The Battle Of Britain: Their Finest Hour

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What General Reagan called the Battle of France is over.

I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.

Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our empire.

The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.

If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States,

including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age,

made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty.

So bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealths last for a thousand years, men will still say

this

was their finest hour.

Stirring stuff, Jim.

And of that, of course, was the Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Welcome to We Have Ways of Make You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland.

Welcome to our series that's looking at the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

And those stirring words from Winston Churchill teeing up events, of course, as they're beginning to occur.

Isn't that right, Jim?

Yeah, it certainly is.

And, you know, I've got to say, obviously, when he gave that speech on the 18th of June, that was four days away from the strategic earthquake of the French armistice on the 22nd of June, 1940.

But, you know, it just makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, makes me tingle because this is the daddy.

This is the summer of 1940.

This is the Battle of Britain.

It's the turning point in the war.

Also, from a personal point of view, you know, it might be Arnhem for you, but for me, my heritage myth is Battle of Britain and summer of 1940 and Spitfires and the White Cliffs of Dover and all the rest of it.

Now, this is my entry point for World War II back in the day.

And so I'm very, very excited that we're doing this actually finally a long last in some depth on this, the 85th anniversary.

I think I know why, and I think you know why, but I think it's worth rehearsing the reason that this is such an important moment because France has been defeated in incredibly short order, catching the entire world out.

You know, the Germans have achieved in a matter of weeks what it took them four years to fail to do in the First World War.

Knock France out, knock Britain out of Europe.

And the next thing that Hitler has to do, he has to break Britain to be able to carry on the war the way he wants to carry on the war, which is ultimately, as we all know, to turn on the Soviet Union.

But he can only really do that with any degree of sort of breathing space if Britain's out is the truth.

And the Germans know this.

He knows this.

He can't afford to fight a war on two fronts.

You know, that's the bottom line.

You know, and hovering in the wings on the other side of the Atlantic is the United States of America with all its potential for industrial and material might.

And he knows that.

And this is what's amazing about this speech, because it's absolutely spot on.

You know, the whole fury and might of the enemy must soon be turned upon us.

Well, you know, from an air point of view, yes, that's absolutely correct.

Hitler knows he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.

Yeah, absolutely spot on.

I mean, that is what this is about.

And, you know, and he says, you know, if we fail, the whole world, including the United States and all that we know and cover, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister by the lights of averted science.

Well, you know, Cyclon B is around the corner, it hasn't happened yet, but that's, you know, I mean, how prescient is this?

I mean, it's, it's, it's incredible.

Yeah, and Britain has someone to articulate this at this point, because up to this point, it hasn't had that.

This isn't the Chamberlain style of going about things is it so so this is a speech that's heard by pretty much a 60 of the of the british population via radio one way or another the 65 of people listen to it when it goes out on the 15th of july it's a a big and important moment but obviously this is the war as no one has expected it to pan out, has it?

So whatever preparations the British may have made for an air battle over Britain, this isn't the air battle they've prepared for.

Because back in 1940, March 1940, it's recommended that Fighter Command expand to 60 squadrons.

Everyone agrees on that.

By September 1940, not by the 18th of June 1940, by September 1940.

But it's assumed back in March that the Germans will be kept out of France and the Low Countries and Norway for that matter, which, you know, they're now basically, we've got Germans, German troops and indeed airfields all the way down the coasts immediately opposite Great Britain.

And it's generally been accepted that Luftwaffe bombers would be unescorted.

And therefore, you know, if you've got a half-decent air defense system and a half-decent number of fighters, they're going to get massacred.

But the strategic earthquake of the fall of France and the fall of the Low Countries and indeed Scandinavia that changes everything because suddenly German bombers and dive bombers and fighters can now operate over much of southern England from South Wales to the Humber estuary.

And aircraft threaten northern England and Scotland, which had not really been previously considered, with all those various naval bases and installations up there as well.

So you're expecting your 60 squadrons, which don't even exist in June, to do more than you had originally planned.

This is the strategic disaster that the British state has always tried to prevent happening in Europe, which is the Low Countries and the Channel Coast basically falling into the hands of an aggressive power.

But this is the disaster, the feared, great fear for disaster, strategic disaster, with knobs on because it's plagues, isn't it?

Is it you know, previously it's about controlling the coast for naval reasons, but now this is like this is the absolute on steroids calamity that the British state since Queen Elizabeth has fought to control the Low Countries and keep enemies out.

Churchill with his historic sense knows this.

This is absolutely as bad as it could possibly be.

Right?

Yeah, and I think it's also worth pointing out that they're expecting the kind of, you know, in March 1940, they're expecting the, you know, whatever weight of German bombers come over to England, they're expecting that to cross from Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk across East Anglia.

And now they're not.

They're going to come from across Kent and Sussex so that the German fighter planes can get there with the most amount of fuel still in their bellies.

And that means the emphasis is going to be coming on southeast of England rather than the central part of England.

But the real point about this is they've also lost their army.

I mean, you know, that's been left behind at Dunkirk and all its kit.

Everyone seems to have sort of fallen at the knees of the Nazi regime.

Only Britain stands alone, albeit Britain with dominions and empire and 500 million people.

But they're not in Britain at this moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, and the problem is, is long term, Britain's got pretty good chance because it's got the world's largest navy, world's largest merchant navy, it's got access to the world's oceans, it's got friends all around the world, it's got its empire and dominions and extra imperial assets in South America, etc., etc.

But they're not here now in the third week of June or in the beginning of July, and that's a problem.

And Britain knows that it hasn't got enough fighter planes because they've lost over 350 or whatever it is in France in the fighting in France and over Dunkirk.

They're short of planes, short of pilots, short of absolutely everything, and they're staring down the barrel.

And, you know, one recalls Ralph Richardson in the Battle of Britain movie.

And the terrible thing is, he's right.

You know, we're staring down the barrel and we haven't got a hope.

And that's the sort of the situation.

It's very, very, very tricky situation for Britain at this moment.

