tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60747452497151287552024-02-07T16:26:46.022-08:00Days of GloryPete Northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04172420184509249126noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6074745249715128755.post-29871230055223837832010-09-21T09:49:00.000-07:002010-09-22T05:10:47.557-07:00Guardian and Observer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhS2MlQ_XbVLFS8eMQxVdO5WZK23oCuFsqG3OD5tO5WqU36W9JdPLmVSAuPa2r-0kGaNfN-2hLHWtHqblr0XnUGVLx3oU2bWDHSDv7HN7H2Qj6KE7MpTwPgjOwziqwhGd16WB1ustLNg4/s1600/Guardian+400710+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhS2MlQ_XbVLFS8eMQxVdO5WZK23oCuFsqG3OD5tO5WqU36W9JdPLmVSAuPa2r-0kGaNfN-2hLHWtHqblr0XnUGVLx3oU2bWDHSDv7HN7H2Qj6KE7MpTwPgjOwziqwhGd16WB1ustLNg4/s400/Guardian+400710+001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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</div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02561483930556493363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6074745249715128755.post-4064370133484756472010-09-17T12:24:00.000-07:002010-09-17T12:24:21.193-07:00The Crux of the War<b>Manchester Guardian – 14 September 1940</b><br />
<br />
The attack on London continues, as was to be expected. One objective at a time is the method of Hitler and for the present the sought-for end is damage and disorganisation to the daily life of the capital city. But that can hardly be an end in itself. The special purpose of the Prime Minister's grave and measured words of yesterday evening was to put the ordeal of London against the background of the whole fortune of this vast struggle for the future of mankind. That struggle now hangs wholly on the courage and resources that are centred in this island: on this country's continued integrity depend campaigns that will later take shape round other shores and seas.<br />
<br />
Mr Churchill gave the first open statement of how nearly our defences are threatened. The very way in which the term "reprisal" was so freely used last week-end by the highest sources of information on the German side as an explanation for the opening of the attack on London bore something of a warning note; the first principle of those who would learn from an enemy is that he would never tell you advance of the purpose of a coming attack. Yesterday Mr Churchill spoke frankly of barges and motorcraft that have been making their way from German ports as far down the Channel as the coast of Brittany, of troops concentrated in Northern France, and of similar signs of readiness for attack as far away as Norway (where the Fleet Air Arm, it will have been noticed, has lately accounted for certain "supply vessels"). The weather waits, a moon which may be reckoned on to serve the harvest hopes of the Führer rises higher and higher: there is a brief chance before the closing days of this month to spring the ultimate test of the defences of this island.<br />
<br />
Whether the test will come we do not know. It has been understood that Hitler's pans for the invasion of the Low Countries were at full readiness in the middle of last November and again in mid-January: the hammer was cocked but for some reason the trigger was not pulled until May. He may think he is ready for England now, even though he lacks command of the sea and air. But he may think again before launching an assault which, when beaten off, would surely spell his ruin. Nevertheless, this gambler's chances can hardly improve with keeping until next year. Mr Churchill did well to warn us of a vaster background that the random brutality of the supposed "reprisal" against London.<br />
<br />
Göring has said that he is striking at the heart of the British Empire in obedience to instructions from his all-powerful and inspired Führer. With German navigators ill-trained in night bombing (and, no doubt, with no specific orders to be overnice in the placing of their bombs that involves a hideous and haphazard ordeal for many parts of the vast target that is offered by the London area. But there are real grounds for assuming that the new target is an experiment of necessity rather than free choice. For Göring's real enemy and therefore the true target is not the heart of the British Empire but the RAF.<br />
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Consider what it did to Germany during the month of August. Eighty-four named objectives – railway depots, oil refineries, aerodromes, dockyards, power installations, munition works, and aeroplane engine works all the way from the French coast to Berlin itself – were raided 185 times. Berlin itself, on which no bombs were ever to fall, had four attacks, the railway nerve centre of Hann fourteen, and Hamburg's docks and oil tanks were taken as a matter of course. These were the attacks which the inspired but genuinely aggrieved Führer described in his speech of last week as "bombs on civilian residential quarters, on farms and villages". They inflicted grave and important damage on Germany's war effort, and at all costs it was necessary to interfere with them. From Göring's point of view, <br />
<br />
