The Battle Of Britain: Black Saturday

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During the first week of September, I was a very wide man.

I was a very wide man because I was short of pilots.

That was the thing that worried me.

Frankly, I was never worried about the supply of aircraft.

Pilot shortage was my main problem.

The reason that I spent every afternoon from after I thought the main attacks were over at four or five o'clock.

I went out to the Northolt airdrome every day in the week and climbed into my old hurricane and flew around some of the aerodromes every day, seven days a week, in order to talk to the pilots, flight commanders, squadron commanders, to see how they were standing the strain.

Because I was caning them.

I was working them to the limit of their physical and mental capacity.

That, of course, was Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park reflecting on the dark days of September during the Battle of Britain.

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

And our Battle of Britain series continues.

Episode 5, Black Saturday, clues in the name.

I mean, the thing is, James, let's be honest now, we've, I think, in recent episodes kind of said that the Battle of Britain, one way or or another, is a foregone conclusion, that the Dowding system is in place.

Fighter Command has prepared pretty much for this battle.

The Luftwaffe is a tactical air force trying to achieve a strategic aim for which it has never planned.

So what's the fuss, right?

But it's all very well saying that from our comfy seats 85 years hence.

But it certainly didn't seem like that at the time.

And also, the great thing about history is that you can see, you can tell the story from both sides, but obviously in 1940, Park and his immediate boss, Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, can't.

So they can only see what's in front of them.

And, you know, of course, there's going to be crises because German planes are flying over southern England.

They're attacking regularly.

You know, airfields are starting to look a bit of a shambles.

Pilots are being shot down.

And they've got a pretty good idea of what the Germans have got.

But it's not a complete picture by any stretch of the imagination.

And this is a life and death situation.

You know, the stake

of not just of Britain, but the whole free world lies in their hands.

I'd be a little bit worried if he wasn't feeling a little bit worried.

If he sort of thinks it's all a breeze, you know, you'd think, oh.

Well, and it shows the extent to which Park really cares about his men, that quote, that he's out there every day taking their temperature.

That's what a good commander would do.

And he would turn up in his white flying suit, wouldn't he?

And everyone would know who he was, basically.

It's visible command, isn't it?

It's very, really, very, very important.

We left episode four with a very heavy day's fighting on the 25th of August.

And we talked about Experten and the difference between German Aces and the idea of the REF and how it wanted to encourage a team effort.

But the thing is, the Luftwaffe, for all of its culture and all its way, that the core part of it is it keeps changing tactics.

That's the really key thing to understanding what the Luftwaffe's doing during the battle.

But it's groping around looking for answers, isn't it?

Yeah.

Because, just to reiterate, they're not designed for this.

They are designed primarily as a tactical air force, wanting to support ground troops.

And suddenly they're being given a completely different role.

Their intelligence on their enemy is terrible.

They don't really know what they're doing.

This is completely new ground because air power is new ground.

They're making it up as they go along.

And their commander-in-chief is someone who is spectacularly ill-suited to the tasks that he's been given.

And this is, of course, Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring.

And yes, he might have been a jolly good fighter commander of a squadron back in 1918, but that doesn't really qualify you for the top job.

No.

no and he's getting frustrated because hubris and arrogance and bad intelligence and and overconfidence had suggested that the ref could be destroyed in three days but let's give it four just for luck and they've got nowhere near and it's absolutely clear that here they are you know, end of August, beginning of September.

They're losing lots of planes.

They're losing lots of pilots.

They don't have home advantage.

Things aren't going according to plan.

Pressure is mounting for Sea Lion and a decisive action that will see the end of the British effort in the Second World War, Goering is kind of starting to scratch his head a little bit, isn't he?

And think, oh,

what can I do?

Because his subordinate commanders don't seem to have the answers either.

The fact is, the people below him have come up with some solutions, haven't they?

So, Gerald Lerzer in Flieger Corps 2, he thinks that

the way to sort of crack the nut is to confuse the British RDF system, the early warning system.

So, they've at least got a measure of the fact they are being intercepted and met, haven't they?

And so,

Lerzer's view is what you're going to have to do is send up loads of people, loads of faint attacks, and the British won't know what's what.

This is really the issue for Park,

by the way.

Yeah, yeah, Lerza's got this dead right, hasn't he?

The big problem is, though, I mean, that is unquestionably the right tactics, but they don't have enough aircraft to do that.

That's the problem.

They have.

They can do lots of little raids and confuse the radar system, but they haven't got enough to then decisively attack the REF because by splitting up their own numbers, they're then attacking in penny packets, which then makes them vulnerable to counter-attack by the squadron.

Suddenly, the squadrons aren't attacking, you know, 12 planes aren't attacking, you know, formations of 200.

They're attacking formations of 12 or 15 or whatever.

And that's not the kind of overwhelming outnumbering that the Germans require.

Whatever tactics you come up with, it doesn't get away from the problem that you're not producing enough aircraft at this point.

You haven't got enough pilots being processed, and you haven't got enough aircraft en masse to be able to do what you need to do.

But the thing is, about doing these sort of multiple raids and attacking lots of different targets at once, that does make it a nightmare for Park and his ground controllers because they don't know which ones to go for.

And this is why you have this preponderance of what's known as X-rays in people's logbooks.

X-rays are where you're directed towards something which then turns out to be nothing.

Or, you know, it probably was a single Juncker's 88 or something, but it disappeared in clown and then bugged off home.

And so it's come to nothing.

And what Park doesn't want is when his pilots are flying, he wants it to count.

He doesn't want them sort of wasting time and effort and fuel chasing red herrings, basically.

So he updates his orders.

I mean, this is one of the interesting things about Park is he's evolving the system as it comes.

And as the Germans evolve, so does he.

