Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain

Boldly Dowding assumed that radar would work, and went ahead with plans for a control system, and fighter tactics, on that assumption. Until radar was ready, the fighters emitted radio signals like echoes, so that plotting could be set up.

Because the original (10-metre) radar network could not detect low-flying aircraft, Dowding took the navy’s more complex 1.5-metre radar sets that were designed to detect ships. These sets had aerials that revolved, to scan the whole horizon. Adapted for the detection of low-flying aircraft, these sets became Chain Home Low (CHL). By 1940 Dowding was devoting a great deal of his time to the development of airborne radar fitted into night fighter aircraft.

In 1936, with the growth of Göring’s air force more and more in evidence, the RAF decided to reorganise into specialist Commands. All of the bombers in Britain would come under Bomber Command, sea reconnaissance units would be organised as Coastal Command, and training would be done by Training Command.

In March 1936, as the Spitfire prototype took to the air for the first time, and the radar he had nursed into being made rapid strides, Dowding ended his job as Member for Research and Development (the supply part of his original task had been given to another member of the Air Council). With a neatness usually only found in the pages of fiction, Dowding was now appointed to prepare these weapons and take them to war.

This appointment, to Commander in Chief of Fighter Command, was not due to any friends that Dowding had in the Air Ministry. On the contrary, plans were afoot to deprive Dowding of the promotion to Chief of Air Staff which had already been promised to him.

In July 1936 Dowding made a first visit to Bentley Priory, HQ of the newly created Fighter Command. Bentley Priory was an old Gothic house on a hill to the extreme north-west of London. At one time it had been a girls’ school. It was typical of this idiosyncratic man that instead of arranging the ceremony that would normally take place, he arrived at nine o’clock in the morning, unannounced and all alone. The guard was extremely reluctant to let him through the gate but after inspecting his papers, he handed him over to the most senior man there, a sergeant from the Orderly Room. The two men wandered through the grounds and then through the empty rooms. Selecting a room with a southerly view, Dowding asked the sergeant to put his name on the door, thanked him, and left.

By this time Dowding was 54 years old, a tall, thin, rather frail-looking widower. He set up house with his sister, just along the road from his office. Dowding’s son was preparing to go to the RAF College at Cranwell. In 1939 he would graduate and come under his father’s orders, as a Spitfire pilot in Fighter Command, just in time for the Battle of Britain.

Meanwhile there was the gigantic task of reorganising the fighter defences of Britain. Working with Dowding, as his Senior Air Staff Officer, there was a man who was perhaps the RAF’s foremost expert on fighters. Keith Park, now a 44-year-old Air Commodore, had followed his success as an ace fighter pilot of the First World War with time at the staff college and a short spell commanding a fighter station. Park was a tall, neat New Zealander of Scots origin. Thin-faced, with a military moustache, he had the springy step and confident manner of a bank official. He liked flying and never missed a chance to use his personal Hurricane. During the Dunkirk evacuation – where Park had special responsibility for air cover – he had logged more than 100 flying hours, in order to see what was happening to his men. One fighter pilot of the pre-war days at Tangmere remembers him as an austere man who was never heard to utter a damn or a blast. Park is also remembered for his curious habit of wearing a steel helmet over his flying helmet when flying his plane.

Trafford Leigh-Mallory commanded the fighter squadrons of 12 Group and so was responsible for defending one of the large areas into which Britain had been divided by the new Fighter Command system. Leigh-Mallory’s Group, in central England, was vital for the defence but not so vital as 11 Group, which covered south-east England and London, a region which would undoubtedly bear the brunt of enemy attack, and which contained the greatest number of fighter squadrons.

In the spring of 1940, as the war began to heat up, Dowding changed his Group commanders. Many would have said that Leigh-Mallory, who had commanded 12 Group since 1937, must be a prime choice for command of the more vital 11 Group. Instead, Dowding assigned his SASO, Keith Park, to this command. If Leigh-Mallory felt himself slighted it is possible to understand why.

