units, there are 43 French,

114 Czechs,

443 Polish,

28 Belgians.

Yeah, this is pretty good.

No, and that listen, you know, it's still 28 experienced pilots.

That's a whole chunk of people, though.

Well, that's, well, you know, what's that?

That's

630?

Yeah.

Did a fuffer keep up the pressure on the 14th of August?

Yes.

I mean, this is really interesting on the 14th of August.

Having had their great day from operating from Middle Wallop, 609 Squadron, then find themselves on the receiving end because a lone Juncker's AT comes over Middle Wallop, causes huge damage, and basically destroys one hangar and kills a whole load of

ground crew.

But a 609 squadron, Spitfires, take off after it, shoot it down, killing everybody.

In that raid, isn't there like a clue to what the Luftwaffe ought to be doing?

Well, yes, except this is enough, is that when you do this low-level stuff, it's really difficult.

It's very difficult and it's suicidal.

You know, David Crook wrote in his book, you know, in his diary, he goes, I flew over to the crash and have never seen any aeroplane more thoroughly wrecked.

It was an awful mess.

Yeah, but you've got, you could send lone bombers to every single fighter station in England and hit them all, and fighter command would have been overwhelmed by that.

Anyway, forecast is looking bad for the 15th, so Goering organises another conference at Coronavirus because already it's absolutely clear that this isn't going quite as well as he thought.

And clearly, though, even if the weather was bad, this is a total waste of his frontline commander's time.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they should not be going to Corona.

You know, he needs to come to them, lazy bastard.

And he's upset about his restorers getting pasted and all sort of the Stukas.

The Stukas being the.

So he says that what's needed is new fresh tactics.

And from now on each Stuka group will be close escorted by an entire geshwada of fighters.

Right.

And one of the groups, so one of the groups will be diving with the Stukas, second would be flying overhead immediately, and the third one will be protecting the entire attack from above.

And he also berates the commanders.

He goes, I have repeatedly given orders that twin-engine fighters are only to be employed where the range of other fighters is inadequate, or where it is for the purpose of assisting our single-engine aircraft to break off combat.

Well, A, he hasn't said that repeatedly.

He hasn't said it once.

And B, this is contradictory nonsense.

I mean,

you can't be employed where the range of other fighters is inadequate at the same time assisting single-engine aircraft to break off combat.

Yeah.

You're rather doing one or the other.

But he's playing with his train set.

Yeah.

And he's just shot up.

And he also says there's no point attacking the DT sites anymore.

Forget the RDF.

It is that from Veva.

There is any point in continuing attacks on the Daytay sites in view of the fact that not one of those attacks so far has been put out of action.

Which is also bonkers, because clearly that's the key to the whole thing.

It is the key to the whole thing.

Yeah.

He hasn't worked that out.

And on top of that, the weather is actually pretty good that morning.

So this is really interesting.

So Kessering is opposite Karinhall because he's been summoned by the six-star general.

And so Oberst Paul Dyckman, who is chief of staff at Tuflieger Corps, not to Le Flotter II, Tuflie Corps, which is a part of Le Flotter II, gives orders for attacks on Hawking, Limp and Rochester, East Church and Martlesham Heath.

And Oberst Leuten and Herbert Rykoff, Kesslering's operations officer, then tries to contact Kesselring for authorization, but he can't get through because he's in the middle of the meeting with Goering and, you know, switch off the mobile phones during that time.

They just think, oh, well, should we just go ahead anyway?

And as a result,

the Luftwaffe have their worst.

Single worst day of battle.

Single day of battle.

I mean, not

as a result because they're facing the doubting system.

Not because Kesslering's in.

Kesselring's elsewhere and it's an ill-conceived idea.

The whole thing's ill-conceived.

Yeah, and Stumpf, up in the Flot of Five, he sends over a number of bombers as well to hit the Northern England.

The idea is to swamp southern England.

It's very much your idea of

attack lots of different targets all at the same time.

Why not?

And they're thinking, well, all the fighter commander is going to be in the south, so the north is surely going to be underprotects it.

But the whole point about the way Downing organises, you have these different commands, and you don't shove all your eggs in one basket, you keep it spread.