So this week,

the week that follows Churchill's speech, so Saturday, the 22nd of June, the French sign the surrender.

And the condition of the surrender signed in that railway carriage at Campaign is, of course, that the French fleet has to be demobilised and disarmed, which basically means handed over to the Germans in the long run.

And this is as calamitous as it could be.

If the Germans can become a naval power by stealing the French navy, by acquiring the French navy, then again, things are going to get a lot more difficult before they get better.

And then the following day, HFS Ark Royal and Hood arrive in Gibraltar.

So capital ships are responding to this.

Aircraft carrier and

heavy cruiser.

And the reason for that is obviously to protect gibraltar which is a british asset but also because much of the french fleet is either in toulon in southern france or in north africa in french owned ports in algiers and iran yeah well so you so you've got the option of bottling them up and then the the monday the 24th of june the oberkommanders this here which is the german army high command order starts saying right let's get ready for preparations against england so things are things are moving very, very quickly.

The fighting ends in France the following day, the 25th of June, and then Wednesday the 26th of June, the important news is that Turkey and Aoshi will remain non-belligerent.

Not getting involved this time.

On the Friday, you have Force H under Admiral Somerville, which is Arkwiles, battleships Valiant and Resolution, the light cruiser and Arathusa.

So the Navy and four destroyers, the Navy's organising itself.

In the Mediterranean, by the way.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the next and that same day, the U.S.

National Defense Act is passed because the Americans are starting to go crikey, we've outsourced our defense policy to Europe and they've gone under.

It's gone under.

What do we do now?

basically and de Gaulle is recognized as leader of the Free French.

This is a week in which lots is happening very, very, very quickly.

Nothing much on the Saturday.

Then on the Sunday, the Germans take the Channel Islands.

Yeah, day off.

Day off.

Yeah, but that's the thing.

Forget about that, man.

The Germans are occupying the Channel Islands.

The British decide that they can't hold them.

There's no point.

So they just give them up.

They hand them over.

And suddenly that is British territory now flying the swastika and all the rest of it.

It's another reminder of just how close the Germans are getting.

It feels like they're kind of closing in on Britain.

And it doesn't matter that you've got all these huge assets in your favour from a British point of view, such as the world's largest navy and all the rest.

This all feels very febrile, very tense,

very, very worrying indeed.

You know, everyone else seems to have fallen at the knees of the Nazis.

Why are we going to stop it?

Why are we going to prevent it too?

I think the other thing, the other thing is something something that's really worth remembering, you know, because we've done podcasts about Dunkirk, about Operation Dynamo, quite a while ago, actually, five years ago for the 80th anniversary and all that sort of stuff.

There are other evacuations going on all over France, in fact.

So there's some cycle southern France, actually.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And nearly another 200,000 men come out.

Yeah.

It's incredible.

Well, including, let's look here, 144,000 British, 18,000 French, 24,352 Poles,

4,938 Czechs, 163 Belgians.

You know, they're all coming over to Blighty.

And on that same day, Goering issues a general directive for the operation of the Luff Affair against England, which means the Luftwaffe is now going to build up its strength for whatever's going to come next in England.

Although, you know,

as we're going to see, the Germans aren't entirely sure whatever comes next in England, but there we are.

And

they've got three Flotter air fleets two three and five who are in Norway and this is the beginning of the of the Germans trying to figure out what it is they're going to do next so that's the last week because they're not they're not really sure they know they're good they've got to attack Britain but that's that's about as far as it goes at this stage and then into into July the German army then under Halder starts planning an invasion and I think this is this is remarkable because you know when you consider that operation yellow falgelb you know case yellow that the the thing the germans did to conquer france was a roll of the dice anyway the whole point was to get it over with as quickly as possible it's the only plan they can come up with that they think will work in the immediate because the germans have to do everything immediately and now here they are planning an invasion i mean it may how i mean how hyped and high on their supply must they have been in german high command at this point i mean how the high fiving relentless high fiving it's extraordinary and then well they wouldn't do that bit would they they'd slap their thighs

And then on the following day, the 2nd of July, Hitler orders preparations to begin for for what's called Operation Sea Lion.

The invasion of the Sea.

Well, although I should add, it's not called Operation Sea Line at this point.

It's lying, he hasn't upgraded the upgraded sea line.

And then 3rd of July, I mean, meanwhile, U-boats are sort of hitting convoys and stuff and

various ships out in the western approaches because all the navy is basically protecting the kind of east coast of England, so none of these none of these convoys and ships, troop ships are protected.

So they're having a field day, what becomes known as the first happy time.

But then on Wednesday, the 3rd of July, you've got Operation Catapult, of course, which is a destruction of the French fleet at Murs, El-Kabir, and Iran.

This is to neutralize the French fleet and stop it from going over

the German side.

And they've warned the French and said, come on over, just hand them over to us or

come to friendly ports and work on our part and everything will be fine.

But they don't.

And so they open fire and nearly 1,300 French sailors are killed.

It's a terrible moment, you know, for people like James Somerville, who's the admiral in charge of this.

I mean, you know, he's mates of all these guys, with all these brother French commanders, so it's a terrible moment.

But it also shows that the British are not going to roll over and that they've got a ruthless streak, too.

Yeah.

Hitler, then, by the sixth, on the sixth, he returns in triumph to Berlin.

And, you know, you've got the feeling that the hope in Germany actually that the war will be over soon.

There's certainly the public feeling that maybe this is it, maybe this is it, that actually things are going to end.

Because the German public have been ambivalent at best about the war.

Things happening very fast works well politically for Hitler, whereas things being drawn out might not.

There is this sort of political imperative within Germany to get a result sooner rather than later, isn't there?

With the public.

The Nazis are many, many things, but they do keep very close tabs on public opinion and try and watch the barometer of public opinion when they're deciding what to do next.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think

there is a huge point that Hitler is

completely thrown by this.

I mean, the speed process is just beyond all his wildest hopes.

