For years the story of the Battle of Britain was a tale of British heroism and German hubris. The account used to go that Germany came close to winning when they attacked the British airfields. However a decision by Hitler to attack London allowed fighter command to rally and win.
This book puts that myth to bed an explains why the Germans never had a chance of winning. The British had developed a radar system along their coast. This allowed them to initially locate German attacks which could then be monitored by ground observation stations. The British were thus in a position to alert their airfields to attacks and they could also control the rate at which fighters were sent into battle. In the battle of France and the attack on Poland the Germans had been able to destroy most of the enemy aircraft on the ground. This had been because they had been able to achieve surprise and the way that French and Polish aircraft were parked on the ground allowed for them to be destroyed easily. The British by comparison had any aircraft on the ground separated from other aircraft. Each aircraft was also kept in a u-shaped bomb shelter which meant that only a direct hit would destroy it.
Germany started the battle with a bigger air force but not that much bigger. More importantly the British were out producing the Germans in the manufacture of all aircraft types. The battle was one of attrition not only of aircraft but also of pilots. The British had the advantage that as the conflict took place in their airspace they were able to recover a large percentage of their pilots and put them back into combat. The downed German flyers either died or became prisoners.
The author of the book does some number crunching and calculated that for the Germans to have won the battle of Britain they would have had to shoot down five British aircraft for every one they lost. That is to destroy the British Air Force by September of 1940. The actual loss rate was a narrow advantage favoring the British. As they manufactured more aircraft this meant that they were stronger than the Germans when the battle ended.
The big advantage the Germans had at the start of the battle was that they had superior fighter tactics. In the First World War fighter planes flew in a reasonably tight formation which was meant to provide protection for the others in the group. In the late 30s air combat changed so that the key to success was not the maneuverability of aircraft that had been so important in WW1. Rather what was important was speed and first opportunity. Most fighter pilots in WW2 never shot down another aircraft. Most junior pilots who were shot down would never even see their attacker. What was critical was the first sight on the enemy. On seeing the enemy a fighter would attack at speed having a short time to shoot and then to dive away. The Germans developed very loose formations called swarms. One aircraft would be designated as the hunter and the other aircrafts role was to search for enemies and to provide protection to the hunter. The German system resulted in huge number of kills for the designated hunter but not for the others. This book is interesting as it suggests that a tiny minority of fighter pilots around 5% were responsible for most of the kills in all airforces.
The British had three main types of fighters in the battle. The Spitfire was their best fighter although the Hurricane was reasonable. The one turkey was the defiant, an aircraft which easy meat for the Germans and had to be withdrawn from combat. The main German fighter the ME 109 was comparable to the Spitfire and somewhat better than the Hurricane. However it only had a short range. The Germans also had a longer range fighter the ME 110 which like the Defiant ended up being easy meat for the opposition and ended the war in a night fighting role.
The Germans tried two strategies. The first was to send fighters over in sweeps. The second was to send over heavily escorted bombers. The British avoided combat with the fighters doing sweeps. It committed its aircraft to attacking bombers which were protected by fighter escorts. What happened in this case is that the Germans would lose a lot of the advantages that they normally had as they had to travel slowly to cover the bombers. Most fights then turned into slogs in which the British would lose slightly more fighters than they destroyed but would make up for it in shooting down German bombers.
Both sides at the time had little real idea of what was happening. The reported kills of each side were exaggerated by a rate of 5-7 times over what was happening. The British who overestimated the size of the German forces thought that they were winning a heroic victory rather than coming out marginally in front. The Germans thought that they had succeeded in destroying the British and were surprised when each attack met large numbers of aircraft which should not have been there.
The best account of the battle so far in which a statistical break down has given a more real idea of what was happening as opposed to the old chronological accounts.
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Top reviews from other countries
FictionLover
Probably the most truthful, diligent and perceptive account of the Battle of Britain
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 6, 2019Cliente Amazon
COMPLETE, EXTREMELY READABLE INFORMATIVE.. A MUST !
Reviewed in Italy on August 1, 2016