And very properly in the scale of immediate relative values, the attacks on convoys in the Channel could go hang: RAF aerodromes and ports in the South-east of this island must be sought out and crippled. So began the great inland and coastal assaults of mid-August, daylight raids of great persistence but with altogether disproportionate losses to the attackers. Yet the ports continued to function and the RAF fighters remained as formidable over this country as the bombers over Germany. Saturday saw the attack definitely transferred to London.<br />
<br />
Yet the bitter destruction of life and dwellings in East London, whether they be treated as "reprisal" or as a preliminary to invasion are less of an answer to the RAF than the unavailing assaults on aerodromes. When the German approach London in daylight and in mass formations they pay as heavily as ever, and not for one night has the battering of Germany and the Channel assembly ports been interrupted since the attack on London began. On Sunday the Germans said that our bombers had been unable to reach Berlin: on Monday night the Neuköln gasworks in that city were effectively bombed as well as the old objectives along the coast and at railway junctions. <br />
<br />
On Tuesday night, "Potsdam station was repeatedly hit with heavy bombs and several hundred incendiaries," a successful stroke of dislocation the effects of which will be felt far beyond Berlin. The attack on London has been launched with nothing approaching the mastery of the air to support it; every night sees blows of much greater military significance struck over a far wider range of Germany's war machine. The Luftwaffe may have the numbers but its numbers are outfought. <br />
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Yet, as Mr Churchill said yesterday evening, mastery of the air over this island is at the moment "the crux of the war". Göring has not got it, any more than he had at Dunkirk in May, in order to support whatever plans his Führer may have for an invasion. And neither fires behind St Paul's nor bombs on Buckingham Palace will bring it any nearer in a military sense.<br />
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<a href="http://umbrellog.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1008399" target="_blank">COMMENT: Battle of Britain thread</a>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02561483930556493363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6074745249715128755.post-80141120528983087292010-08-31T12:15:00.003-07:002012-02-29T11:03:15.952-08:00About this blog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7LMqso_txx-1zUJEiuBXv8Gl7TYHfmNRAjuqf3Vnb8_ERoC9w1kP2oi-NDVViCrwE7obglPiVzTJttGGe-ZsrFGS5Sb7ysBLS61zrSxGUaftFzWEdpSq6kXTmqfh_cHJkluNxRJopd1o/s1600/Churchill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7LMqso_txx-1zUJEiuBXv8Gl7TYHfmNRAjuqf3Vnb8_ERoC9w1kP2oi-NDVViCrwE7obglPiVzTJttGGe-ZsrFGS5Sb7ysBLS61zrSxGUaftFzWEdpSq6kXTmqfh_cHJkluNxRJopd1o/s320/Churchill.jpg" /></a></div>As one of the "baby bulge" children, born in 1948, I am of a generation that missed the war. But it is still very close and very real. As a child, much of my time was spent exploring bomb sites, old bomb shelters, pill boxes and the paraphernalia of war. My stamping ground was Hackney Marshes, and the River Lea, where we watched the barges being unloaded, much as they were in the 1940s.<br />
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Churchill was still alive when I was born. He was to have a spell as prime minister as I grew up, too young then to understand what was going on. But I was one of the hundreds of thousands who filed past his coffin after he had died and watched his funeral. You really did then have a sense that a moment in history had passed.<br />
<br />
With that, the war is part of my make-up. It shaped my generation and gave us much of our "world view", defined who we were and how we felt about ourselves. And within that period of the war, there is of course that very special time - the Battle of Britain. It may not mean as much to the current generation – especially as history teaching is so poor – but it really did have a very, very strong influence.<br />
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It was about our parents, and the British nation which stood up against the forces of evil. We, us, the Commonwealth and Empire, held the line. The forces of good prevailed. And the Battle of Britain had a certain innocence and purity about it. It made you feel good about yourself because you were British. It was a British achievement. It was part of your heritage.<br />
<br />
On the 70th Anniversary of the start of the Battle, therefore, I decided set up a blog as a personal tribute to the "few" - the gallant RAF pilots who were the heroes of the battle. My entirely unambitious objective was to write a daily summary of events as they happened on each day, each exactly seventy days previously. There was no ulterior motive, and no expectation of doing anything more in an area where all the main historical issues seemed to have been settled.<br />
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The process of writing, however, focused the mind on events and the narrative, in a way that just reading a series of books and reports cannot do. I thus found myself being drawn more and more into the established narrative than I had originally intended.<br />