The separation of the RAF’s resources into specialised Commands was partly a response to the political atmosphere that Hitler’s aggressive speeches had generated. The senior ranks of the RAF remained convinced that Bomber Command was the key to victory, but after the Munich crisis the inadequacy of the defences gave some priorities to Fighter Command.

And the Munich crisis gave Dowding an importance that had not been foreseen by the Air Ministry. He was the Commander in Chief of a command that included not only the fighter squadrons but the control network, the balloon barrage (steel cables suspended from balloons to impede low-flying attackers) and anti-aircraft guns. Although technically the latter were under army orders, Dowding’s suggestions were never ignored. Now he pressed for money to be spent on the Observer Corps (volunteer skywatchers who reported aircraft movements across the whole of Great Britain). He also asked for Operations Rooms at all levels of Fighter Command and all-weather runways at the fighter airfields.

It was in this year of the Munich crisis that Dowding received the first of a series of official letters, terminating his service with the RAF, and then, at the last minute, extending his service. To what extent these letters were the result of muddle and inefficiency, and to what extent they were the work of cruel and spiteful rivals, is still argued. Certainly Dowding, a desiccated old widower, was totally devoid of charm and made no attempt to be diplomatic to men who questioned his judgments. Dowding showed an old-fashioned correctness when dealing with senior officers. They were all junior to him in both rank and service and many of them had once been his subordinates. That did not make their jobs easier. But such a man as Dowding could never deserve the years of uncertainty that the sackings and reinstatements caused, nor the final curt dismissal that told him to clear out of his office within 24 hours.

But Dowding was no paragon. Too often he resorted to caustic comments when a kind word of advice would have produced the same, or better, results. And it was during Dowding’s time that the RAF was equipped with the egregious Fairey Battle bombers and Boulton Paul Defiant fighters that were totally inadequate against the Luftwaffe. Dowding was the responsible officer when the R.101 airship flew to its doom. Dowding was too ready to defer to the advice of his specialists. He did not challenge the men who told him that self-sealing fuel tanks were too heavy for fighters (they showed him the calculations for crash-proof fuel tanks).

Dowding was indifferent to the boardroom politics of higher office, impatient and abrasive to men who failed to understand his reasoning. When he told an Air Ministry conference that he wanted bullet-proof glass for the Hurricanes and Spitfires, everyone laughed. ‘If Chicago gangsters can have bullet-proof glass in their cars I can’t see any reason why my pilots cannot have the same,’ he said, and was irritated by their laughter. He delegated authority readily and seldom interfered with subordinates he trusted. Not unreasonably – but unrealistically – he expected the same treatment by the men in the Ministry.

Although Dowding’s concern for the fighter pilots was central to every decision he made, he seldom met them or talked with them, believing that the presence of the Commander in Chief would merely provide an extra burden for them. But it is an attractive aspect of this reserved man’s character that his staunchest supporters should be low-ranking subordinates who worked at his HQ, including his personal assistants and his office staff.

Dowding understood men well enough to issue an order that his fighter squadron commanders could not continue in that job after reaching the age of 26. In the same way it was logical that his fighter pilots would take orders more readily from Sector Controllers who were experienced fighter pilots, and so many of them were. His icy logic was expressed in the order that German air crews descending over Britain were prospective prisoners and therefore must not be shot at, while RAF pilots parachuting were potential combatants, and therefore fair targets for German guns. What Dowding failed to understand is that although men might revere logic to the point of death, few revere it to the point of admitting their mistakes.

Captain Basil Liddell-Hart – whose theories of military strategy are often expressed in social terms – spoke of the importance of leaving your opponent a line of retreat. This Dowding failed to do. Perhaps his ethics would have considered such ‘scheming’ bad form. Bad form or not, he was to confront Churchill in such a way that he made an enemy of him, and so was deprived of Churchill’s aid at a time when he desperately needed it. The freedom Dowding gave his Commanders, and the high morale of his pilots, were the two greatest contributions to victory. Ironically it was these same two factors that brought Dowding’s downfall.

Flying Training

It would not be true to say that the Battle of Britain was decided by flying training. And yet it would not be very far from the truth. Just as the all-metal monoplane had to be created from scratch, so was the new sort of fighter pilot like no other aviator.