So he orders fighter leaders, whenever they see anything, to make a visual report of size, height, direction of any enemy formation they spot, which then goes back down to the ground and then is relayed to any other fighters already airborne.

Because one of the things, of course, is that the radio they've got, you can't talk to one another between squadrons.

Everything's got to go back.

to the ground control and then back up.

So the ground needs all the information it can possibly get.

So what Park's doing is he's adding another slice of info for his controllers on the ground to sort of siphon and filter.

The other thing that I think is really, really important to stress, and nearly every book that's ever been written about the Battle Britain doesn't stress this, is that these ground controllers are getting better at it.

The people manning the radar stations are getting better at it.

The plotters on the ground overlooking the map table are getting better at it.

This intensity is only improving the standard of the RAF's ability to analyze the information that's coming in.

And actually, although it causes a huge amount of concern, this incredibly panicked kind of sort of, well, panic's not the right word, but this mass of information coming into them when the Luftwaffe are doing this sort of scattergun raid approach is incredibly good practice for them.

There's nothing better to sharpen their skills than this.

And that's the truth of it.

And again, you're right.

You know, Park is a very tactically flexible commander.

So, you know, he updates instructions again on the 27th of August.

You know, so it had been agreed that, you know, should there be a heavy raid heading heading for 11 Group airfields within easy reach of 10 and 12 group squadrons, then these neighbouring units could be called upon to help.

Park is really happy that 10 Group has been cooperating magnificently under Quentin Brand.

He is less happy with 12 Group, and more of that in our bonus episode.

But he says...

Up to date, 12 Group, on the other hand, have not shown the same desire to cooperate by dispatching their squadrons to the places requested.

This is his airfield.

So the idea is that he doesn't want his airfields left unprotected.

So when 11 Group fighters scramble, the idea is that 12 Group guys come down to patrol over those airfields to protect them from enemy attack because after all the the thing to emphasize about the about the early warning system is once aircraft are over the coast they're tracked by the observer core not by radar not by rdf and if you know if there's cloud or whatever they may not spot everything so your airfields in land in 11 group need need protecting by 12 group and the issue is 12 group pilots and we're like as you say there is a bonus episode to come about this are pretty bored twiddling their thumbs

waiting to go into action because the action's been happening in 11 group and 10 group mainly.

And they're so frustrated to get into action that what you end up with is a situation where they are not going where they're directed, which is kind of unbelievable when you come to it.

But

we will save all that up for another episode because that story is extraordinary.

And interestingly, not so consequential for the Battle of Britain, but hugely consequential for the RAF and the campaign it fights the following year, which is one of the things about it.

But the point is, by the last few days of August and the beginning of September, those airfields in 11 Group are really taking a hammering.

And I've always been quite sort of smug about this and said, yeah, well, you know, they had scalpings, they just filled in the potholes and, you know, the craters and kind of cracked on.

And, you know, it's incredibly difficult to hit a hundred acre grass airfield.

All of which is unquestionably true.

And they had put in quite a lot of contingency.

So there are backup control rooms and all the rest of it.

But make no mistake, these places are getting absolutely hammered.

And it's not good for anybody on the ground, whether you be a pilot or whether you be ground crew or whether you be part of the operations team, to have bombers coming over and strafing your airfield and dropping bombs willy-nilly and all the rest of it.

And, you know, one example is Biggin Hill, which is possibly one of the most famous fighter command airfields.

So on the 28th of August, 32 Squadron, which includes Pete Brothers, who we've mentioned a few times, he's rotated out.

So they bid farewell to Big and Hill, having been stationed there for eight years.

Isn't that amazing?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they go down to forward airfields during the Dunkirk evacuation, but basically, they're stationed there.

But the interesting thing is that 32 Squadron actually escapes the worst of the raids on Biggin Hill, but the Luftwaffe is still hitting coastal command stations, but more and more 11 Group airfields are getting plastered.

And Bigin is smashed twice on the 30th of August when massive damage is done to buildings and to equipment.

The workshops, transport yards, stores, barrack stores, armoury, met office, and station office are all rendered completely useless.

Gas and water supply is severed, as are a number of telephone lines.

39 people killed and a further 26 injured.

I mean, that is no small number on a fighter base.

You know, staff, irks, all the rest of the ground crew are known as irks, by the way.

Yeah, well, particularly in an organization like the RAF, where the single pilot has a vast number of people who get him into the sky.

And so,

if you're taking that kind of ground crew loss on a frontline station,

that can really affect things.

Yeah, absolutely.

Anyway, 31st of August, the Germans are back, causing further and extensive damage to hangars and buildings, including the operations block, officers' mess, officers' married quarters.

Same day, Croydon and Hornchurch, which are comparatively nearby, are also heavily attacked.

In fact, 31st of August is Fighter Command's worst day.

It's not a well-known day.

I mean, maybe for that reason, in the kind of sort of historiography of the Battle of Britain, but 41 aircraft are destroyed, nine pilots killed in action.

Now, you know, when you're talking about the kind of sort of huge numbers of the Eastern Front or even later battles in Northwest Europe, I mean, you know, what's nine pilots?

But you have to remember that, you know, if you're repeating that every single day, that soon, that attrition rate soon starts to be felt.

It's the one day in the whole battle where more British planes are downed than German.

And the numbers in those cases speak for themselves, isn't it?

Because the REF lose 41 planes, the Luftwaffe lose 39.

The REF lose nine crew, the Luftwaffe 21 crew.

They might be winning in terms of airframes that day, the Luftwaffe, but they're still losing in terms of personnel.

And it's obviously because it's bombers.

But I think all of this.

But my point is that this is the background Yeah, to the crisis that Dowding Lovell his deputy Yeah and Park start to feel around this time

You know as August gives waste to September there is a real kind of yikes moment Yeah at the high command of fighter command You know where people are kind of thinking you know where Dowding and co are thinking can we hang on this rate this intensity of air fighting?