So they only attack, instead of attacking four airfields in Northern England, they only attack one, which is Driffield.

They do actually hit 10 Whitleys on the ground, but 15 Luftwaffe bombers are shot down in return.

The thing is, though, if you understood Britain and its industrial footprint, you'd know that they're going to defend Newcastle.

But they haven't got enough.

I know, but no, but Vickers...

They're down.

We've already shot enough.

But you'd surely think.

They're going to have some fighter stations.

Because we're the Luftwaffe, they're the top dogs.

We're the downside.

You know, we've conquered Europe.

Okay, I'm just trying to...

I don't think I can dumb down hard enough.

Jim, I don't don't think I can quite do it box is so mad because he's too dumb I can't dumb down that far Jim yeah I've tried over the years believe me it's like that it's like the you know the meeting with the TV exec where they go good

well the Lof of a church well Beppo Schmidt I think is I don't know Beppo Schmidt is thick, I think he's just a you know he just likes the ladies, likes his wine and likes making up total bollocks.

Well and wants to say things that please his boss.

Yes.

Because that's how he's got his job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

That's how he's going to keep his job too.

So so do you remember um uh wolt of wubensdurfer from earth road 210 of course i did distorted yeah yeah yeah well he's shot down oh yeah because he he was flying down too low 32 squadron hurricanes that's my old mate pete brothers and co right after an attack on croydon he plows into a field near bletchingly farm near rotherfield right in sussex um and that's him right yes and and churchill um has gone to bentley priory Yeah, and he's watching the headquarters of fighter command.

He's watching the battles unfolding.

And afterwards, he's in a car with with Hastings Ismay, his military advisor, General Hastings Ismay.

And Ismay tries to make small talk, and Churchill just says, Don't speak to me.

I have never been so moved.

And then five minutes later, he says, Never.

In the field of human conflict, has so much been owed by so many to so few.

Yeah.

Although that indicates he doesn't understand how big the doubting system is in terms of numbers of people.

Possibly.

But let's not get hung up on that.

16th is not much fine because bad weather kicks in.

The weather that they thought they were going to get on bad weather on the 15th actually is 17th also is not much of a.

There was a little bit, but it's not kind of all out.

It's not that all-out, sort of concentrated four days of clear weather that Goering was so dependent on.

Was so convinced was going to do the job.

So Sunday, the 18th of August, becomes known as the hardest day.

You know, and this is another biggie.

So Beppo Schmidt sit rep for um with Situation Report, for those who don't know military parlance, for the 16th of August is quite interesting.

He reckons that RF have just got 430 aircraft left, of which only 300 are serviceable.

In fact, Fighter Command has 653 good to go.

Three airfields only are out of action and only one airfield, Manston, would be out permanently.

The decision is made to shut it down.

Yeah, I don't know, you know.

Martialsham's back in action later that day and by the evening, 99% of telephone systems working.

Water and electricity reconnected, craters filled in and rolled.

Hawking staff moved to previously prepared house half a mile away.

West Morland is unserviceable for five days and Limp takes 48 hours, but you know, nothing to it.

Both sides, it has to be admitted are wildly overclaiming yeah um so the luftwaffe those at high command generally believe the bills that that schmidt is is peddling dowding remains very very skeptical and actually archibald sinclair who is the uh liberal minister for air he asked dowding about the disparity between claims and and what they think is react and this is repeated in the film isn't it yeah yeah but dowding replies that the truth would soon become apparent if the germans claims are accurate then they'll be in london in a week otherwise they would not he's concerned with the thing he can keep tabs on and keep control of.

As long as you're shooting them down

and we aren't running out of pilots, which is the thing he's more worried about than anything else.

Yeah, and it's really important to

stress that Adler Tog and the Luftschlach um England and the Adler Angrove might have started on the 13th of August as far as Goering's concerned, but most of these fighter pilots have been flying since the 10th of May.

So they're absolutely knackered at an incredibly high level tempo.

You know, and Seefried Becker, who wrote that amazing diary and who's flying with JG2 from Normandy on the 16th of August, he goes, our conversations now revolve almost solely on the channel and all that water.