One of the worst set-backs suffered by the pre-war RAF was the repeated refusal of Mackenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minister – from 1935 onwards – to discuss the Empire Air Training Scheme. By denying the British government a chance even to submit their proposals, he was able to claim later that no peacetime training scheme was ever suggested to him. Australia and New Zealand had responded warmly. But in wartime these distant training schools would not be as useful as the relatively nearby Canadian ones. South Africa and Rhodesia were willing to assist the RAF but it was not until war began that any of the flying schools trained men other than their own nationals.

So in 1936 the British government announced the formation of the RAF Volunteer Reserve. It provided a chance for civilians aged between 18 and 25 to learn to fly at the tax-payer’s expense. These spare-time flyers were made sergeants. Weekend flying instruction was given by local flying schools (fees paid by the RAF), and there were compulsory evening classes in armament, signals and navigation.

University Air Squadrons were created for part-time training of student volunteers. Another source of spare-time air crews was the Auxiliary Air Force. Starting in 1926 with four squadrons, by 1939 twenty squadrons had been recruited from various districts and bore their names. There was 601 (County of London) Squadron, 610 (County of Chester) Squadron, from Yorkshire 609 (West Riding) Squadron and so on. By August 1940, one quarter of RAF fighter resources were AAF squadrons, although casualty replacements had brought many VR men and regulars into them.

In theory the AAF was to the RAF as the Territorial army was to the British army. These squadrons were essentially spare-time local formations with regional support. But no Territorial regiment wore bright scarves, and lined their jackets with red silk, as did so many of the AAF’s exclusively officer pilots. And none of the Territorial regiments had reputations to match that of the ‘millionaires’ squadron’ that was to carve such a name for itself during the Battle. At the outbreak of war the ‘millionaires’ were concerned about the prospect of petrol rationing and how it would affect their private transport. An officer was assigned to the task of buying petrol. He came back having bought a service station but announced that the pumps there were only half-full. This situation was remedied when another pilot remembered that he was a director of Shell. His secretary arranged a delivery.

More than one pilot was less than enthusiastic about the AAF squadrons. Skilled RAFVR Sergeant pilots, such as ‘Ginger’ Lacey, posted to an AAF squadron, sometimes found them ‘a rather snobbish preserve of the rich’. ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, another of the RAF’s top fighter aces, remained convinced that he had failed to get into an AAF squadron when the interviewing officer discovered that he was not a fox-hunting man. On another AAF squadron there was always ‘a social test’ in which a prospective officer candidate would be given Sunday lunch, and ‘several glasses of sherry’ to discover ‘if his parlance was no longer that of a gentleman’. Said one of them, ‘Auxiliaries are gentlemen trying to be officers, Regulars are officers trying to be gentlemen, VRs are neither trying to be both.’

Many AAF recruits had sports flying experience before joining but there were service instructors for these squadrons. These included men to teach recruits to become spare-time ground tradesmen: fitters, riggers, armourers, etc. ‘There was no shortage of recruits,’ said the Commanding Officer of 609 (West Riding) Squadron, after they received three Avro Tutor trainers and three Hawker Harts, ‘the difficulty was choosing them.’

When war began, the AAF squadrons were incorporated into the RAF. They became full-time units and each was attached to a parent RAF squadron. Many of the AAF bombing and army-cooperation squadrons became fighter units as – in the second half of 1939 – the Hawker Hurricanes arrived. The AAF pilots were almost all well-educated, intelligent young men with a high morale and peak physical fitness. They adapted almost effortlessly to the new fast monoplanes but many hours of flying experience were needed to make these part-time pilots into professionals. And they did not have many flying hours to go before facing the battle-hardened veterans of the German Air Fleets. It was also true that many Auxiliary flyers were far older than their adversaries, and older than RAF Regular pilots too. One AAF squadron had pilots on average five years older than the RAF Regulars with whom they shared the airfield.

Dowding was concerned about the flow of trained pilots from the flying schools. Even after war began, the intakes were still based upon peacetime establishments. Dowding reminded all concerned of the suddenness with which war inflicted casualties, and the long training that was needed to produce a skilled fighter pilot.