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Responding to comments on the blog forum and my own innate curiosity, my source list widened and my reading deepened. But, contrary to my expectations, that process led not to an improved understanding and appreciation of events, but exactly the reverse. Away from what might be termed the classic "Boys' Own" narrative, there are huge areas of disagreement on the sequence of events, their meaning and their importance. None of the crucial issues, it seems, are at all settled.<br />
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<b>The artificial battle</b><br />
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First and foremost though, what emerges is that the battle, at the time of its fighting, had no separate or distinct identity. For it formally to exist as the event which is currently recognised, it had to be defined - as to its nature, its participants and timespan. As a battle - with a beginning, an end and a recognisable outcome - it is an artificial creation.<br />
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The currently accepted definition is that component of the air war fought between 10 July and 31 October 1940 over British soil and adjacent seas. The aim was to deprive the German Air Force (<i>Luftwaffe</i>) of the air superiority it needed to achieve over the English Channel and Southern England, in order to permit the execution of Operation <i>Sealion</i> - the invasion of Britain. The participants are defined as aircrew members of RAF Fighter Command who flew one or more authorised sortie during the period. <br />
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In so far as the <i>Luftwaffe</i> did not achieve local air superiority during the period of the battle (at least, during daylight hours), and the invasion of Britain did not take place, Fighter Command is deemed to have won the battle. It is thus lauded as our saviour, having claimed t have prevented the subjugation of this island race - and by inference the whole of the "free" world - by the Nazis.<br />
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<b>A conceptual problem</b><br />
<br />
With all of these concepts, I now have a serious problem. Firstly and mainly though, it is highly unlikely that <i>Sealion</i>, the invasion of Britain, would ever have been launched by the Germans, irrespective of whether air superiority had been achieved.<br />
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Even in peacetime, during daylight with perfect sea conditions and the best possible equipment, the task required, of delivering over 100,000 men and their supplies and equipment, the first wave to land near simultaneously on a series of beaches in Southern England - and then keeping them supplied and reinforced - would have been an amazing feat of organisation and seamanship.<br />
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Here, too many writers and analysts are simply not thinking straight, and it is not hard to work out why. Take away the threat of an invasion and the classic Battle of Britain narrative falls. Then as now, they need the threat of the invasion to be real, or the conventional narrative does not stand up.<br />
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But it takes little imagination to work out why the narrative is false. The "invasion", on which so much depends, was fraught with danger - even without hostile intervention. The invasion fleet was to be an <i>ad hoc</i> collection of river barges and ships. The river barges, many unpowered, were not designed for sea voyages and barely seaworthy even under optimum conditions. And the conditions were far from optimum.<br />
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The journey itself was to be undertaken at night, with poorly-trained and inexperienced crews, without the benefit of large-scale rehearsals, into highly dangerous and unpredictable waters. Furthermore, this was to be done without basic navigational aids - such as lighted buoys, beach and harbour lighting, and lighthouses - all in waters where sailors approaching the coast in daylight, without local knowledge, are advised to take on pilots.<br />
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Amazingly, this feat of navigation and ship handling was also supposed to be done without radio communications. The Germans thus picked dates for the invasion when there was to be a quarter moon, giving (supposedly) enough light for visual signals (flags and some such) to be used. In confined waters, in darkness, nearly 3,000 vessels were supposed to be co-ordinated through a series of complex manoeuvres to bring them to the beaches.<br />
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Then there was the minor problem of the British response. To deal with that, air superiority was a <i>necessary</i> condition for embarking on the exercise. But then, for far too many commentators, the thinking stops. Too few go on to consider whether it was also <i>sufficient</i> - i.e., that the invasion could have gone ahead, had air superiority been achieved.<br />
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Arguably, in order for the Germans to proceed, they would also have had to have gained command of the sea. That, they never had, and neither did they have the means of securing it. Yet, without it, ranged against the might of the Royal Navy, a contested invasion could not have succeeded.<br />