It is so terribly disagreeable.

And it is, because the fighter pilots' experience, they all say this, once you're out over the channel, and particularly

if there's low cloud, the horizon disappears,

it's grey in front of you in all directions, orienting yourself, knowing how far you are from where you've been and all that.

tend to be flying on instruments if you're lucky or or with the people around you.

It's very, very, very stressful.

If you're flying from from normandy as well i mean the cross to paddle calais is one thing if you're flying from normandy that's a proper distance yep and no fun at all and also you know that the minute you you get to england you're running out of fuel keeping an eye on your fuel dial is going to be the most important thing if you get too tangled up in combat well that's the problem you can't get out of it and you're not just enough to get back you can't just go right sorry i've got to go yeah exactly yeah you know you you you go when that engagement ends yeah and he might be trying to fly for your life And then you've got to try and get back across the channel.

Now, there's one Victoria Cross, isn't there?

In the entire Battle of Britain.

16th of August, this is James Nicholson of 249 Squadron, who are operating out of Boscombe Down, which is just north of Salisbury.

He's hit by four cannon shells over Southampton's side.

So is he flying?

A hurricane, isn't he?

Yeah, he's fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So one hits his canopy.

Another is reserve fuel tank in front of the instrument panel.

That's not good.

One hits his foot.

Another one just sort of hits sort of sundry parts of the cockpit.

So he's in a really bad way.

But despite being on fire, he dives down on an ME110 heading towards him and shoots it down.

And then he's preparing to bail out, but he can't get out because of the centrifugal forces and all the rest of it eventually does get out floats down gets shot up the arse by the home guard well at least they've got a gun this you're positive yeah the home guard are armed at this stage of the battle of britain yeah yeah yeah well you know mixed pack but yeah point point taken pilot officer marty king is shot down that day from 249 and he isn't so lucky he's killed and he is flying tom neal's plane this is the point about the slate you know so you this is why you have excess pilots so not everyone is flying all the time you have to have 12 airborne at any one time so 12 people on the slate six per flight, and it might not be your turn.

But there is a sense also that by this stage, the shock of Dunkirk, of the strategic earthquake, of the German victory in France and Low Countries, it's sort of worn off.

You get used to the new normal and people are used to now seeing Germans flying over and you just become kind of acclimatized to it.

And there is a sense that the kind of the panic is eased.

There's this fantastic Daily Express columnist called Hilda Marchant, who sort of takes herself off to the south coast, somewhere in Kent, sort of Ramsgate or somewhere, where she's sort of filing her reports from.

And she writes, Calm?

Of course, it's just a nuisance, is the headline on her column.

And then she writes, People here, the ordinary little householders and shopkeepers, continue their ordinary little lives.

I mean, she's not patronising.

Yeah, I mean, they've got to print that, though, haven't they?

Because they can't print Jesus Christ and here they come again.

Well, no, but...

You know, they're doubling down on it, though.

But there is a sense, I think, that people are.

So the 18th.

Finally, the 18th, Sunday the 18th.

This is a fine day, high summer.

And this is where the Luftwaffe are Sunday are coming over in droves.

And yes, Leutnant Julius Neumann was leading the sixth staffel of JG27, escorting 28 Stukas.

And he's flying yellow six, which is not his usual plane.

Normally he's in yellow three, but it's a bit, there's something wrong, so he's taking yellow six instead.

Because he hasn't got his usual plane, he's forgotten his mascot, which is a mini teddy bear, which his girlfriend had given him.

Fuck.

I see bad luck coming for Leutnant Neumann then.

If he's not got got his mascot with him.

He hasn't.

And they're pounced on by 41 and 601 Squadron, which are hurricanes.

The point is because the escort isn't being flown effectively, they can't help.

So the Hurricanes, again, they cut up the Stukas quite easily, don't they?

Yeah.

And then they end up in Spitfires as well.

Yep.

Neumann chases after one, gets on the tail and opens fire.

Spitfire turns away and then Neumann follows, weaving ever lower and lower and lower till they're kind of over the Isle of Wight.

