Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain

In two days Dowding had lost another ten fighter squadrons, and was now down to about half of the strength that was considered a dangerous minimum. It is in the context of these events that the bitter accusations of French High Commanders (that Churchill betrayed the alliance by denying France RAF fighters) must be considered.

Undoubtedly Churchill was extremely moved by the pleas of the French politicians and by the great and sudden tragedy that France was suffering. To what extent he wanted to reassert his command of the War Cabinet, and whether he took an instant dislike to Dowding – as he had to certain other military commanders – or what other motives he had, remains unknown. Churchill’s memoirs only add to the mystery. He does not refer to Dowding’s attendance at No. 10, and did not acknowledge any urgent warning. On the contrary, Churchill wrote, ‘Air Chief Marshal Dowding, at the head of metropolitan Fighter Command, had declared to me that with twenty-five squadrons of fighters he could defend the island against the whole of the German Air Force, but that with less he would be overpowered.’

This was nonsense. There were witnesses, there was the graph of Hurricane losses, and there was the letter that Dowding – ever distrustful of politicians – wrote immediately after the meeting. Without these, history might have recorded another instance of a politician being badly advised by his experts.

Dowding’s fears about fighters sent to France proved well founded. When the final figures came in, the losses caused to the 261 Hurricanes sent to support the British army were grave. Only 66 of these got back to England.

With German bases facing the British coast from north-western France to southern Norway, Dowding arranged his fighter squadrons to meet the inevitable attack.

Military experts were still incredulous that Panzerkorps Reinhardt had moved tanks through France forty miles in one day. Now began a battle in which units would move at 300 mph.

To fight such battles Dowding had quartered Britain into Fighter Groups. Each Group had a commander and a staff who worked at a large operations table, over which girls, using croupier’s rakes, moved coloured counters.

Depending on the generalship of these commanders, and their Operations Room staff, the battles would be lost or won. They would have only minutes – seconds sometimes – in which to decide which coloured counters might be a feint attack. Ordering fighters into the air too late made them easy prey for the Germans above them. Scrambling too few squadrons might lose a battle, scrambling too many meant undefended towns or, worse still, fighters refuelling so that a second wave of bombers destroyed them on the ground.