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This particular issue, though, has been argued out over the decades and, as it stands, this is denied by the traditionalists. But again, they are not thinking straight. Firstly, it is undeniably the case that any invasion fleet approaching British shores would have done so at night. Under cover of darkness, the Royal Navy could operate freely, without the intervention of air power which was wholly ineffective between dusk and dawn.<br />
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Secondly, while the limitations of the Home Fleet are constantly highlighted, those who would deny the role of the Navy also have to deny or downplay the presence of over a thousand small craft employed by the navy, ranging from sloops and armed trawlers, to armed yachts, MTBs and MGBs, and smaller craft. While not a formidable force against heavily armed warships, against the barges, small ships and motorboats of an invasion fleet, these could have caused great slaughter and chaos.<br />
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The perilous nature of the venture, and the almost certainty that it could not succeed, begs the question as to whether Hitler, and some of the main players, such as Göring or Räder, the C-in-C of the German Navy (<i>Kriegsmarine</i>), actually wanted to carry out the operation - or what their real motives were.<br />
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Hitler, perhaps did not want an invasion because it thought it might fail. Mostly, though, his enthusiasm waned because he thought it an unnecessary risk. He expected the government of Britain to collapse, and was constantly putting out peace feelers in the expectation that the British government would see sense and sue for peace.<br />
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Räder most certainly believed it would fail, and thought Britain could be defeated by a blockade. Nor was he far wrong in his expectation - the U-Boat and long-range air assault on shipping, the mining of the coastal seas and the bombing of the ports very nearly brought the UK to her knees. Göring lacked commitment to the invasion, and never seriously planned for it, because he wanted to win victory for himself and his <i>Luftwaffe</i>, without having to share the glory with the navy or the army. Like so many of his time and generation, he also had an inflated view of the effectiveness of air warfare and, in particular, the power of the bomber.<br />
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Necessarily, what emerges from this is the view that, as a military exercise, the battle conducted by Fighter Command was strategically irrelevant. There was never any realistic prospect that Britain was going to be exposed to a contested invasion. And had there, despite all the odds, been a German invasion, it would have been defeated in detail not by the RAF but primarily by the Royal Navy.<br />
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<b>Re-defining the battle</b><br />
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If it is the case that the invasion threat was not real, then the Battle of Britian has been wrongly defined. If you prefer, it has been expropriated by a group which is claiming exclusive ownership of something which is much bigger and more important than they are. For, while Fighter Command's battle may have been strategically irrelevant, that is not to say that there was not a different Battle of - or <i><b>for</b></i> - Britain. Nor can it be said that this different battle was irrelevant.<br />
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Certainly, it is the case that Hitler sought to defeat Britain, but an invasion was only one of his options. The first was the traditional blockade, Hitler seeking to turn the tables on the British and do to them what they had done to his country in the 1914-18 war. Another option was the utilisation of air power as a weapon of terror, cowing the population to such an extend that they would force their own government to sue for peace.<br />
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What emerges from this is that - from the German perspective - there were three interlinked and overlapping components to a battle which could rightly and properly lay claim to be components of a larger and real Battle of Britain, any one of which could, in theory, have brought Britain to the point of surrender. When all three are taken into account, the battle lasted much longer than the 114 days attributed to the very limited part of the war fought by RAF Fighter Command.<br />
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Briefly the order in which the battle played out was the the "blockade" phase, when the Germans sought to deprive us of the supplies essential to the prosecution of the war and, indeed, our very survival. This was overtaken for a short time by the second component, the invasion phase, during which Fighter Command fought with the <i>Luftwaffe</i> for the daytime control of the sky, on the assumption that Germany did, in fact, intend to invade. The third "terror" phase, more commonly called the Blitz, then took over, during which time the "blockade war" continued. That part, more commonly styled as the Battle of the Atlantic, was not defeated until 1943.<br />
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<b>The Churchill agenda</b><br />
<br />