And now he doesn't really know what to do.

But

he's a continentalist, because he's a landlord, and for him, the army is the most important thing.

He's not looking at Britain's dilemma through their eyes.

He's looking at it through the prism of his own kind of worldview.

And his worldview is, surely they're going to come to the peace table because they're defeated.

Well, they're not actually defeated because they've got a very small army and they've got a very large, large navy, and they're an island and they've got the sea in between and you know, and all the rest of it.

So, there's lots of reasons not to.

And he just can't see it.

So, he's but he also doesn't want to have to make a decision against Britain because there's a part of him that's also thinking, Britain should be on our side.

We don't want to have to fight against Britain because actually, we're not that strong.

You know, we've managed to sort of wing it so far and got away over.

And everyone thinks that we're this huge sort of military bail-off.

But actually,

you know, a big long drawn-out fight against Britain with America and they'll have that.

That's not cool.

So, hopefully, they'll just sue for peace because, you know, you could see him vacillating and prevaricating the whole time in this process.

You know, so he's now sort of letting Britain stew and then he's going to make them an offer, which they'd be mad not to accept.

But really, what he's really, that's what he's saying.

But what he's really doing is he's just delaying having to make a decision because he doesn't know what to do for the best.

Yeah.

He's on the horns of his own dilemma and his own personality, in fact, is part of his dilemma.

On the 10th at the Berghoff, he calls commanders together to hear views and points.

Yeah, so he does his big triumph in Berlin on the 6th.

You know, million people, million flags, all the rest of it, everyone waving and cheering.

Then he buggers off to the Berkhoff, which is his favorite place in the world.

It's his house that he's bought and expanded in the early 1930s on the kind of foothills

of the mountains overlooking Berkesgarden.

It's right on the kind of southwest corner of Bavaria.

bordering Austria and Salzburg is just around the corner in Austria.

And this is where he goes.

He loves this place.

And this is where you can get a bit of calm and sort of beautiful mountain air and all the rest of it.

But this is where he gets all his commanders to come and present to him.

And it's a very, very odd situation because they have the OKW, which inherently is a good idea, which is the Oberkommander de Wehrmacht, which is a kind of a tri-service, Army, Navy, Air Force high command.

But there is no sense of joint planning.

So he just gets all his service chiefs to come and present to him their plans for the invasion of Britain.

And

they're all obviously completely contradictory.

So, first up is Gross Admiral Rader and the Kriegsmarine, and Rader's very nervous about this.

He thinks the invasion should be a last resort.

He's worried about clearing enough mines in the channel, suggests landing on a very, very narrow strip.

And, you know, says we don't have any landing craft, so getting the means, the barges to take the troops across is going to be a problem.

He's calling it Operation Lion at this point.

Then two days later, on the 12th of July, is Yodel's appreciation.

And Jodel is at the AKW.

He's the head of kind of chief of staff

of the Open Commander de Vermacht.

He says, Well, you know, Britain's on its knees.

The situation is hopeless.

Of course, they're going to see sense.

But on the other hand, if Britain does stubbornly hold out, then we'll have to destroy the RAF.

But we also need to stifle Britain's economy.

So U-boats are going to be important and bombing raids and so on.

And once we've done that, then we'll have a landing.

And obviously, destruction of the RAF is a prerequisite.

I mean, the way Jodel tells it, it all just sounds so simple.

I mean, it's interesting, though, because then on the 13th, you get von Braukich and Halder, who come from France, and they say it's, oh, it's a river crossing.

We'll treat it like a large river crossing.

They're sort of completely hair-brained approach.

And Halder says the Fuhrer is going to be puzzled by Britain's persisting.

How's the chief of staff of the army?

Yeah, persisting unwillingness to make peace.

He sees the answer as Vito in Britain's hoping Russia and therefore counts on having to compel her by main forces to agree to peace.

What's interesting here is these service chiefs, they're all coming to pitch because Hitler has no strategy.

So they're trying to fill in the blanks

and

offer him what they think they can do.

There's no one saying, right, this is what we're going to do next, so tell me how to achieve it.

It's just like, what you got for me?

And you can see the prevarication of Hitler because

he also expresses his concern that if Britain collapses, then so too would our empire, which would then only benefit Japan and the USA.

And Japan is not part of the Axis until the 1st of September 1940.

So at this point, isn't.

Then that?

How does that leave him?

So he's kind of hedging his, you know, he just doesn't know what to do.

So on the 15th of July, it's the turn of Admiral Canaris, who is the head of the ABVEB, the Army, Navy, and Air Force Secret Service Intelligence.

And Gerhard Engel is

the Army ADC.

He keeps a diary throughout all this time.

It's fascinating, by the way.

And he goes, My impression is that Fuhrer is now more irresolute than ever and does not know what to do next.

Clearly, he doesn't.

I mean,

what do you make of that?

so on the 16th of July Hiller issues directive number 16 on preparations for Atlantic operation against England and it's now called Operation Sea Lion and he also announces that he's going to make his peace offer speech from the Kroll Opera House in Berlin on the evening of the 19th of July I mean, it's just amazing, isn't it?

He goes, he leaves the Bergoff, he goes back to back to Berlin, the Kroll Opera House.

There, there's this huge occasion.

He awards awards various people with promotions.

So, Goering is promoted to Reichsmarschall, which, as we've said before, is the world's only sixth-star general.

Yeah, Hesselring, Milch,

Spurler, they're all made film marshals.

Goering has a new uniform made of soft light grey, and his valet questions this and says the fabric is a woman's fabric.

And Goering goes, If I wear it, then it's for men.

The British are listening, of course, to this.

And Hitler says eventually...

I feel obliged, yes, in this hour by my conscience to direct one more appeal to reason to England.

I believe I can do this not as someone who was defeated, but as a victor.

I see no compelling reason for this continuation of this war.

But basically, there's nothing in it.

The British government listened to it.

It's got no content.

It's certainly not going to move things.

in any meaningful direction.