You know, how long can we kind of keep going?

You know and in the last week of August Fighter Command loses 64 pilots killed in action and 81 wounded in action.

I mean, that's a lot.

That's a lot out of Fighter Command.

Yeah.

And so it's understandable if Park occasionally comes across as being a bit tetchy, I think.

The relentless attacks on airfield are definitely taking their toll.

That's the point.

Yeah.

And because pilots are the issue, it's at this stage that we see

the release of the Poles into the battle, basically, isn't it?

Yeah, and the Czechs, too.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Because the Poles have sort of become very much the sort of centrally remembered part of this effort, haven't they?

I mean, obviously, there's more of them than anyone else.

There's lots of remembering of the Poles.

And I think that's a fantastic thing.

It's very, very, very funny how everyone always sort of goes, well, you know, no one ever remembers the Poles.

Like, no one ever forgets the Poles.

Yeah, I mean, they're in the movie.

You know, it's quite right, too.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, if they weren't in the Battle of Britain...

It's hardly justified.

That's my point.

They're in the Battle of Britain film.

They're in the thing that everyone has seen about the Battle of Britain, the Battle of Britain film.

I mean, come on.

on.

Anyway, that Polish claptrap.

Yes, exactly.

That's right.

Repeat, please, in Polish.

But the real focus

is also on 303 Koszuska Squadron.

And the reason is because they end up being the top scoring squadron in the Battle of Britain, but also because they're in 11 group, whereas the Czechs and the other Polish squadron, 302, that's in fighter command, there are other bomber command Polish squadrons, by the way, is in 12 group, you know, which, as we've already mentioned, aren't quite so in the action.

Actually, 302 squadron at Duxford are are into the fray before 303 Squadron.

But as we kind of mentioned before, there is a very good reason that you don't put the Poles in beforehand because the cockpits are different layout to the Polish ones and because they don't speak English for the most part.

And if you don't speak English, you can't go into a coordinated system like the Dowding system until you do.

So that's why they're kept out.

But what they have been doing since I think around the 20th of August is they have been allowed to do patrol work over airfields.

And then on the 30th of August, a startling opportunity arrives because they're they're patrolling at 10,000 feet at around 4.15pm when flying officer Ludwig Pascovic suddenly spots a large formation of bombers and fighters above them.

But although he warned his flight commander, Boozy Kellett, because they had English flight commanders and squadron leader, he didn't bother to respond.

So Paschkovic decides to break formation anyway and chases after a Zastura, an ME-110, close to almost collision point, and then opens fire and the ME-110 bursts into flames and spins to the ground where it explodes in a ball of flames.

And then returning to North Holt, he performs a victory roll over the airfield and lands.

And he's immediately called in to see Group Captain Vincent, who is the station commander at North Holt, who wraps him on the knuckles and emphatically reprimands him, but then at the same time is congratulated for scoring the squadron's first kill.

And later that day, Kellett rings up Fighter Command and recommends that the squadron be made operational.

And both Dowding and Park at this point agree, not least because they desperately need more pilots, of course.

And motivated ones as well.

And the Poles don't lack motivation.

The backdrop is this mounting pressure, which is why they really could use their neighbouring groups to help out.

And I think it's interesting.

10 Group, we haven't really talked about them much as an issue.

We've talked about combat in the 10 Group area, but it just happens.

Yes, because we've talked about BB Mont and 87 Squadron, haven't we?

And we've talked about 609 Squadron and David Crook and so on.

Well, and attacks on Portsmouth and so on and Middle Wallop and all that sort of thing.

But basically, 11 Group are under this intense pressure.

But running these these sorties is also great pressure on the Germans themselves.

On the 28th of August, for instance, Siegfried Betke in JG2, they moved to the Belgian border close to Dunkirk.

They're first and second group and are basing themselves at Mardick, while three JG2 go to Octaville.

Betker fires three operational sorties on the 30th of August.

You think about the personal strain of getting into that aeroplane every time and the tension and you know and they know by now, by this stage of the battle brick that they are going to be met, that there will be a reception party for them.

So he's under a great deal of strain.

And he says the British fighter pilots might not have been the finest shots, but those brothers are good.

Nice tactics.

He likes their flying tactics.

Whoa, brother.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, but also, what did that say about the Germans' attitude?

I mean, you know, Knights of the Sky and all the rest of it.

I mean, it's absolutely part of their DNA, isn't it?

Yeah, well, at least that's in his diary from the time rather than 1946, where...

Yeah, yeah, he's how it is, yeah.

Well, but you know what I mean?

Rather after the war, he's going, yeah, we were we were just chivorous nights of the sky, nothing to do with us, all the unpleasantness, and so on.

Um, and the next day, he flies another three uh sorties on the 31st, two on September the 1st, another two on September the 2nd.

That's got to wear a man out.

You know, we were just saying that 32 Squadron are rotated out of Biggin Hill.

He's been rotated out of the frying pan into the fire, basically, hasn't he, from going from Normandy to the Paddock.

Completely, yeah.

Oh, it's it's completely relentless.

But but also, by the way, I mean, all these guys like Becca, Becca, they've been flying throughout the French campaign as well.

Yeah, yeah, so they have been on the go since the 10th of May, you know, with no leave.

They might have a day off, but but there's no there's no leave.

It has been utterly relentless.

By the end of August, Fighter Command has 1,100 pilots.

The Luftwaffe is down to 735 operational fighter pilots.

So the scales are tipping away.

And they're the attackers.

What's it?

Three to one?

Three to one?

Yeah.

Really,

you know, to to achieve what they need to achieve, they need all their bombers and they need 3,300 fighter pilots.

You know, it's not just that you can't just look at this and go, well, you know,

they're operating an average of sort of two and a half to one aircraft superiority.