If the Germans had their own agendas, so did Churchill, and they were not simply the mirror image of the German ambitions. The most obvious agenda would have been the defeat of the Germans but, right from the start, Churchill recognised that Great Britain, without the support of France, could not amass a land army on the continent of Europe big enough to take on and defeat the German.<br />
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Therefore - and it is vitally important that this is properly understood - in the early days, Churchill's strategic objective was not to win the war. He neither sought nor intended to defeat the Germans. The first task he set, with the approval and agreement of the military chiefs of staff, was to survive long enough for the United States to enter the war and field an army which could, alongside the British, defeat the Germans.<br />
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From this devolved a second and intimately linked task, which was to convince a neutral, reluctant and largely isolationist United States to join the war on the side of Great Britain. That required projecting a narrative to the people and the government of the US, creating, in effect, propaganda war between Great Britain and Germany, the latter's objective being to keep the United States out of the war.<br />
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Beset by a string of failures and defeats, which continued after Dunkirk, with the loss of Somaliland and Kenya, and the debacle at Dakar, it thus became imperative to convince the United States that Britain could hold its own, and stay in the war. A nation on the brink of defeat was not going to get the support of the US, and it therefore became necessary to deliver a victory. To achieve that, the propaganda was focused on Fighter Command, creating a version of the Battle of Britain which the British, through its gallant airmen, was winning. To that extent, the activities of the RAF were being used to create a drama to entertain and captivate the Americans.<br />
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But there was another agenda - of domestic rather than international relevance. This was to do with Churchill securing his political base with his own Party. A newly appointed prime minister in May 1940, head of a coalition government, leading the nation in an unpopular war, he had to secure the commitment of the British people as well.<br />
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<b>Progressing the arguments</b><br />
<br />
With such issues under consideration, and many more, the writing has developed its own momentum, especially as it has become evident that the story has not yet been fully told. One wonders whether it ever can be but, on the other hand, one knows that additional areas must be explored.<br />
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This blog now sets out to give as comprehensive an overview of the events as can be done within the limitations of the format. The central premise is that the battle can only be properly understood if the events are seen as an integral whole - the military, on the sea and land and well as in the air, the political, social and economic. The air battle, I assert, is only a very small part of the whole and not necessarily the most important.<br />
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That assertion, though, is not cast in stone. The blog has become a journey of discovery. My general technique (although not followed slavishly) is to write a basic narrative for each day, based on a limited number of (mostly secondary) sources, the objective being to tell a reasonably coherent story.<br />
<br />
I then widen the range of sources, going back to original material, piling layer upon layer, correcting, adding, refining, revising and (I hope) improving the narrative as it develops, all to meld it into a single, integrated narrative. No one post is a definitive statement. Each and every one is subject to addition, revision and re-shaping.<br />
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In so doing, I bring to the table a synthesis of existing and original material. There is no point in re-inventing the wheel and, through the scholarship of people such as Francis K. Mason and his superb <i>Battle over Britain</i>, we have as good a record of the day-to-day Fighter Command air battle as we will probably ever get. In Larry Donnelly's <i>The Other Few</i>, we then have a useful record of other aspects of the air war, involving Bomber and Coastal Commands. This adds a necessary and wholesome balance and I use both sources freely, plus many more.<br />
<br />
But what I then add is a whole raft of original and vastly under-exploited sources which are now available on-line and are thus accessible to the research process. And here, the internet brings a highly significant dimension to the research, which hitherto has been poorly understood. It offers a revolution perhaps every bit as profound as the Spitfire brought to air warfare.<br />
<br />
<b>The research process</b><br />
<br />
The issue, as with the Spitfire, is speed. A wide range of sources have now become available, from across the world, which no longer require a physical presence in order to obtain access to them. With many of the databases also electronically searchable, it is also no longer necessary to plough through thousands or hundreds of thousands of papers to find relevant material. Tasks which often took weeks and sometimes months - with the attendant expense, which can itself cripple the research process - can now often be completed in seconds.<br />