So the war cabinet go, right, fine, well.

Where's the Hitler of the old days?

You know, where's the rousing, you know, the rabble rousing?

Where's the spittle?

Where's the kind of, you know,

none of it.

You know, it's a real damn squib.

The thing is, who would know what to do in this situation?

Because this situation is totally out of anyone's expectations.

Just as the British are going, Christ is going to be a good one.

Well, out of his comfort zone.

Everyone's desperately, furiously trying to second guess.

I mean, that's the truth of it.

But anyway, so the British decide to just ignore it entirely.

Then at the War Cabinet, the following day, they kind of think, well, okay, we've got to do some kind of response.

So this is just brilliant because anyone who's listened to our

series that we did on Dunkirk and the five days in May will know that Churchill and Halifax had a bit of a spat about whether they should, you know, Halifax wanting to kind of, you know, potentially pursue peace feelers and Churchill saying, absolutely no way.

So he now decides that it is Halifax who needs to reply to this

speech.

And as it happens, Halifax is due to make a routine broadcast on the evening of the 22nd of July of the BBC.

So he does it then.

And so emphatically rejects the peace officer, and that is that.

And Hitler, meanwhile, heads off to the Breyerut Opera Festival because he loves a bit of Wagner.

He loves his Wagner.

But meanwhile, things have already been happening in the air and across the channel.

So when we come back after the break, we shall be looking at that.

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Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk.

And the air is beginning to, well, fill up with German aircraft base, isn't it, Jim?

Well, it is and German pilots too, who are writing diaries at this time, and not least, Oberleitnant Sikri Betke, who is from the first group of Jagdgeschwader 2, JG2.

Jaggeschwader being being fighter, fighter.

It's not a group, it's like a sort of like a big group.

Anyway, on the 12th of July, 1940, he jots in his diary.

Day off, outside on the field.

Fantastic weather today with beautiful cloud formations.

A cold front.

Wolfgang, next to me, is now my dock.

He used to be Hoffmann's.

No one knows anything.

Apparently negotiations are under way.

The large scale concentration of troops for action is apparently completed.

Supplies and everything else are apparently in order.

In Germany, apparently, thousands of simple ten man boats with small auxiliary engines are being built for the invasion.

All rumours.

What is really happening?

Bomb attacks from both sides every day and night.

A few days ago, twelve Blenims heading heading towards Stavangar shot down all of them.

Yesterday, seven Blenheims heading towards Amiens, all shot down.

But always without us.

There's quite a lot going on in that little Darientary, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, yes,

he's saying he doesn't believe a word anyone's saying.

But I mean, you might live in a world of rumor when you've just knocked France over the previous month and you don't know what's going to happen next.

It's quite clear that

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

Because at the top they're in a funk, and the funk has found its way all the way down to

pilots and aircrew in the

yes.

And it's the usual thing that

the guys who are having to do

the action are the last people to know what the hell is going on.

I mean, that's what's happening.

I mean, he's been moved up to, JG2 has been moved up to Normandy.

So they are now at

Bedker is at Beaumont-la-Roger, which is, I think, if I'm rightly kind of east of Corn.

Officially,

the Battle of Britain starts on the 10th of July, 1940.

But as Dowding, Commander-in-Chief of RAF Fighter Command, who wrote the dispatch, which provided those dates, pointed out, the Battle of Britain, as far as he's concerned, starts on the 3rd of September 1959.

Anyway, be that as it may, the point is there is no precise day when

things start happening, but things are already happening.

Come on, Chip.

July.

We're going to pick a day and we're going to stick to it.

And there will be no controversy about when the Battle of Britain starts.

I'm going to say the 3rd of July then, 1940, because that is the day that convoy

OA178, which is an ocean-going convoy of 14 ships heading to Nova Scotia from London, plus a whole load of local coasters, which makes going through the channel 53 ships in all.

They sail from Southend on the 3rd of July.

They pass through the Straits of Dover overnight, but by dawn, the French coast is still in sight, and the convoy starts to get absolutely hammered.

I mean, really hammered.

And then again, on the 4th of July, yeah, that well, that is the 4th of July because it's moving out overnight.

So early in the morning, 33 Stuka dive bombers then dive bomb Portland as well and Dorset coast.

So, they've moved around the kind of you know the leg of Kent.

And HMS Foilbank is an auxiliary anti-aircraft ship, which is hit repeatedly and they keep firing.

Leading seaman Jack Mantle stays on his pom-pom shooting down a Stuka despite being severely wounded.

Yeah, later later dies of his wounds and get a VC.

Uh, um, loads of people are killed.

The convoy is near Portland by the afternoon and blitzed again.

And then, overnight, on the 4th, 5th of July, S-Boots, Schnellbuter, which are these sort of very, very fast, kind of 40-plus-knots wooden torpedo boats, attack the convoy too.

And in all, five ships are sunk, 11 damaged, five further damaged in Portland Harbour.

You know, it's a 30% loss rate.

And off that moment, it's decided that no more Asian going convoys are going to be passing through the

Straits of the English Channel anymore.

And, you know, and that's a big moment.

And they can only be attacked because by this point, there are already sufficient Stukas at French airfields, you know, captured French airfields in northern France and the Low Countries.

Yeah.

So it's already starting to happen.

I think that makes a strong case for the Battle of Britain starting then.

Well, let's say the 4th of July, because they're going overnight on the 13th catalyst.

I mean, yes, exactly.

I mean,

Goering orders Richthof and 8th Air Corps to start attacking Channel C traffic on the 2nd that's the it's let's say the start of july we

come on let's just let's just call it it's definitive what i now need to do is go back to my battle britain book chop it in half and reissue it starting in july

it's actually not a bad idea anyway from then on you know every day you the numbers are starting to increase so it's interesting looking at the the casualties i think gives you a sort of indication so so ref and this is not just fighter command by the way this is casualties across our board.

So it's also including the Lenims that going on.

