HISTORY

their first kills. Intensity of the battles above the Channel after the evacuation of Dunkirk gradually diminished reaching the lowest point between

June and July. Both sides, RAF and Luftwaffe, were replenishing the exhausted units. At the fast pace, Lufwaffe was building the airport and

supply infrastructure on the French coast of Channel La Manche and relocating its units for preparation of the invasion of the Great Britain. July

marked mutual skirmishes and German raids over the Channel. It was in

this phase when first Bf 109E was shot down and emergency landing

occured on the British soil. This memorable event took place on July 8th,

1940, when 4./JG 51 Bf 109E-1 piloted by Lt. Johann Bohm was seriously damaged by the fire from a Spitfire manned by Sgt. E.A.Mould from

No. 74 Squadron and crash-landed at Bladbeam Hill in Kent. At that time

JG 51 was the only complete German Jagdgeschwader operating it the

Channel area. The British mark the beginning of the Battle of Britain on

July 10th, 1940. In this opening stage, called by Germans Kanalschlacht

and Channel Battle by Brits, the Luftwaffe gained the actual air supremacy over the Channel. However, this was not accomplished for free, they

had to overcome RAF’s tough resistance. The Germans date the beginning

of the Battle of Britain one month later, on August 8th, when they already

had sufficient forces concentrated in the Channel area. The actual stage

of the Battle commenced on August 13th with the operation Adlerangriff.

During its first day, known by the codename Adlertag, the concentrated

attack on the British infrastructure started, within which the Luftwaffe fighters were actively seeking the confrontation with British fighters with the

intention to pressure RAF and weaken Fighter Command forces as much as

A stricken Spitfire Mk.I attacking He 111 formation, photographed from the Heinkel cockpit.

the second half of August Luftwaffe command withdrew Luftflotte 2 and

Luftflotte 5 bombers from day sorties and let them continue flying at night

only and fully withdrew Stukas from the raids against England due to their

insufficient range. Only Luftflotte 3 bombers continued the day operations

and were to continue with raids on industrial factories including those of

the aviation industry and other militarily important targets. This granted

RAF the time to consolidate the forces and renew the infrastructure. The

first mass attack on London was performed by German bombers on September 7th under the personal supervision of marshal Goering. On September 15th, commerative Battle of Britain Day when Luftwaffe executed

another massive raid on London, Fighter Command was left with 581

Spitfires and Hurricanes. The Luftwaffe fighter inventory was being depleted as well, a week earlier, on September 7th, Luftwaffe had 533 various

version of Bf 109E it its inventory. On the top of it, on this day, September

7th, the Germans deprived themselves of the capacity of its fighter units

Shot down Bf 109E from JG 51 after an emergency landing in England.

possible. This turned out to be quite a success, the British evaluated August

18th as the Hardest Day and in the middle of September Luftwaffe was

not far from victory. However, RAF was not defeated yet, it put up a tough

resistance and was adjusting the tacticts of its fighters according to the

ever-changing combat conditions. Luftwaffe too was changing the tactics

in the course of fighting. The British fighters strived to attack from higher

altitude, fighting the bombers though they preferred deployment of the

Hurricanes since they presented more stable gun platforms and had better concentrated wing armament. Spitfires focused more on the combat

with German bombers‘ fighter escort. Thus the Hurricanes could, during

their first attack on the enemy bombers formation, to an extent, ignore the

fighter escort which was taken care of by Spitfires. The Germans helped

this by an unfortunate decision when in response to a rather panic reaction

of the bomber crews to the losses during the operation Adlerangriff, they

brought the escort fighters too close to the bombers depriving them of

maneuvering flexibility against British fighters attack so they de facto

accomodated the British tactics. On the other hand the British experiment

with Composite Wings or Big Wing, promoted by Leigh-Mallory and Bader, failed. Withing Duxford Wing led by Douglas Bader Czechoslovak

No. 310 Squadron and Polish No. 302 Squadron fought alongside British

No. 242, 19 and 611 Squadrons. The idea was promising, in reality however, it was proven too difficult to execute. Formation of the whole wing

into a combat formation and its vectoring to the combat zone was complicated, clumsy, easily identified by the enemy. Due to these circumstances

the Bader’s wing usually arrived at the battle scene delayed, often into an

already terminating encounter. By all means it was not that strike force

which its fathers expected. The evaluation is always the matter of the

aspect because later RAF was able to form higher level units at wing level

and successfully deploy them. On the contrary, the British advanced guidence system allowed to deploy, on the endagered sections defended by

No. 11 Group, forces from the other units, from No. 10 Group in the west

primarily and No. 12 Group concentrated in the north of England, and

flexibly create the strong operational groups without clumsy organization

of the higher level units. Probably the fatal tactical mistake made by

Luftwaffe command was to shift the attacks from RAF infrastructure targets and military targets in general, to the cities and populated areas. In

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Preparation of Ju 88 for an air raid on Britain.

by decision to remove one Staffel from each Jagdgruppe and deploy

these units in the fighter-bomber role. By this move they reduced the pure

fighter inventory by one third without somewhat significantly increasing

the bomber attacks effectiveness (you will find more about this topic in the

upcoming item of the Eduard Limited Edition series dedicated to various

versions of Bf 109E deployed in the Battle of Britain). On September 15th

Fighter Command managed to concentrate fighters of all three Groups,

10, 11 and 12 for the defense of London, muster the fierce resistance and

show its strength to the enemy. On September 17th, as a result of these

events, the German supreme command called off the operation Seelowe,

the invation of Britain, and postponed it indefinitely. Battles did not cease

however, the war was going on. On September 19th Luftwaffe command

already redirected the attacks on British supply depots, warehouses, railway stations and ports where the Germans started to lay mines as well.

On September 26th Luftwaffe scored an accurate and effective strike

when 59 He 111 from KG 55 performed a devastating raid on Supermarine factories in Woolston and Itchen leading in fact to the halt of their

production. As we mentioned earlier, production in these factories significantly relied on subcontractors which was a way to restarting the manufacturing process in the scattered locations. Despite that, Spitfire Mk.I pro-

INFO Eduard - August 2020