It doesn't work like that.

You need three to one advantage in fighter planes escorting the bombers.

Becker, in between his two sorties on the, or as well as his two sorties on the September 2nd, he's awarded the Iron Cross first class.

Although what he really wants is a Knight's Cross, isn't he?

What he says in this diary is really revelatory, isn't it, Jim?

I will never get that far.

At least, not against the English fighters.

We can almost never surprise them.

They're always inferior in numbers because we never fly in a force less than a grouper.

However, a grouper should be 50 planes.

I only have five planes here.

The other Staffeln only have six to seven machines at the moment.

You know,

this is, I think, a really massive revelation.

You know, this is not how we picture the Battle of Britain, these sort of yellow-nosed bastards coming over and all the rest of it.

You know, to kind of underline the point, these Staffel, these Staffel squadrons should have 12, you know, as an establishment.

And here they are with six and five and all the rest of it.

And, you know, they're operating it as a group.

So, you know, instead of having 36 planes in your group, you've got 15 or 16, you know, or 18 or whatever.

And you're having to close escort.

Don't you remember what Goering said?

He said, I want one grouper kind of, you know, doing the top cover, another one close escorting the bombers, another one kind of sort of medium bombers, protecting the 110s or whatever.

It's just not enough.

Because the Luff Offer's tilted to the Experten, as new airframes come in, they're given to the experienced pilots, which means the new guys don't get any experience, which means

you're simultaneously amplifying the experienced guys, putting them at greater risk because they're always flying, of course.

You're amplifying them.

And mentally and physically getting exhausted.

Yeah.

And diminishing the people with no experience as well and making their lives more difficult, more dangerous.

So there are two bad ends of that particular banana for the Germans, aren't there?

The way this works, you're going going to wear out the aces.

As Fighter Command is capable of shooting down ex-Batten, you know, perfectly capable, because they don't know.

They're just ME109s when they run into them.

But the least experienced pilots are getting less experience.

That is

only going to

amplify their problems, isn't it?

Well, yes, and they've only got 700 pilots left.

And

that very low rate of planes that Siefried Betka's talking about is replicated everywhere.

So on the 1st of September, Hanzek R.

Bob's Neipstaffel, for example, has only got five aircraft, and six 109 is on 2nd of September.

So they are getting replacements or they're getting repaired or whatever, but it's never up to...

You know, six is only half what they should be.

Yeah.

50% of what it should be.

Adolf Galland, he's worried about the new pilots and the lack of training they're getting.

But what he's really worried about is he wants more experienced pilots.

That's what he wants, because Galand is an instant solutions fellow.

Milk comes to see him on the 22nd of August and he asks for 30 more experienced pilots.

I mean, how?

There's a magic wand involved in that particular conversation, isn't there?

And on the 31st, Galand only manages to get enough aircraft into the air for two missions and one free hunt, as they call it, over England.

And then later in the day, he's rung up by Yafu 2 asking for another sortie, an unscheduled sortie.

That means all three Groupmen have to go for a fourth mission in one day.

I mean, this is, just imagine the nervous state you'd be in.

Just getting that plane the fourth time thinking, oh, Christ, am I going to live?

Do you remember when we were talking to Clive Denny, who's a contemporary pilot, great mate of the show, mate of ours?

He said to us, he said, honestly, mate, flying a hurricane for an hour really, really takes it out of you.

He said, you wouldn't want to be doing more than that.

Yeah.

It's hard work.

Yeah.

Now, admittedly, you know,

he's a bit older than these youngsters, but he's also incredibly experienced.

I mean, you know, there is nothing he doesn't know about flying a hurricane.

Yeah.

So.

No one's ever tried to shoot him down either.

That's the other part

that's missing from Clive's equation.

And he hasn't had to sort of continually fly over the channel, has he?

Yeah.

So the interesting thing is that by this stage, you know, the RF fighter command, you know, pilots are now automatically given 48 hours every two weeks.

You know, this is leave, 48 hours off, and we're rotated out of the front line usually after three weeks.

And there is just no reciprocal respite for the Luftwaffe fighter pilots at all.

You know, and obviously, it's completely different flying over your own country rather than from a newly occupied territory.

Yeah, of course.

And the stress and strain of keeping up that level of intense airfighting is absolutely immense.

You know, and as well as flying over

southern England three or four times a day, they're also expected to regularly write up and discuss stuff and all the rest of it.

And of course, they're being bombed themselves by marauding Blenheims, which is often forgotten about this.

So

on the second morning, Seafried Becker in JG2 and his fellows are shaken when a Blenheim comes over early and drops a number of bombs over them.

As Hans Eckhard Bob says, there's another mealing to canal crank, which is not just a sickness to try and get a knight's cross.

It also means your nerves are shot and you simply cannot fly anymore.

It's amazing, isn't it?

They're getting fed up with each other as well.

It's the thing.

Ulray Steinhilp, who's at Cock El,

he notes that the debates are getting more heated and tempers are throwing.

One evening, Hinek Valer, one of the pilots, becomes so upset, he storms out of the tent, threatening to shoot himself.

The strain of unrelenting front-line flying was beginning to show.

There is a question of the suicide rate amongst pilots ticking up during this time, interestingly.

But we need to return for part two, two as we will enter what is supposed to be the last phase of the battle of britain but as ever we move to start date jim so we can decide when the last phase is at our leisure yeah it's got a few it's got it's got a long way to go yet

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Welcome back to Way of Ways Are Making You Talk, part five of our Battle of Britain series.

Now,

as we've said, the RAF's been placed under increasing pressure towards the end of August, the turn of the month of September.

We're recording this on the 1st of September.

There's that feeling this time of year, isn't it?

That the year has turned a corner and that you're now in the sort of

the days are getting noticeably shorter.