On Wednesday, the 10th of July, the official day of the start of the Battle of Britain, but not official for us, REF have, they lose two air crew killed and two aircraft shot down.

Left waifer, 29 air crew killed and 11 aircraft shot down.

But Jim, you can see why Downing might have picked that day for the start of the Battle of Britain, because it's because the odds are very much like RAF's doing well that day, right?

You know what I mean?

I guess so.

Yeah, I guess.

But on it goes.

And I think you're absolutely right.

This is the drip, drip, drip, drip of attrition and of the two air forces sort of figuring each other out and figuring out what they're going to do.

You know, as you say, on the 11th, there's more shipping attacks.

The RAF lose three air crew, six aircraft.

The Luftwaffe lose 41 air crew with seven aircraft.

I mean, that's...

It's a lot.

It's a lot.

That's steep, isn't it?

Well, it is in the context of the wider picture, yeah.

And on the 12th, which is when Siegfried Betke was writing his diary entry, it's the RAF lose four air crew, five aircraft.

The Luftwaffe, 28 air crew, and nine aircraft.

So, and if you can, the other thing to remember is the Luftwaffe's been at it since May the 10th.

You know, no one's stopped.

The tempo of operations for the Luftwaffe has been relentless

since the start of the campaign in northwest Europe in France.

So it feels to a lot of these guys, it's just a continuation.

The interesting thing is, so Stukas are attacking whatever shipping they're finding in the channel.

It's mainly Stukas at this point.

There are a few Junckers 88s, but most of the heavy bombers haven't arrived at this stage.

They're in the process of moving up.

And Luftflotter 5, Air Fleet 5 is moving up to Norway.

It's already there, really, pretty much.

Luftflotter 2 is the largest by far, and that is in northern France.

And then Luftwaffe 3 under Spurler, so Kesselring is commander of Luftwaffe 2 in Normandy.

No, Sperler, sorry, is 5, isn't he?

So it takes time to get all these planes up.

But the Stukas are attacking shipping.

So they're trying to sort of goad the fighter planes out.

You know, as they're coming in, they don't want to give the British any respite.

It's not the all-out attack yet, but this is kind of sort of needling operations.

Let's kind of sort of chip away as much as we possibly can while we're waiting for the full-scale attack.

We're waiting for the Fuhrer to announce his plans, et cetera, et cetera.

And we're getting ready for the kind of all-out assault.

And let's do that by kind of chipping away at the British by attacking shipping in the channel.

You know, that's a good use of our bombs and our stukard dive bombers.

At the same time, the British are thinking, well, if they're attacking our shipping, we've got to sort of defend them.

But on the other hand, you know, Keith Park, who is the commander of 11 Group, which covers the southeast of England, and Dowding, who is the commander-in-chief of RAF Fighter Man, whose task, after all, is to defend England.

You know, they're thinking, well, you know, we don't want to waste our planes.

over the channel where you know they bail out there in the drink and might not be recovered again and secondly you know we don't want to waste any any planes now on operations that we we don't need to fly.

So the question is, is why are they responding at all?

And the reason is, is because we still need these East Coast convoys.

Why do we need these East Coast convoys?

Because it's the movement of oil and foodstuffs and, you know, the general kind of sort of day-to-day operations of the country.

They haven't abandoned the East Coast convoys at this point.

But to limit the damage, Keith Park, the commander-in-chief of 11 Group covering South East England, has ordered that only flights go out.

So flight is six.

So

a British squadron would you'd have 12 airborne at any one time divided into A flight and B flight, which is then divided into sectors.

You're sending out two flights of two sections of three, one flight of six.

That's how they're sending them out.

It's trying to minimise the number of planes, because obviously the more planes you say them over, there's always a proportion are going to be injured and attacked and hit.

That's the theory behind it.

And they've been training in flights rather than squadrons up to this point because they're inventing the techniques they need to defend the country anyway.

So

the flight within the squadron is the sort of standard unit of people who can fly coherently together.

Because there are limitations of what they could do with the radio technology they've got as well.

But again, look at the losses of the RAF.

You know, 14th of July, one pilot killed, one plane shot down.

Monday, the 15th of July, no pilots killed, two planes lost.

16th of July, one pilot killed, one plane lost.

17th of July, one pilot lost, one plane lost.

I mean, you know, so

it's not excessive.

But the ratios on both those last two days are one to four.

So the RAF lose one for the Luftwaffe

losing four.

And the same again on the 17th of July.

And that'll do.

That's a cost they're prepared to bear.

Yeah, because in the same way that the, you know, so the question is, is, so why are RF, why is Fighter Command responding to this?

Because they're trying to chip away at the Luftwaffe as well.

In the exact same way that the Luftwaffe is trying to chip back.

You know, whatever they can shoot down now, they're not going to have the Germans then aren't going to have for the main attack when they know it, you know, when the British know it's going to come so it's a kind of it's it's it's a fine line it's a balance and this is why you get not very many Spitfires and Hurricanes taking on the Luftwaffe in July 1940 but things are picking up and it's interesting on the 17th of July Churchill visits the south coast and this is where that famous picture of him is taken with holding the tommy gun with the bowler hat and the you know and the and the and the cigar and all the rest of it and that's one of Colonel Raymond Lee but at the time Jim, that's one of the six Tommy guns in the country, basically, isn't it?

That's the unfortunate truth.

Yeah, but

it's all about image.

It's all about impressions.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Gives a notion that we've got lots of submachine guns.

Anyway, he's accompanied by Colonel Raymond Lee, and he is the U.S.

military attaché.

Lee keeps a very, very good diary, which is fascinating.

He's an Anglophile.

He's a big fan, and he thinks that somehow Britain's going to hold on.

And so he's an antidote to the American Ambassador Joe Kennedy, father of JFK and RFK.

Yes.

Yes.

And he writes in his diary: every day that he puts it off is immensely valuable.

He's talking about Hitler here.

And I should say that in another three weeks, the coastline will be nearly impregnable to ordinary attack.