It took a year to complete basic pilot training, followed by another year of squadron service to get flying experience. So how long would it take to get the additional instructors they would need to increase the flow of fighter pilots? The outbreak of war not only underlined the shortage of trained pilots but it caused RAF fighter squadrons to be taken away from defence duties and sent to France. Dowding objected.

The Air Ministry chose to ignore Dowding’s suggestions and so was directly responsible for the shortage of skilled fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain. This, more than any other factor, brought the Luftwaffe close to air mastery.

The war began, but it did not begin with the great air attacks upon London and the two million casualties that the theorists had predicted. In fact air-raid casualties for Great Britain in the whole war totalled under 300,000 and about half of them were ‘slight injuries’. But the experts could not believe they were wrong. On 3 September 1939 air-raid warnings were sounded only a few minutes after the declaration of war – the ‘attack’ proved to be a small liaison aircraft carrying the Assistant French Military Attaché and an interpreter. In the early hours of the next day, a hoaxer caused the central London air-raid sirens to be sounded, simply by telephoning Scotland Yard from Guildford and saying that a large bomber formation had just passed over him, heading for London.

If, when war began, anyone in Britain’s air defences believed that the system was functioning well, the events of 6 September should have changed their mind. According to Dowding it all began when a ‘refugee aircraft from Holland’ was reported. Since there had been no notification of this incoming flight, RAF fighters were sent to intercept.

Like the aerial of any cheap transistor radio, the radar aerials produced a strong signal when at right angles to the aircraft (or radio station). Only by electrical screening could the radar distinguish seaward aircraft from those behind the aerials. On 6 September the screening failed, said Dowding, and the fighters sent up from British airfields to intercept appeared on the screens as blips out to sea. More RAF fighters took to the air, and each one looked like another incoming raider.

How the fighting began is still unknown but as the Spitfires from Hornchurch met the Hurricanes from North Weald, a battle began and two Hurricanes were shot down. One pilot died.

At Dowding’s HQ the movements of the coloured counters were being watched by King George VI, who had chosen that day to pay a visit. ‘I fear I was a most distrait host,’ said Dowding, who realised that something had gone terribly wrong.

The ‘sense-finding screen’ at Canewdon was checked and found to be working perfectly. Afterwards Watson-Watt insisted that all the fighters had been seawards of the aerials and the radar had reported accurately.

The rights and wrongs were never settled but there began an urgent reassessment of the radar and reporting network. Electronic sets that would enable RAF aircraft to identify themselves were ordered immediately. These IFF sets were crude and imperfect devices but, in September, 500 of them were put together by hand, so that the fighters could have them. And from the fiasco came an instruction that enemy raids should be confirmed by a visual sighting by the Observer Corps, before the fighters went in. As we shall see, this rule brought new difficulties.

Meanwhile the Luftwaffe were busy elsewhere, providing intensive air bombardment for the German army invading Poland. There was little air fighting, for the Polish air force had been almost destroyed by attacks upon the airfields. While the fighting continued, the governments of Britain and France worked hard at the task of convincing themselves that the Luftwaffe would not attack western cities unless provoked to it. The Anglo-French air forces were forbidden to drop anything more lethal than propaganda leaflets over German towns. RAF Bomber Command was allowed across the North Sea with bombs but only to attack German warships. Trying this in daylight, without fighter escort, they suffered heavy casualties. As 1939 came to an end RAF Bomber Command’s operations had proved disastrous. The raids had suffered a loss rate of 9.5 per cent (never again, in any year of the war, did losses reach even half this rate). Instead of adding fighter escort to their raids, they simply abandoned daylight bombing, which had been the basis of all their pre-war planning.

At night, the RAF contented themselves with leaflet dropping, and few of the attacking airmen ever found the designated targets. Replying to a proposal that the German forests could be set afire with incendiary bombs, Sir Kingsley Wood, Britain’s Air Minister, a one-time insurance consultant, revealed the official attitude: ‘Are you aware it is private property? Why, you will be asking me to bomb Essen next.’