But what Dowding in his dispatch called the last phase of the Battle of Britain, but it ends on the Saturday, the 7th of September.

Yeah, but there's plenty going on before this.

The big politics is that the Destroyers for Bases deal between the US and the UK is ratified on the 2nd of September, which is sort of basically Churchill getting Roosevelt to paddle beyond his ankles in the possibility of joining a war in the West, isn't it?

Basically, he's getting him, he's saying, come on in.

You know, you can do it.

And these destroyers, actually, when it comes to it, are really,

they're symbolic more than anything else.

They're out of date.

They need a lot of work done to them but the portion of american political establishment that doesn't like britain gets some bases so can rub its hands with glee at the at the dismantlement of the british empire and all that sort of thing it is actually the sort of an important diplomatic moment and also one of the things and i think this is really interesting given how much we've talked about it one of the things that's in that's part of the information exchange is details about rdf it's the british yeah and this is a this is actually a sort of a hallmark of how the British conduct the war.

The tech, whatever you want to know, we'll share it with you.

That goes on into other things like tube alloys, which becomes the atomic bomb.

You know, this idea that what do you want to know?

Because you're going to need to know it yourself.

It's the, I think, the British attitude there.

But sea line is still being simmered on a pot, isn't it?

At this point, which is one of the interesting things.

Because, because, again, sea line is so often dismissed in hindsight.

Well, that never worked.

They weren't really very serious.

But at the time, there's a whole load of people involved in the planning who are deadly serious about this.

And they're getting there trying to solve the problems that Sea Line offers.

Well, the bottom line is this: You don't remove thousands of Rhine river barges, upset the industrial economy in Germany if you're not serious about it.

You don't go to all that effort if you're not serious about making a play for this.

It doesn't mean to say that Hitler's going to go through with it, but he's serious about it.

There's no question about it.

And you'd have all these arguments going on about where the Kriegsmarine should land, whether you cross light forces from Havre to Brighton and mainlanding Eastbourne and Folkestone, Fausium Jaeger being brought in, dropped on the South Downs, all this sort of of stuff.

And of course, Fauschim Jäger fall under a Luftwaffe, so they fall under Goering.

So he's being consequently non-committal because no one wants to make up their mind at this stage.

But it's all series of compromises, but people are arguing about this and are trying to sort of figure out how on earth to do it.

But what they're really interested in is its political effect.

OKH and OKW, they're agreed that the invasion, it's got to be a coup de grace, which is what Hitler wants, which is a thing that topples the British government rather than like a full-blown campaign.

The problem is, is the plans that they are, they're still working towards the plan as though they're going to have to carry it out.

And if you remember, the army want a broad front, the navy want a very small front.

What they've done is a sort of medium-sized front, which kind of ends up pleasing nobody.

But, you know, be that as it may, it is all happening.

You know, there is also now talk of

launching large-scale terror raids on London, bombing raids on London on the eve of the invasion with the intention of causing mass panic and, you know, hope like France, that streams of people would flee London, blocking roads and hampering British moves to meet the invasion.

But making assumptions on a kind of sort of reactive response from the British, I think, is also kind of problematic.

But Hitler is back in Berlin.

He tells Jodel on the 30th of August that he would decide on sea line on or around the 10th of September, which is absolutely classic Hitler prevarication.

But because, you know, since it's accepted that at least 10 days' notice would be needed, a timetable was now drawn up and issued on the 3rd of September.

But this made the earliest sailing date then around the 20th of September, you know, which is very close to the autumn equinox of the 21st of September.

Well, they would be landing on the 21st of September, and you know, that's the point where you get sighty dodgy tides, and um, you know, the weather's whipping up a little bit, or can be, and time is running out.

You know, there's there's absolutely no question.

And it's certainly true that the Goering has very little faith in Sea Lion, but Hitler curses, as at this moment at the beginning of September, becoming more optimistic, ironically, because at last the Luftwaffe seems to be emphatically winning the air battle currently raging, according to Luftwaffe Intelligence, which is universally believed.

And this goes back to our old friend Beppo Schmidt, his chief intelligence officer, who's junior in rank to the actual head of intelligence for the Luftwaffe, General Martini.

But at a conference held by the Reichsmarschall at The Hague on the 29th of August, Schmidt confirms that British fighter strength had dropped to almost around 100.

Although with the lull up to the 23rd, they probably had an actual strength around 350.

Keep the options open.

Kesselring reports that according to General Mayor Teo Osterkamp, the commander of Yarfu 2, Germany already had unconditional fighter superiority now.

And what's really interesting is only Hugo Spohler, who is the Luftflotter 3 commander, is prepared to add a note of skepticism here.

And by the first week of September, the situation looks even more favourable, is the general feeling amongst the Luftwaffe hierarchy.

English fighter defense hit hard.

It's reported at the OKW, which is, you you know, after all, the German general staff directly reporting to Hitler.

Ratio of kills has changed much to our favour.

Or has it?

Just that figure.

That figure from Schmidt, it's maybe 100 or maybe 350.

Or 350.

Or

it might be 800 or it might be 263.

What's your margin of error there?

Or maybe they got minus 250 planes.

I mean, it's sheer variance in that.

It's also

interesting because they don't then act, do they, on Sea Lion.

You'd think, well, they're down to 100.

We might as well go for for it.

But no one goes, well, they're down to the 100.

Well, we'll have to carry on then.

It's as if they don't believe the numbers, even though they believe the numbers.

But no one's admitting to the other that they don't believe the numbers.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So they're putting on this kind of sort of, of course, we're winning.

Because anything else is just unconscionable.

So, whatever dark thoughts you might be having, let's just keep that in the back of the mind and let's hope it'll all work out.

But very soon.

But what is absolutely clear is while they're getting a little bit overconfident, their view is not reflected in the reality reality of their own staff elm, their own fighter squadrons with their depleted numbers.