It's like, hooray, you know, because what he's seeing is, you know, coils of barbed wire and mines.

And the truth is, by the kind of third week of July, there's 1.3 million troops in Britain, including the local defence volunteers, which will in August become the Home Guard, as well as 22,000 Canadians already, 16,000 Aussies and Kiwis of New Zealand.

And the monthly intake from conscription is about 50,000.

So, you know, literally every hour that passes is good news for Britain's chances.

Although, they might have the numbers, but they haven't got the kit.

That's the problem.

Yeah.

And they certainly don't have the guns.

I mean, there's only in June, there's only 35, 25 pounders produced at all.

So, yeah, yeah, there are some shortcomings.

But, I mean, he's right, though.

Lee is right.

Every day it's put off is, you know, a step ahead for the British.

Every day they delay.

You'll get through the summer and the weather will get worse.

There's all that to consider as well if you're trying to cross the channel.

But the shipping attacks are carrying on.

Well, yes, and there are

these little markers of increased intensity.

And one of those, it's quite a major marker, actually, is the 19th of July.

It's the same day that Hitler makes his peace offer at the Kroll Opera House in Berlin.

But there's fierce activity on Dover.

You know, this is Stukas coming over and attacking shipping in the ports.

And, you know, Defiance of 141 squadron is still in operation.

You know, the Defiance haven't been kicked out of the battle yet.

And they're absolutely hammered.

And just after noon, the RDF stations, which we'll come to in our next episode, RDF being radar,

they detect signs of enemy concentrations.

And by 12:15, the Stukas are already attacking two destroyers in Dover Harbour.

The defending fighters only leave the ground at around 12:20.

And this is 111 squadron of Hurricanes and 141 squadron in Defiance.

And the Defiance are actually ordered to go and fly straight to Cap Grinet at 5,000 feet to go and hammer the German fighters and the Stukas, but they're spotted by 109s.

141 squadron claims to have shot down four 109s, but this is pretty unlikely, to be fair.

Whatever was the score, there was only one lesson to be learned, writes the official history of the Battle of Britain, and that is that it was folly to send a turret fighter, such as a Defiant, into action in an area in which it might meet the 109.

What the Defiant is, right?

Anyone who's listening to this, I mean, I know someone on our Patreon, a listener of many years, will know exactly what the Bolton Pole Defiant is, but basically, this is a fighter that at a glance looks like a Hurricane.

It's got a Merlin engine, it's got that

same kind of wing shape, but what it's got behind the pilot is a gun turret with four machine guns in that can rotate and be aimed at passing targets or whatever.

And the problem with that is the turret is very, very, very heavy.

It's extremely slow.

It hasn't got any forward-firing guns.

So it can't line up behind something and give it a squirt.

You're reliant on the guy behind the pilot there and busted flush.

So you can see how the designers are thinking this might be a good idea.

Hey, tell you what, have a fast modern monoplane.

It can do 300 miles an hour a stretch.

But the great thing is rather than just having machine guns pointing one way, this one he can move wherever you want.

What's not to like?

Well, what's not to like is it's not fast enough.

It's not mobile enough.

You can't bring the guns to bear and they get slaughtered every time they they venture forth, which is exactly what happens on this occasion.

So, you know, two Defiants are immediately shot down in the first engagement, seven more in the ensuing melee.

So, you know, they're on their way trying to get to Cap Green A.

In fact, they're just falling in droves over Dover Harbour.

111 Squadron joins two late, although does claim three 109s.

Only three Defiance return.

Four pilots are killed, two wounded, six air gunners killed in action.

Two days later, 141 Squadron of Defiance is moved from the Biggin Hill sector to Presswick, and it's followed on the 24th

by the only other Defiance squadron.

And that is the Defiance gone from the Battle of Britain.

Oh, that's, you know, because, I mean, it does look like a plane a six-year-old, seven-year-old would design.

It's got Turry on it.

That day of disaster for the Defiance, the Luftwaffe lose more aircrew than the RAF.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it carries on

attacks on the shipping.

They're really focusing on the kind of, you know, the narrow stretch of the channel between Dover and Cap Grinet in the Pas de Calais.

They're concentrating what they're capable of.

And it makes a lot of sense to attack shipping.

You know, this is, after all, what Rader has recommended, that you attack shipping and

you disrupt Britain's maritime trade.

Actually, on the face of it, it's pretty sensible, isn't it?

Yes, and

in the meantime, you know, the build-up of the Luftwaffe is continuing in the Pas de Calais, in airfields in the Low Countries, in Holland and Belgium, in northern France, and in Normandy, and indeed even on the Channel Islands, now that

they've got control of the Channel Islands.

Hitler, for the first time, mentions an earlier attack on Russia than originally planned, originally sort of talking 1943, 1944, something like that.

He now mentions, well, maybe we need to do this sooner.

And on the same day, Sunday, the 21st of July, that is the first major Luftwaffe planning conference that Goering holds for the attack on England, which is held at Karanhall, which is his great big mansion kind of to the northeast of Berlin in the woods up there.

And at this conference, where he has all his senior commanders there, he's quite specific about instructions for his fighters.

You know, he goes, putting the majority of the fighters and the Store close to the bomber formations will prevent them from being used as effectively as they might.

They would be unable to achieve their full fighting capability and would inevitably have high losses.

He couldn't have been clearer about this point.

In other words, what he's saying is, You can't have your fighter planes doing close escorts of the bombers.

What you need is you need your fighter planes to operate at their max speed, max capability.

That is the way to use your fighters.

And on this, he's absolutely spot on.

But anyone who's listening to this episode and future episodes in this series, hold on to that thought because he might change his mind.

This is the signature of the entire battle, isn't it?

It's that

he can't change his mind because he can't make his mind up.

His boss can't make his mind up, so he can't make his mind up, so the people below him can't make their minds up.

No one can make their minds up.

