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How the Luftwaffe Lost the Battle of Britain British Courage and Capability Might Not Have Been Enough to Win; German Mistakes Were Also Key

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How the Luftwaffe Lost the Battle of Britain British Courage and Capability Might Not Have Been Enough to Win; German Mistakes Were Also Key How the Luftwaffe Lost the Battle of Britain British courage and capability might not have been enough to win; German mistakes were also key. By John T. Correll n July 1940, the situation looked “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall can do more than delay the result.” Gen. dire for Great Britain. It had taken fight on the landing grounds, we shall Maxime Weygand, commander in chief Germany less than two months to fight in the fields and in the streets, we of French military forces until France’s invade and conquer most of Western shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, predicted, “In three weeks, IEurope. The fast-moving German Army, surrender.” England will have her neck wrung like supported by panzers and Stuka dive Not everyone agreed with Churchill. a chicken.” bombers, overwhelmed the Netherlands Appeasement and defeatism were rife in Thus it was that the events of July 10 and Belgium in a matter of days. France, the British Foreign Office. The Foreign through Oct. 31—known to history as the which had 114 divisions and outnumbered Secretary, Lord Halifax, believed that Battle of Britain—came as a surprise to the Germany in tanks and artillery, held out a Britain had lost already. To Churchill’s prophets of doom. Britain won. The RAF little longer but surrendered on June 22. fury, the undersecretary of state for for- proved to be a better combat force than Britain was fortunate to have extracted its eign affairs, Richard A. “Rab” Butler, told the Luftwaffe in almost every respect. The retreating expeditionary forces from the Swedish diplomats in London that “no decisive factors were British capability beaches at Dunkirk. opportunity would be neglected for con- and determination, but German mistakes, Britain itself was next. The first objec- cluding a compromise peace” if it could before and during the battle, contributed tive for the Germans was to establish air be had “on reasonable conditions.” significantly to the outcome. superiority as a precondition for invasion. Joseph P. Kennedy, US ambassador to German rearmament was forbidden The Luftwaffe estimated haughtily that Britain, informed the State Department by the Treaty of Versailles at the end it would be able to defeat the Royal Air July 31 that the German Luftwaffe had of World War I, but aircraft develop- Force’s Fighter Command in southern the power to put the RAF “out of com- ment continued under the guise of civil England in four days and destroy the rest mission.” In a press statement, Sen. Key aviation. When Hitler came to power in of the RAF in four weeks. Pittman (D-Nev.), chairman of the Senate 1933, he pursued militarization openly. Winston Churchill, who on May 10 Foreign Relations Committee, declared, The Luftwaffe, formally established as a had succeeded Neville Chamberlain as “It is no secret that Great Britain is separate branch of service in 1935, was Prime Minister, was resolute. In a ring- totally unprepared for defense and that soon the largest air force in Europe and, ing speech to Parliament, he declared, nothing the United States has to give in the opinion of many, the best. 62 AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2008 first-line fighters of RAF Fighter Com- The officer corps was infatuated with mand against the fighters, bombers, and the dive bomber. It had worked well for dive bombers of two German air fleets. In the Condor Legion in Spain, where pilots that matchup, the German advantage was had difficulty hitting targets from high significantly greater. altitude. The dive bomber was accurate in How the Luftwaffe Lost Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, putting bombs directly on compact targets, commander of Fighter Command, said, which predominated in Spain. “Our young men will have to shoot The foremost advocate of the dive down their young men at the rate of bomber was Ernst Udet, another flam- five to one.” boyant flying ace from World War I. the Battle of Britain The Luftwaffe was not as invincible as it His friend Goering appointed him to be looked. One of its fundamental weaknesses technical chief of the Luftwaffe, a position was unstable leadership. The commander for which he was utterly unsuited. Udet in chief was Reichsmarschall Hermann W. insisted that every bomber have a dive Goering, a World War I ace and the succes- bombing capability, which added weight sor, in 1918, to Manfred von Richthofen in and subtracted speed from numerous command of Jagdgeschwader 1, the Flying aircraft in development. Circus. He had become a fat, blustering The Luftwaffe’s signature