It is pilot shortage, which is the big concern for downing part and all-up fighter command.

And a report to the Joint Intelligence Committee by Air Intelligence is conducted by Group Captain Tommy Elmhurst, who we've mentioned before, who later becomes Mary Cunningham's right-hand man in the Desert Air Force and then the first tactical air force in Tunisia later on in the war.

But his figures for downed German aircraft, you know, they're inaccurate, but they do have a pretty clear understanding of the German production level.

So that's a good thing.

And it's predicted that if current German fighter losses continue, the Luftwaffe will probably have to give up around the third week of September.

But at the beginning of September, after the worst week for fighter command since the start of the summer, this doesn't really feel that much of a comfort.

And El Merst writes, the great query was, however, whether our fighters could continue their present volume of effort and sustain their present rate of losses for another three weeks.

So, there is massive concern at this, that they're running out of pilots.

Dowding and his deputy, Air Vice Marshal Douglas Evil, are really, really worried at this point.

They hope they can hang on for another three weeks, but they're not going to bet on it.

To go back to the point we made at the start of the episode, where someone who listened to the first four of these episodes about the Battle of Britain might think, well, you know, it's all over by the shouting.

This is where the shouting is deafening and where it really does feel like things are going badly.

And particularly if you're in 11 group where you're being deployed the entire time and your airfields are being attacked, it's profoundly unsettling.

The airfields are in turmoil.

They can't keep their squadrons at strength.

Even though fighting commander trying to make sure their pilots are arrested, they're still flying 50 to 60 hours a day.

Collectively.

Yeah, collectively.

It's hard going.

Had the Luff Affair had greater strength, this would be their moment to topple the RAF.

But as we keep saying, they don't.

And the truth is, and this is not known to Park and Dowding at the time, or even, you know, even as late as the 1960s when Park is recorded talking about all this and his concerns about it, which is where that quote at the front of the episode comes from.

The reality is that fighter command squadrons are often in much, much better shape than most of the Luftwaffe units, and their pilots are getting way more chances to rest.

You know, but again, it's all relative.

Because the point is this, is Luftwaffe's strength seems so formidable because it can choose when it attacks and is able to concentrate its forces.

So it always seems like there's lots of them.

But in terms of total numbers of aircraft, so that includes Coastal Command, Bomber Command, and Fighter Command, is closing with comparison to the Luftwaffe rather than widening, as the Luftwaffe High Command think.

So in other words, at this crucial, crucial moment, fighter command are underestimating their own strength comparative to the Luftwaffe.

And the Luftwaffe are overestimating their strength compared to the RAF.

And in one case, the former case, that's no bad thing at this stage of a battle.

In the case of the Luftwaffe, that's a a terrible mistake to be making.

And, you know, obviously, hypothetically, the RAF could also have mounted a 1,000-aircraft raid if they wanted to on the Padukale.

You know, they could have amassed, you know, 450 bombers, 500 bombers, and 700 fighter planes to go over in a huge, great display of strength.

Logistically, this would have been impossible, but, you know, it is interesting to think what the Luftwaffe or the Germans might have made of that had they done it.

But obviously, they're not going to because they're fighting a defensive battle and there's no need to do it.

And of course, all of this is just not the point if you're doubting Everlo Park.

To them, it feels very clear that they've reached a crisis point.

There's no obvious let-up in enemy raids on the plotting tables at Bentley Prairie and Uxbridge.

Photographs by Coastal Command and reports by Bomber Command's Blenheims warns of, you know, a warning of huge concentrations of barges and ships suddenly filling the harbours all the way from the ports of Holland to Le Havre.

And further photos of continental ports and photo reconnaissance from northern France show that the build-up of Luftwaffe and army units suggests that the big hammer blow is coming.

You know, they've been plotting the fact that most of the fighter planes and Stukas have been moved into the kind of, you know, Flanders and Padukale and all the rest of it.

What that all suggests is one giant, massive hammer blow.

And Dowding is worried that they're not going to be able to meet that blow.

That's his concern.

And then we come to the part in the notes where the words in capitals greet us.

Goering takes control.

Hooray!

We probably, well, exactly.

You probably realize that we don't really rate Goering's ability to take control of things.

But on the 6th of September, strolls into town in his private train, Asia.

Hitler's train's called America, weirdly, with news that he was personally taking control of the battle.

So here we go, ladies and gentlemen.

And this is with the backdrop of Bomber Command having gone back to Berlin on the night of the 3rd or 4th of September and bombed Berlin again.

At that point, Hitler's run out of patience.

He's had it.

That's right.

He's had it right up to here with the British bombing.

And the Brits have gone too far.

Initially, he's shown decent restraint, but now they've just pushed him too far.

So he makes a speech at the sports palace on the 4th of September, and he vows revenge and goes into the full Hitler rant mode.

I mean, this is Spittle flying,

clutching the air.

Don't mind if I do.

And if the British Air Force drops two, three, or four thousand kilos of bombs, then we will crop 150,000, 580,000, 230,000, 300,000, or 400,000 kilos or more in one night.

If they declare that they will attack our cities on a large scale, we will erase theirs we will put a stop to the game of these night pirates as god is our fitness so how will come when one or the other of us will crumble and that will not be national socialist germany i mean

that was terrifying 400 000 kilos of bombs yeah right yeah what yeah right yeah of course whatever but geering's not keen at all I mean, you know, 10 days earlier, he's champing at the bit to attack British cities, but now he's got really bad case of cold feet.

And he just, you know, he's still praying, as he was back in August 1939, that Britain could yet be brought to the peace table.

And he knows perfectly well that the moment his Luftwaffe starts attacking London, that ain't going to happen.

He reaches the front.

This is a famous moment.