But the British have made their minds up about how they're going to defend britain so you end what you have is this sort of constant churn of indecision against actually a set of people who've decided what they're going to do and how they're going to improve it as they go forward whereas the germans don't get the chance even to improve what they're doing because they keep changing their minds exactly and the airfighting continues while all this is going on while there's all the prevaricating is going on little loan raids little stookers going on you know so for example you know 87 squadron for fighter command they're flying hurricanes they're based at exeter in the southwest And at 5 a.m., you know, they're up having, waiting for their breakfast.

They're having a little nap before Brecca.

And suddenly they're told that a patrol is needed over Lundy Island.

Roland B.

Beaumont, who is a pre-war pilot, has served in France in Hurricanes in 87 Squadron, survived and got back home again.

You know, he is one of three to take off.

And they're just clear the Devon coast when they spot a JU-88, a single JU-88 twin-engine bomber.

And Beaumont's two colleagues, who are Rob Vosjeff and Harry Mitchell, they head off towards towards it for a gap in the clouds.

But Biemont dives to the left of the cloud, hoping to cut off the Junkers and ends up right behind it as he comes out of the cloud, ahead of Vose, Jeff, and Mitchell.

So he opens fire at just 200 yards.

Pretty soon, the rear gunner on the Junkers 88 starts firing, and then smoke starts streaming from the plane.

And the JU-88 arcs downwards in a gentle dive, and Bemont follows it as it crosses back over the coast.

You know, he thinks no crew can ever escape, but then suddenly he sees one parachute blossom, and a moment later, it's kind of, you know, the pilot is touching the ground just as the Juncker's 88 is hitting the ground and sliding across a field through a hedge.

Then the back of it is broken and catches fire.

But as B.

B.

Mont circling around him, he's watching all the rest of the crew.

clamber out and then sees an old Morris truck trundle towards it and the ALDV, the local defense volunteers, get out and round up the crew.

And as B.

Beamont noted,

we return to breakfast with a considerably stimulated appetite.

But I think it's a nice little vignette that, because it demonstrates a different type of engagement that's going on.

You know, lone raiders, this is the Luftwaffe trying to find out what's going on.

It's kind of part reconnaissance mission.

It's trying to find targets.

They're kind of probing away, trying different things.

While the Stukas are kind of, you know, attacking Harriage or Dover or whatever or Southend.

These lone planes are also going on.

And also, more and more Luftwaffe fighter planes are reaching the front.

So on the same day, 24th of July, Gunther Rahl, who ends up becoming the third highest ace ever in the history of aviation, with 275 kills by the time the wars end.

But this point in July 1940, he's very much kind of sort of new to this game.

And he's part of the third group of Jagdgeschwader 52, JG 52.

And they reached Kokel in the Padakale on the 22nd July.

And from there, he can see the white cliffs.

And Kokel is another very hastily built rough field.

You know, these are all having to be carved out of farmland immediately.

You know,

the rye has been cut by a resentful farmer.

A small hay barn has been turned into an ops room.

But the field isn't remotely flat.

There's a big ridge in the middle of it.

And from where you take off on one side to the other side, you can't see the other side.

You know, so it's quite substantial.

And taking off in a mass scramble, that makes that very, very difficult.

It's also very difficult in a plane like a MetroSmit 109, which is quite sensitive to take off and land in.

By the 24th of July, they've only had one orientation flight, but be that as it may, at one o'clock, they're ordered to 2,000 meters, so that's about 6,000 feet, to join Stukas of 1 STG2 over Boulogne at 1.20.

So they do that.

It's a great drizzly day.

And they've been ordered to escort the Stukas.

So not operate at their own speed, but close escort them, which goes exactly against what Goering had said just three days earlier.

No one's happy about it.

They're all really grumpy about it.

And, you know, Raul, like every other fighter pilot, believes the best way to protect the bombers, such as the Stukas, is to fly ahead with height and speed and clear the air ahead of them.

So why are they not doing that?

Well, because at a localised level, the bomber commanders seem to have the kind of higher rank and they're issuing the orders and saying, no, no, no,

we want to be close escorted.

You know, they've just got their tactics wrong.

Anyway, they meet up with the Stukas, they fly over at just 160 miles per hour.

I mean, the 109s are almost kind of falling out of the sky.

Then suddenly with no warning at all, the Spitfires are all over the place, you know, and these are from 610 and 54 Squadron, you know, pouncing on them as the Stukas attacking Dover Port.

And, you know, and in seconds, Rawl's group at, you know, Schwamm of Finger 4, which is the formation in which they fly, you know, they're all separated.

There's no question at all of protecting the Stukas.

They're all looking after themselves and trying to kind of get out of the melee.

And as he noted in his diary, Rawl Rawl wrote, the Tommy has caught us just as we had feared, like proverbial clay pigeons.

You know, and several pilots are missing.

So they get back home, back to Cokel on their bumpy airfield, rough airfield.

The seventh Staffel commander, Herbert Furmer, and one of the pilots, Eric Frank, they're both missing.

Also gone is the grouper commander, Wolf Dietrich von Heivald.

Von Heivald and Frank are both washed up in Dunkirk a few days later.

And Roll's own H Staffel commander, Lovar Ehrlich, is also gone.

You know, so he's only 22 years old, and he's now told to take command of the H Staffel.

You know, and they just can't understand how the Spitfires had known how to find them because, of course, it wasn't like this in Poland and France.

And the reason is because the Luftwaffe Intelligence is absolutely dreadful.

And it's rotten for lots of reasons, but principally good old-fashioned Nazi reasons, isn't it?

Which are that

you've got the wrong man in the wrong job, which is a fellow called Herbert Josef Beppo-Schmidt, who's a beer hall putsch thug.

He's a good laugh.

He's one of Nazi.

Exactly.

He's one of Goering's cronies.

He doesn't do foreign languages, but he's, you know, he's been in the the punch-ups back in the old days.

Goering also, as well as having him running his intelligence, Goering has his own intelligence service called the Forschungsumt, which is actually just for him spying on his rivals.

And Hitler lets that go.

And then you've also got...