Dowding and the 15 May Cabinet Meeting

On 10 May 1940, lacking such respect for property, panzer groups crossed the frontier without customs formalities. They were heading for the Meuse. The great blitzkrieg of 1940 had begun. The French asked the British to employ their heavy bomber force against the German columns. By 15 May panzer forces had bridged the Meuse. At a meeting of the War Cabinet on that day it was agreed that RAF Bomber Command should be authorised to attack.

In accord with the same theories that so impressed Göring, the RAF mounted the largest air bombardment the world had yet seen, and sent it off that same night. It was not sent to attack the bridges on the Meuse. Complex reasonings of strategy and the influence of Douhet selected oil industry targets in the densely populated Ruhr, and under cover of darkness 100 Whitley, Hampden and Wellington bombers tried to find them.

The French had argued desperately that air attacks upon the Ruhr could have no effect upon Guderian’s armoured invasion of France. The French were entirely right. The RAF official history admits that the bombers ‘achieved none of their objects. Industrial damage was negligible,’ and goes on to explain that the greatest benefit expected from this opening shot of the strategic bombing of Germany was ‘an informal invitation to the Luftwaffe to bomb London’. By this means it was hoped to divert the German air offensive away from the French ground forces. To what extent this motive was arrived at, after the raid failed to be anything better than a provocation, can only be guessed.

That particular War Cabinet meeting on 15 May was as important as any in the nation’s history. Dowding, alarmed by the numbers of his precious Hurricane fighters being sent to fight in France, had asked for permission to talk to the Cabinet. To his surprise he was invited along.

It is important to record the nature of Dowding’s objection. His upbringing, training, and his character would forbid his commenting upon the strategic advisability of moving fighter aircraft to France. Such a decision would, rightly, be that of the War Cabinet, advised by the Air Ministry. Dowding argued that, since the Air Ministry had long since decided that 52 squadrons would be needed for the defence of Britain, fighters sent to France must be written off as an overseas force, and separated from home defence. The force remaining in Britain must then be expanded to 52 squadrons.

Technically Dowding never argued his case before the Cabinet, and for entirely new information throwing light on this mysterious incident I am indebted to Professor A. J. P. Taylor who has most generously passed his research to me.

Dowding argued his case to Churchill, Archibald Sinclair (the new Air Minister), Beaverbrook (newly appointed Minister of Aircraft Production) and Sir Cyril Newall (Chief of Air Staff). He told them his 52 squadrons were already reduced to 36 and that at the present rate that Hurricanes were being shot down in France, there would be none left anywhere within two weeks. He produced a graph to support this contention and placed it in front of Churchill.

Dowding stayed on for the subsequent Cabinet meeting (it was not unusual for the room to be crowded with people in spite of its small permanent complement). However, Dowding didn’t speak before the Cabinet, neither did anyone else refer to Dowding’s plea. After the Cabinet meeting, Newall insisted that Sinclair should have raised the matter but by then it was too late. Orders were given that four more fighter squadrons should be sent to France.

Dowding went back to Fighter Command HQ and described the situation – just as he had put it to Churchill – in an official letter to the Under Secretary of State for Air. It proved a sound precaution, as we shall see.

The next day, 16 May, Churchill flew to Paris to hear Paul Reynaud, the French Premier, plead for still more RAF fighters to stem the German flood. Churchill phoned London (using two officers speaking Hindustani to preserve secrecy) and asked the Cabinet to agree that another six squadrons should be sent to France (additional to the four taken from Dowding on the previous day). The Cabinet met late that evening to consider it. Without Churchill’s commanding presence they wavered. The ineffectual Sinclair was emboldened enough to tell them about Dowding’s argument. Newall added that lack of suitable French airfields was another factor. (For it must be remembered that the Hurricanes would need a complex retinue of men and a considerable amount of equipment and spares to operate from France – and France was now in chaos.) Newall referred to ‘the figures laid before us by Air Chief Marshal Dowding yesterday,’ meaning not the Cabinet but the meeting beforehand. The Cabinet did not dare to defy Churchill but they compromised. They agreed that six more Hurricane squadrons could operate from French airfields, providing they returned to bases in England each night.