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The sources that add a special dimension to the narrative are very substantial. Not least, is the entire archive of <i>Flight</i> magazine, the weekly specialist aviation magazine, which was published right throughout the war, and which provides as unique insight into the thinking and development in aviation, during the period. The publishers have made the searchable archive available specifically to enhance the research process, and are to be warmly commended for it.<br />
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To this, one can add the electronic archives of the <i>Manchester Guardian</i> and the <i>New York Times</i>, the "right wing" <i>Daily Express</i>, the left-leaning <i>Daily Mirror</i>, and that of the regional "county" newspaper, the <i>Yorkshire Post</i>. The complete editions of the daily Hansard, the record of the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament through the period, and the weekly briefings from the Chiefs of Staff to the War Cabinet, plus the War Cabinet minutes and associated papers.<br />
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With that, we also have half a dozen or so on-line narratives of the Battle of Britain, some new, some official (such as the RAF Campaign Diary) and some well established, all of which give immediate access to the bare bones of the events, and much else besides. And we also have, courtesy of the academic team who published it in book form, the complete set of reports from the Ministry of Information's Home Intelligence team.<br />
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On top of this, there is a vast range of local and regional web sites which have sprung up over the last decade, representing thousands of hours of research labour, by local historians, archivists, librarians, journalists and many others, adding a phenomenally rich source of material which has barely been tapped. The quality is obviously variable but the best is highly professional and has been extremely valuable.<br />
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As the work progresses, the information accrues and the arguments develop and mature. But this is an evolution as much as a revolution. What you read today is not necessarily exactly what you will read tomorrow, especially as the writing is being pursued in conjunction with the forum, where many readers are adding their own observations and information, which is then incorporated into the growing narrative.<br />
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On 31 October though, the daily narrative ended ... but the writing has not. It will continue until the story feels complete. Then I will publish it as a whole. What it will tell us all, I really do not know - but I suspect it will be very different from what has gone before.<br />
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<a href="http://umbrellog.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1008399" target="_blank">COMMENT: Battle of Britain thread</a>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02561483930556493363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6074745249715128755.post-7066213387199688142010-08-28T04:14:00.000-07:002010-08-28T14:12:48.297-07:00Air Sea Rescue<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0NKVIPIefKc4ntpD4tULTJOOxgNaF-Pl1RiPaW9G_0HoXKiLCijnW-wg8_QBEIH8UGPkOsTQF-VmtG_9S4ddSrhT-nf7CEM24GoielpJ9sZdku-QUd5yNzlnqEQWzL7xdMf6YaFOVzdb/s1600/ASR+Launch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0NKVIPIefKc4ntpD4tULTJOOxgNaF-Pl1RiPaW9G_0HoXKiLCijnW-wg8_QBEIH8UGPkOsTQF-VmtG_9S4ddSrhT-nf7CEM24GoielpJ9sZdku-QUd5yNzlnqEQWzL7xdMf6YaFOVzdb/s400/ASR+Launch.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
One of the great myths of the Battle of Britain was that the bombing of London on 7 September and the subsequent Blitz “saved” the RAF and allowed us to win the Battle. In fact, the Battle had by then already been won, not by the action of Goering’s Luftwaffe in bombing the cities, and London in particular, but in moving inland to attack the RAF bases, the part of the campaign which started in earnest on 15 August.<br />
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Contrary to perceptions, it was at this time that the massive losses of RAF pilots began to stabilise and the tide began to turn.<br />
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The explanation for this has emerged more clearly from an evaluation of the statistics throughout the battle, and in particular in first phase of the Battle of Britain which started on 10 July 1940, and in fact earlier, This was the attack on the coastal convoys known as <i>Kanalkampf</i>. <br />
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In one of the most shameful episodes of the entire Battle, there had been no systemic provision for air sea rescue. Air Chiefs had assumed that the high volume of shipping in British coastal waters would mean that downed airmen would be spotted and recovered, using normal shipping and civilian rescue services such as the Lifeboat Services.<br />
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Tragically, this was not the case and, during this phase of the battle, over 200 pilots were lost who might have otherwise been saved. <br />