He reaches the front and he visits his commanders and summons a number of his new fighter commodores, including Werner Mulders and Adolf Galland.

Goering is not in a good mood, I think it's fair to say.

You know, he too, like Hitler, like his, like the Führer, is racked with indecision about the mass attacks on British cities that Hitler's now at long last authorized and aware that, of course, he knows the air battle is slipping despite what Beppo Schmidt's best efforts to upbeat picture.

Protecting bombers, he tells them, is far more important than securing record bags of enemy fighters.

And then he softens a little and he asks him what he could do to improve the matters for them.

Galan says, I should like an outfit of Spitfires for my squadron.

To which Goer replies, we have the best fighter in the world.

And of course, you know, Galan then explains what he means.

He He goes, yes, it is it.

You know, of course, I prefer the ME109 as a fighter.

It's much better because it could accelerate, climb, and die quickly, and all the rest of it.

But because of its lower wing loading, Spitfire is more suited to slower maneuvers, which is what you need when you're protecting bombers.

Goering has no answer at all to this.

So he scowls and turns away and goes, where's my fix of morphine?

That's just.

But I mean, the thing is, is that the Luffaffer crew, they're not mad keen on mass daylight raids anyway.

Getting Getting aircraft like that organized is difficult.

They also know that the REF intercept them wherever they go.

So a big, fat, juicy target to be intercepted isn't necessarily something you want to sign up for.

You know, the sort of tip and run thing the Germans have been doing up to this point at the end of August has been less of a strain.

But I think the prospect of these big formations is difficult.

Although Galland himself thinks it's actually the way to go and it's the best way to flush the RAF out.

Von Richthofen, who's commander of 8th Flikakoi, thinks similarly.

This afternoon's a decision comes to Raid London.

Let's hope the Reichsmarschall stands firm.

I've got my doubts on that score.

It's very interesting, though, because as we've been talking about bombing throughout this series, the sort of function of it changes, doesn't it?

It's terror bombing one minute as part of Sea Line.

It's to get the fighters out for another reason,

in this instance.

This is the problem when you have a tactical air force.

You don't know what to do with it when you're not fighting an army.

You've got to come up with something.

You don't know what to do when you haven't got enough.

And also, the whole of the 1920s and 1930s, there's been discussion about what bombing's for and what its political effect will be.

And the idea that Hitler doesn't think that a good bit of bombing isn't going to cause some sort of political knock-on, you know, he thinks purely in political terms when it comes to war.

And that's what he's used bombing for before.

So there's got to be an element that, while as we get into it, the idea is they're attacking industrial targets, but it's also about, it's about trying to deliver a moral effect, isn't it?

Completely.

But the bottom line is if your job is to destroy the Royal Air Force, the best way to do that is to hammer airfields and continue hammering airfields, you know, and take them.

I mean, you know, how are you going to destroy the air force by attacking London?

I suppose by drawing them into the battle, but it suggests, you know, tactics that are running out of steam, that you're kind of running out of ideas of the previous one, which was going to kind of destroy the RAF absolutely without question.

You know, in four days has run out of steam and you're having to kind of scratch your head and start again.

He thinks this bombing campaign will probably do the trick in four days as well, doesn't he?

So

he's hoping, but he's skeptical about it, you know.

But Richtofen is worried.

Goering's going to kind of lose his nerve and pull out of the policy.

But actually, he doesn't have to worry about that because the following afternoon, Goering is standing on Cap Green A with his assembled commanders and entourage, watching the largest Luftwaffe formation ever assembled pass over his head.

There's some 900 aircraft, 300 bombers, 600 fighters, stepped up between 14,000 and 23,000 feet.

You know, this is

the mass formation of Luftwaffe,

the sky dark with black crosses, all the rest of it.

You know, and this is the afternoon of Saturday, the 7th of September.

But before we get on to what happens with that raid, we need to turn back to fighter command and the pilot crisis.

Because suddenly, a simple but genius solution has been put forward that very same morning of Saturday, the 7th of September, 1940.

It's a brilliant, misty morning, sort of classic Indian summer morning with sort of low mist and then the sun burning it off.

249 Squadron are now at North Weal.

They've moved from Boscombe down in part of the sort of rotation.

Pilot Officer Tom Neal is on the slate all day.

Flies once at 9 a.m.

for 15 minutes, second a bit later, patrolling the Thames Estuary.

Nothing doing.

But even so, he senses something's up.

There's a kind of air of expectancy.

You know, Tom is aware of

invasion talk.

And, you know, is this it?

But meanwhile, Dowding calls a meeting with Park Evil, his deputy, Shoto Douglas, Sholto Douglas, the deputy chief of the air staff, and he explains that they need to think about what they should do should fight a command start to and vertic commas go downhill.

And his assumption is that they're soon going to be unable to keep squadrons fully equipped with pilots.

If things continue, his policy of rotating squadrons is going to have to become, you know, it's going to become impossible.

So he's already worried that the Germans might discover how hard hit they are.

He has no idea that they already believe fighter command to be a spent force.

So he suggests keeping 11 group at full strength come what may, but is unable to increase the numbers numbers of squadrons in the southeast because of the damage to airfields and the limited number of existing airfields that are functional and other logistical issues.

What he does think he might have to do is withdraw pilots because he wants to keep his balance.

He wants to keep fighter command through the whole of southwest England, central England, northern England and Scotland and all the rest of it.

So that's his dilemma.

And so he suggests keeping 11 Group at full strength come what may, but maybe not the rest of Fighter Command.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Because Sholto Douglas, and we will encounter Sholto Douglas in our bonus episode regarding big wings and so on.

He's an opponent of Dowding and has been pre-war.

They're in different camps within the RAF, and he thinks that Dowding's being too pessimistic.

He's got pilot figures from Training Command that suggests they've got lots of men coming through.