dive bomber caricature of himself. He had not kept up was the Ju 87 Stuka, instantly recognizable with changes in airpower and had little with its inverted gull wings, sturdy fixed knowledge of strategy. Goering was prone undercarriage, and wheel spats. It was to impulsive and erratic decisions. When enormously successful as a terror weapon Hitler intervened in the decision-making, in the Blitzkrieg. A wind-powered siren, which he did regularly, the results were used in diving attacks, contributed to the even worse. psychological effect. However, the Luftwaffe’s immediate Germany had no long-range bomb- problem in 1940 was that the subjugation ers and would not field its first strategic of Britain was not the kind of mission it bomber, the Heinkel 177, until 1944. was prepared to perform. Its strength was What it had in 1940 was an assortment of Blitzkrieg, the short, fast “lightning war” twin-engine medium bombers, notably the in which the German Army, supported by slow-moving He 111 and Do 17. They had Stuka air strikes, swept through Poland in been adequate to supplement the Stuka on 1939 and Western Europe in 1940. In both the continent, but they were out of their the Blitzkrieg and the war in Spain, the league in the Battle of Britain. The best Luftwaffe’s forte was close air support of of the German medium bombers was the ground forces. Ju 88, which had better range and speed, German pilots honed their skills in the Spanish Civil War. Between 1936 and 1939, they were rotated as “volunteers” through the Condor Legion, supporting Opposite: Pilots from Francisco Franco and the Nationalists. the RAF’s 601st Squad- They perfected techniques, tested their ron scramble to their airplanes—including the Ju 87 Stuka Hurricanes in August dive bomber and the Bf 109 fighter—and 1940. Left: A World War II gained experience. era British propaganda poster shows a group of America’s most famous aviator, Spitfires shooting down Charles A. Lindbergh, toured German German Heinkel 177s. bases and factories in September 1938. “Germany now has the means of destroy- ing London, Paris, and Prague if she wishes to do so,” Lindbergh wrote in a report to Kennedy in London. “England and France together have not enough modern war planes for effective defense or counterattack.” The Luftwaffe’s fearsome reputation was enhanced by the pushover German victories in Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. In July 1940, it was about twice the size of the RAF, but the critical measure was not gross numbers. Essentially, the Battle of Britain pitted the AIR FORCE Magazine / August 2008 63 Critical Matchup, July 1940 more than 100 miles out. Once Luft- waffe formations crossed England’s coastline, the Royal Observer Corps RAF Luftwaffe began tracking them. The RAF knew when and where to respond, and could 754 single seat fighters 1,107 single seat fighters delay scrambling its fighters until the last moment. 149 two seat fighters 357 two seat fighters Unbeknownst to Berlin, Britain had 560 bombers 1,380 bombers cracked the high-level German “Enigma” code. The intelligence product derived 0 dive bombers 428 dive bombers from these intercepts was called “Ultra.” It provided useful information about the 500 coastal 233 coastal Luftwaffe’s overall moves, but it did not N/A reconnaissance 569 reconnaissance add greatly to the day-to-day intelligence from other sources. 1,963 Total 4,074 Total Yet another RAF force multiplier was Aircraft numbers attributed to the two sides vary and changed constantly high-octane fuel. When the war began, in 1940 because of losses and replacements. Counts also differ in how both the Luftwaffe and the RAF were many aircraft were judged to be in service. using 87 octane aviation fuel. Beginning in May 1940, the RAF obtained 100 octane fuel from the United States and but it was just coming into production at of Britain. The Hurricane was larger and used it throughout the battle. It boosted that time. slower, but like the Spitfire, it could turn the performance of the Merlin engines in The Luftwaffe also had the Bf 110, inside the Bf 109. Bf 109 pilots, if they the Hurricanes and Spitfires from 1,000 nominally a twin-engine fighter. It had could, attacked from altitude, which gave to about 1,300 horsepower. good speed and range, but it was not agile them an advantage. Dowding—known as “Stuffy”—had enough to take on RAF fighters. Germany The RAF had several force multipli- been commander of Fighter Command might have done well to use it instead as ers, the most important of which was since its founding in 1936. He was the a fighter-bomber—which it did later in radar. The official British term for it was oldest of the RAF senior commanders—in- the war—but it was rarely employed in “RDF,” for radio direction finding, before a tensely private, eccentric and obstinate, that role in 1940. changeover in 1943 to match the American but a leader of exceptional ability.
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