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A typical example was during the air battles of 8 August when 19 British fighters were shot down and no less than 18 were reported killed or missing - including three in one machine, a Blenheim F1. Of those, 15 of 18 of the pilots were lost at sea – over 80 percent. Is seems statistically improbable that they were all killed in combat or died on impact. One the fighting moved inland, the loss rate dropped to below 50 percent and on some days was much less, as pilots were able to bale out over land.<br />
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One of those lost was Flt Lt "Henry" Hall, friend of Battle of Britain ace Johnnie Kent. He observed that these early combats had been, in his opinion, “the most deadly of all”. Many a good fighter pilot was lost who would have been invaluable in the days that followed.<br />
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Fighting over England, Kent wrote in his autobiography, one always had the comfort of knowing that if one was forced to jump one would come down on land where medical attention, if required, could rapidly be obtained. He continued:<br />
<blockquote>Over the sea it was a different matter, he wrote. We were only equipped with archaic Mae Wests, the buoyancy of which depended upon wads of kapok and a rubber bladder that had to be inflated by mouth.</blockquote>"The chances of being picked up during a convoy attack were very remote and this may well have happened to Henry as it did to so many others." Kent added. Hall had been commanding a flight in No. 257 Sqn but had previously been a test pilot at Farnborough.<br />
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In the official history of the RAF during the war, we are told that Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, AOC No. 11 Group at the heart of the battle, had in late July succeeded in borrowing some Lysander aircraft to work systematically with the launches and other craft, a step towards building a truly comprehensive organisation for air-sea rescue service. <br />
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Few investments of aircraft were to yield more precious dividends, the history asserts. How badly we needed special aircraft for this purpose is then highlighted by the "not unrepresentative" experience of Pilot Officer Stevenson from No. 74 Sqn, sent in to intercept a raid. It is an illustration, the official historian cites, of: "the almost fortuitous fashion in which our airmen were being picked up from the sea."<br />
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Having baled out of his aircraft at high altitude (23,000 ft) after mixing it with a group of Me 109s, he has drifted eleven miles out to sea on the end of his parachute by the time he hits the water. His narrative thus continues:<br />
<blockquote>One string of my parachute did not come undone, and I was dragged along by my left leg at ten miles an hour with my head underneath the water. After three minutes I was almost unconscious, when the string came undone. I got my breath back and started swimming. There was a heavy sea running. After one and a half hours an MTB came to look for me. I fired my revolver at it. It went out of sight, but came back. I changed magazines and fired all my shots over it. It heard my shots and I kicked up a foam in the water, and it saw me. It then picked me up and took me to Dover.</blockquote>The figure of twelve Lysanders is often mentioned but <a href="http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafiles/94DE4879_5056_A318_A87D263A517BCEEA.pdf" target="_blank">it would appear</a> that the arrangement was for Army Co-operation squadrons to provide a detachment at Manston in Kent, for the express purpose of air-sea Rescue. Each of four Lysander squadrons were to provide three crews and aircraft in month-long detachments. It is claimed that the first three crews left Linton from No. 4 Sqn early in the month of August and on the 20th of the month carried out the first successful rescue.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo_kArCvLY44BOwvVR4y0ausWtRsyURbTUkAHQcuEKRjyCijAYpoIPgZHS6F2fhoEXaMwHkS3XlzFq3562Tly9PKftvpJF797nLv-2AdzDENekQvhojzu-ihWA6vIwqF9_t4PaUSSf8FD/s1600/ASR+005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlo_kArCvLY44BOwvVR4y0ausWtRsyURbTUkAHQcuEKRjyCijAYpoIPgZHS6F2fhoEXaMwHkS3XlzFq3562Tly9PKftvpJF797nLv-2AdzDENekQvhojzu-ihWA6vIwqF9_t4PaUSSf8FD/s400/ASR+005.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
There are, however, some inconsistencies in this account as by mid-August Manston was under frequent attack from the <i>Luftwaffe</i> and was in the process of being abandoned. Yet, we are told that "in late August" one of the Lysanders was lost, with its crew, Plt Off Empson and Sgt Gethin, being posted missing. No trace was ever found of their aircraft.<br />
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On the other hand, records for <a href="http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2711810" target="_blank">John Edward Gethin</a> and <a href="http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2361161" target="_blank">Philip Thomas Empson</a> with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission record their deaths on 15 November, with evidence that the bodies were recovered as both have marked graves. Furthermore, <a href="http://www.luftwaffe.cz/bretnutz.html" target="_blank">another website</a> identifies <i>Luftwaffe</i> ace Heinz "Pietzsch" Bretnütz as having shot down a Lysander of No. 4 Sqn, RAF flown by P/O Empson on the 15 November.<br />