The official intelligence source, which is 3rd Ab Teilung under General Martini, who's handling Sigil's intelligence.

And then 5th Ab Teilung are also there supposed to get foreign Air Force intelligence.

Yeah, so Schmidt is the head of the FIFA Thailand, but because he's on Goering's personal staff, even though he's a pal, he's more important than Martini, who is a general.

And, you know, you couldn't have someone less qualified for this task of picking up foreign intelligence of information on foreign air forces because he doesn't speak any other languages.

He's built on a thing called Study Blau, which is from 39, which has been prepared by Milk, who'd been to Britain and had a look at what was going on and had been writing to British booksellers to get extra info.

Dear Waterstones.

Dear Wassersteiner.

You know, again, the harebrain naivety at the heart of it.

But basically, Schmidt presents this picture on the 16th of July.

And obviously...

Yeah, yeah, but isn't it interesting that it's him that's presenting this picture for the intelligence situation, you know, his intelligence report on the British Air Forces.

you know, even though he's a colonel and Martini is a general.

I mean, it's just bonkers.

But be that as it may.

That's how it works, right?

And

he says that the RAF of 675 spitfires and hurricanes so he's not far off but he doesn't know about what's in place

this is a spoolpot figure he's he's plucked that out of nowhere by the way yeah yeah it looks like it looks like that sounds about right and he doesn't know that the british have a thing in place called the civilian repair organization he doesn't know about shadow factories and all the stuff that the british have in place to produce new aircraft he also is thinking in terms of airframes rather than people because after all you know the planes the planes are are one thing it's the pilots that that are another.

And in fact, that's where the pinch comes for the RAF, is in terms of personnel.

And he claims that the Meshersmid 110, the Zestura, the destroyer, is superior to the Hurricane, which is an optimistic way of

looking at things.

And most importantly,

he does not know that the RAF's in its commands, which are coastal command, fighter command, bomber command, training command, he doesn't know about any of that.

And the thing he really doesn't know about is the air defense system.

There's no mention of it at all.

I mean,

it is just extraordinary.

And the interesting thing about it, he also claims that the RAF structure and organization is rigid and inflexible.

It's just bizarre because basically...

The opposite of what he says, apart from the kind of rough approximate number of split fires and hurricanes, literally everything he says is incorrect.

It's just really, really interesting.

And his conclusion is this.

The Luftwaffe is clearly superior to the RAF as regards strength, equipment, training, command, and location of bases.

Wow.

You know, and actually, the bases are a huge advantage for the RF because they're widespread, you know, which means you've got to attack, you know, they're all over the place.

The other thing is, these are RAF prepared positions with the infrastructure and everything that goes with them prepared and ready, whereas the Luftwaffe

has had to rush to France to set itself up in a great hurry.

So everything's inadequately sourced and resourced.

There's a lot to be said for the fact that the Germans have absolutely no idea what they're getting themselves into, isn't there, at this stage of the war.

Thank God for that.

I mean, the thing is, though, their their intelligence about,

you know, about the state of the French army before Case Yellow is crap too, right?

But they get lucky.

Whereas here they are winging it and they get it wrong.

Yeah.

Which is fascinating.

Yep.

Yep.

By the end of July, you know, convoys are still being hammered.

Flights are still being sent out to intercept the raiders as they're attacking these convoys.

Everyone's getting pissed off.

I mean, 609 Squadron, for example, based at Middle Wallop.

They go down to Forward base at Warnwell, which is in Dorset, it's just near Dorchester.

You know, they're losing men and they kind of think, well, you know, what's the point?

Why are we doing this?

You know, why are we losing men when we're not actually really achieving very much?

And, you know, it's clear that, you know, Dowding, the commander-in-chief of Fighter Command, is also worried.

You know, accidents are adding to the casualty list.

You know, they're about a third in all of, you know, exhausted pilots are no good to anyone.

And he's quite right.

So he orders at the end of July that all pilots must have at least eight hours rest per day and 28 and 24 hours leave a week.

And it's soon after that, he introduces 48 hours every two weeks for pilots.

And that's one of the reasons why you need more than 12 pilots in a squadron.

You need 20 to 24 because you always need 12 to be in the air at any one time.

And this means 10 to 12 pilots per flight of six.

So that's your 20 to 24 pilots per squadron.

You know, there's lots of people who sort of go, well, I was annoyed.

I wasn't on the slate, or I was relieved, I wasn't on the slate for flying that morning.

And that means you've got this sort of little bit of wiggle room, a bit of sort of redundancy.

Redundancy, that's exactly the word.

But no such concessions in the Luftwaffe,

I hasten to add.

So this combat continues at this kind of intensity until the end of July, really, doesn't it?

With the RAF essentially generally maintaining the upper hand every day in terms of numbers.

And by the end of July, this is very interesting, isn't it?

Because the RAF have lost 91 aircraft, 68 aircrew.

The Luftwaffe have lost twice as many aircraft, 185, and 348 aircrew are lost, killed.

And this is for the month where things haven't got going yet.

You know, the direction of travel, if you're the Luftwaffe, is not good, right?

No, it's not good.

And what we'll do in our next episode is we'll actually look at the organisation of both, both fighter command and the British air defense system, which is new and untested.

And also what the Germans have got.

We've talked a bit about their intelligence and their woeful intelligence, but let's have a look at their other structures.

And then we'll go back into kind of what becomes the end of the first phase, which is leading up to the 7th of August, 1940, and then what becomes known as the second phase, which is, of course, is the great launch of the attack of the eagles, Adler Angriff, which begins wholeheartedly or damn squibbly, depending on which way you look at it, on the 13th of August, 1940, which, of course, is Adler Tag, Eagle Day.

But that's all to come.

That is very much the kind of the scene setter, I would say.

And we've got a bit more scene setting to do in our next episode as we look at how these these two sides are organizing themselves.

And let me tell you, it's quite different.

So, we'll see you for our next episode.

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We'll see you soon.

Cheerio.

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