And eventually he hits the Spitfire, but realizes there's two lots of smoke.

There's a kind of black smoke from the Spitfiber's, also some white smoke, and then he realises it's his.

That obviously he's been hit somewhere along the line.

And the engine's struggling, and he thinks, well, you know, maybe I probably haven't got any chance of getting over the channel.

But then, so he tries to gain height and bail out, but then the engine starts to burst into flames.

And he kind of thinks, yikes, I really do need to get out.

So he calls up the group leader and he says, well, where are you?

And he says, well, I'm over the Isle of Wight and I'm going to have to come down.

So he slides to wheels up, crash lands in a field.

Hits his head, but he's okay.

Gets out.

Thought his meshesmitt 109 looks okay, despite still smoldering.

So he goes back, gets the flare gun, fires two shots into the radio.

And then I talked to him many years later about this episode.

And he said, I suddenly felt rather lonely.

So I took out a cigarette and waited to be taken prisoner, which he was.

He was then picked up by the home car, put on a boat, taken across the Solent, and then put on a train.

And he ended up at Victoria Station.

And there's a very famous photograph.

Yeah.

This sort of, you know, blonde he's sort of striding with his boots and his breeches, looking actually really cool.

Looking the part,

looking the part.

And that was him.

But this is the last Luff I could do, because the weather then steps in.

The best laid plans of Herman Goering, which after all weren't particularly well laid, not only is it not working, but the weather has a vote.

And it shows, doesn't it, that the downing system's working, the way that they are FA able to respond.

And inevitably getting better as people are getting more experienced.

I mean, there's nothing nothing like being involved in the middle of it to kind of sort of hone your skills.

And also Downing is very effectively rotating his squadrons as well.

So

he's making sure that not one squadron is having too much time in the absolute firing line.

So 616 squadron, for example, 616 squadron, which was Cocky Dundas, you know, that moves down on, I think, the 19th of August, while 64 Squadron goes quietly, you know, goes off to a quiet zone.

Yeah.

And it's three days later after that that Cocky Dundas gets hit and has to bail out.

And his brother John in 609 Squadron, who's a middle wallock, writes to him in hospital.

It's just amazing.

He goes, very sorry indeed to hear that a 109, or rather 12 of them, inflicted grievous bodily harm on you.

Mummy sent me a wire yesterday and you were mentioned as wounded in an 11 group intel summary this morning.

I haven't heard any details, but I do hope the damage isn't too bad.

It's very good, isn't it?

Just a spirit, isn't it?

Yeah.

But this means, so between the summary of this fighting, it's between the 8th and the 23rd of August.

Fighter Command, here's the balance sheet.

They've lost 204 aircraft, but more than 300 have been built and 260 have been repaired.

So they're keeping abreast of it.

But at the same time, the Luftwaffe have lost 397 aircraft.

181 of those are 109s and 110s.

But in the whole of August, German aircraft factories have only produced 184 new 109s and 125 110s.

So they're falling behind.

Yeah.

For the whole of August, British factories are producing nearly 500 new fighters.

So they're winning on the production side.

Well, the RF is, yeah.

Yeah, the RAF is.

And

also the pilot

facility so.

Yeah, yeah.

So these figures are quite something, aren't they?

So they lose 104 guys killed in action.

Fighter Commander.

Yeah, in August.

Well, the Luftwaffe lose 623.

That is quite the balance sheet, isn't it?

But don't forget bombers have, you know, more than...

Yeah, yeah, but and a similar number are being taken prisoner.

So these permanent losses is 12 times higher than fighter command.

Yes, and if you've got a material advantage of 2.5 to 1, that's not enough.

The fighting will continue, obviously.

But this is the direction of travel as we get well into August.

And I think we'll be taking you on in the next episode to, well, to...

Well, to phase three, because that's the end of phase two of the Battle of Britain.

Yeah.

Now, this is the true period of attrition coming up.

Last week of August, first week of September.

That's the critical attritional weeks.

But it's fair to say, at the point where the Luftwaffe imagined it would have the upper hand,

it has no such thing.

No.

There we go.

Right.

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Tally ho.

Tally hoe.

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