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Another inconsistency arises in a claim that "September also saw the loss of Plt Offs Knight and Edwards to enemy fighters whilst on an ASR sortie." This would be a period when Manston was shut down for the main part of the month, available for emergency landings and refuelling. Lysander operations from this station are improbable. More puzzling though, there is no Commonwealth War Grave Commission of Knight and Edwards, as a pair, being killed in September, or at any time on the same day.<br />
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On the face of it, therefore, there is no easily accessible evidence which confirms that the RAF was operating dedicated ASR aircraft in 1940. Even the deaths of Gethin and Empson in the November is not evidence of an ASR operation as Lysanders were frequently used on anti-invasion reconnaissance sorties.<br />
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We do know, however, that on 19 August, Park issueed his Fighter Controllers with instructions not to vector pilots over the sea because "too many were getting drowned". And we also know that on 22 August an emergency meeting was held under the chairmanship of "Bomber" Harris to explore the shortcomings of air sea rescue provision and set in motion the development of a dedicated service. <br />
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Such was the bureaucratic inertia that it was not until February 1941 that an Air Sea Rescue Directorate was set up and it was not fully functional until the end of the year. By the end of the war, the RAF having started with only 18 rescue launches, mainly to service its seaplane bases, ended up with over 600, plus squadrons of dedicated rescue aircraft.<br />
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Perversely, the Germans had a well-developed air-sea rescue service, which they had established in 1935. Flying a dedicated fleet of white-painted Heinkel 59 floatplanes, each unarmed and marked with red crosses, they saved many airmen, German and British. But, in a controversial decision, on 19 July 1940, the then C-in-C of Fighter Command, Hugh Dowding, ordered them shot down.<br />
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In a report written in 1946, he noted:<br />
<blockquote>It might also be assumed that all German crews who were in aircraft brought down during the Battle were permanently lost to the Luftwaffe because the fighting took place on our side of the Channel. Such an assumption would not be literally true, because the Germans succeeded in rescuing a proportion of their crews from the sea by means of rescue boats, floats and aircraft which will be later described.</blockquote>On the other side though, for an RAF pilot to be shot down over the sea was an almost certain death sentence.Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02561483930556493363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6074745249715128755.post-77461953307724184182010-08-23T11:44:00.001-07:002010-08-23T11:44:50.972-07:00York<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLBFsAsDCHlTXvlgz-BEQkhAbklxnFKzxAa7I7vNVCZpLM8yhDFWL7VxKI4pq_E4gQXffHDv8KoCIXAy19w-SMbVCKubXdbvdUI2ZMiYVvS2fuJOwBr80VCQEx7F85iSci1ppyUVDTCmi/s1600-h/AIR+-+York.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5180149791848739986" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLBFsAsDCHlTXvlgz-BEQkhAbklxnFKzxAa7I7vNVCZpLM8yhDFWL7VxKI4pq_E4gQXffHDv8KoCIXAy19w-SMbVCKubXdbvdUI2ZMiYVvS2fuJOwBr80VCQEx7F85iSci1ppyUVDTCmi/s400/AIR+-+York.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02561483930556493363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6074745249715128755.post-46751514410623007282010-08-23T11:43:00.001-07:002010-08-23T11:43:54.985-07:00Whitley<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7hq_lV1VLv-rywtBEIk9S5KqaxQqoOiuEsCEwKDgv9bRPj0hmkqMR6bp1pELtgAsNluGiJHwSFK2zMZvj1LVVQYft4FlNwkxXk8GuDPwERSWsjOJV_pulPcmiMVZ1x_nRQG0d_otAFsbY/s1600-h/2117L.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179229536467677922" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7hq_lV1VLv-rywtBEIk9S5KqaxQqoOiuEsCEwKDgv9bRPj0hmkqMR6bp1pELtgAsNluGiJHwSFK2zMZvj1LVVQYft4FlNwkxXk8GuDPwERSWsjOJV_pulPcmiMVZ1x_nRQG0d_otAFsbY/s400/2117L.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02561483930556493363noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6074745249715128755.post-32291452513559616462010-08-23T11:42:00.001-07:002010-08-23T11:42:24.442-07:00Whirlwind<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSW8N4oa0op-TgSZABERf6ZuY-bYDgKJXWHHLMibXi5gQh_8zZjkFMmF7wbHgMIzqsDulEHHmPLdxqZFinsUbID44W83HKOIT7P9JSDlPc4B1Coqk6Nuq4ccy1ZwNwUbiaDWCgwX8hXLs1/s1600-h/AIR+-+whirlwind.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5179460622888071970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSW8N4oa0op-TgSZABERf6ZuY-bYDgKJXWHHLMibXi5gQh_8zZjkFMmF7wbHgMIzqsDulEHHmPLdxqZFinsUbID44W83HKOIT7P9JSDlPc4B1Coqk6Nuq4ccy1ZwNwUbiaDWCgwX8hXLs1/s400/AIR+-+whirlwind.jpg" style="cursor: hand; 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