But Dowding says it's no, it's about being a combat-ready fighter pilot, not being a trained pilot.

There are these grains of sand of tension within the RAF that turn into pearls of disaster later on for some of these protagonists.

But there is this key feeling.

They're going downhill and they're losing 120 pilots a week and the losses are outstripping what the otus can produce so they've already cut the course which is interesting it's also kind of the source of the the

idea that people were sent into the battle of britain with no experience at all but you've got less time on type as you transfer from from your training aircraft to the monoplanes to the fighter planes and it means some guys are getting onto squadron with 10 hours on spitfires and hurricanes just to make a point here you know it's the combat ready fighter pilot that's the key thing this idea that that squadron leaders are sending up green pilots with only 10 hours on a hurricane into battle, that is not happening because they're next to useless.

They actually cause more harm

than good.

So what that means is you're then putting more strain on the experienced pilots.

It's the same thing that's happening to the

Luftwaffe fighter pilots.

So that's the problem.

You know, and what you really need to do is you need pilots who are so completely au fait with their hurricane.

They're no longer thinking about where they put their hand, what they do, how they kind of turn, all the rest of it.

They are just honed as a killing machine.

And that's what you want.

That's the problem.

This is exactly the same thing that Gallond's is saying.

I don't want more pilots.

I want experienced pilots.

Yeah.

That is the issue.

So it's not that guys out of OTU are being sent off to become sacrificial lambs.

That is not happening.

You know, it happens to one or two, but I mean, they are very much the exception rather than the rule.

It is that they no longer have enough experienced pilots.

Shelter Douglas doesn't really get it.

Downloading says to him, you must realize that we are going downhill.

And this is where Park finds the solution.

It's just amazing.

Which is really, really clever.

So new pilots will get sent to the north, the squadrons in the north, for extra training.

While only fully trained pilots from the north will be sent to squadrons in the south.

So you've got extra time on training sorties in the north.

And Downing points out that it needs fresh operational squadrons to exchange with 11 groups battle-exhausted squadrons.

Because as we pointed out, 11 groups, they're flying all the time.

And so Park says, well, why not run the two schemes together?

So what we do is bring in pilots, not squadrons.

So there's an internal rotation

within the squadrons rather than whole squadrons.

So that you're not swapping out a completely exhausted formation for a brand new one.

So you're avoiding that cliff edge of bringing in green people.

And he suggests this should take effect only when a squadron's quota has fallen below 15, which is below its 75% strength.

This is the absolute nub of it.

And again, this is something that almost every book written about the Battle of Britain doesn't explain.

So yes, you have 12 pilots in the air, but that doesn't mean you've got 12 pilots on the ground.

This is why Tommy Elmhurst's report is so gloomy.

He thinks in the air intelligence that a Luftwaffe Staffel is the same as a squadron, i.e., 20 to 22 pilots to keep 12 aircraft in the air at any one time.

But this isn't the case because it's to average strength for the Luftwaffe Staffel is 12.

And they rarely have that strong, even when they are inverted commas full strength.

You know, it's usually sort of 10 or 9 or something.

And I think it's quite interesting because there is some debate.

I mean, I caught up with Seb Cox last week, who used to be the head of the Air Historical Branch.

And he was saying, but the problem is, is no one actually knows what the figures of what a true established strength was because it wasn't written down.

So the only way you can find out what true pilot strength is is by looking at the operational records books, which is the squadron diaries.

And what's really interesting is that 609 Squadron on the 31st of August has 19 pilots.

So it has MacArthur, Gaunt, Agazarian, Crook, Kirchin, Howell, Miller, Tobin, Bisdi, Fiery, Mamadoff, Darley, Dundas, Keogh, Staples, Ogilvy, Noversky, Appleby, and Ostozewski.

And 92 squadron, who by the 14th, 15th of September are up at Big In Hill and are being absolutely pasted every single day.

They've got 17 pilots.

So that is getting closer to that 75% strength.

So they've got Patterson, Foley, Wade, Kingham, Isles, Holland, Wright, Williams, Sydney, Hill, Motram, Wellham, Saunders, Bryson, Mann, McGowan, and Havercroft.

That's what you've got, even at this time.

You know, this is...

So in other words, Dowding at Evelyn Park are absolutely right to be worried about things, but they don't need to be as worried as they are.

Because actually, they've got much more contingency than they think you have.

But anyway, be that as it may, all of them, including Charlto Douglas, are unanimously agreed to Park's proposal.

And from now on, squadrons are given categorization.

Class A, and these are squadrons in 11 group and some in 10 and 12 group, like 609 and 87 squadrons, for example, which are fully operational and have their quota of 16 or more combat-ready pilots.

Class B are squadrons who would contain up to six non-operational pilots in a quota of 60.

So you, in other words, you'd have 10 fully experienced ones.

And class C are squadrons that would retain at least three fully operational experienced pilots.

And most Class C squadrons would be in 13 group up in the north, although there would also be some in 10 and 12 groups too.

What that means is your class C can then build up ours with the help of the experienced pilots.

And when they're ready, as a whole squadron, they can then be moved.

And the great thing about this, because of the flexibility of the Dowding system, this can be put to place immediately, that very day, Saturday the 7th of September.

I think it's fair to say we are now into the last phase of the Battle of Britain, as Dowding, Hugh Dowding puts it.

They've solved their pilot crisis or they've addressed it at least.

The Luffaffer isn't doing such a thing and is girding its loins for yet another one last heave to overpower the Royal Air Force.

And in our next episode, we will get you to Battle of Britain Day, Sunday the 15th of September, and what is regarded as the climactic moment of the Battle of Britain.

Thanks very much for listening.

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Cheerio.

Cheerio.

You are not luminous, Watson,

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Here they are.

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Yes.

Hi, John.

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He was my client.

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