12 AUGUST
If the meteorological boffins had been over-optimistic earlier, on 11 August they were quite confident that a long, fine spell was on the way. The Luftwaffe, which daily flew weather flights far out into the Atlantic, was equally confident that barometric pressure was building up around the Azores. This meant the likelihood of a number of fine hot days and, in the context of the Battle, it also meant heavy fighting.
The German High Command was at this time by no means dismayed by the results of the first five weeks of air fighting. The optimistic claims of the pilots were matched by the favourable conclusions of the intelligence officers on the ground, and they all aspired to being angels with tidings of great joy. Their figures of RAF fighter losses set against their calculated output of new machines led Kesselring and Sperrle to believe that Fighter Command could muster no more than about 450 Spitfires and Hurricanes when the real figure was more like 750. Fourteen days was Goering’s estimate for knocking out the last strength of the RAF in order to clear the way for the invasion: first Adlerangriff, to start the following day, with the weather clearly on their side as it had been during the blitzkrieg in France, then Seeloewe: ‘Eagle Attack’ followed by ‘Sealion’. By November, Britain would be on her knees.
At the same time, German commanders and aircrew alike did not underrate the task ahead. The month of July had been a period of reappraisal. Both the skill of the British pilots and the quality of the machines had come as a surprise. After Poland and France, where they had fought the closely co-ordinated land-air battles for which the Luftwaffe had been prepared, this sustained attrition against an enemy who was often elusive, early-warned and co-ordinated, and always beyond a strip of water varying in width from twenty-three to 100 miles, was stretching their skill and resources beyond expectation.
But their cause would prevail, of that every commander, pilot, gunner, navigator and wireless operator had no doubt. At the German High Command Sperrle, Kesselring and their staff – all high-peaked caps, glinting leather, decorations and brass – awaited the arrival of Reichsmarschall Goering. He stepped out of a massive, open, camouflaged Mercedes, baton tucked under his arm, the personification of arrogant authority. Then came much clicking of heels, flicking of wrists to signify ‘Heil Hitler!’ and shuffling for position before entering the building. Today the supreme commander would follow the preliminaries. Already, at 7 a.m., the Me 109s were out on ‘free chases’, challenging and provoking, sweeping at ‘nought feet’ over the undulating fields behind the Kent coast, where the early harvesters were out and restraining their horses as the fighters streaked overhead.
And tomorrow’s weather? Goering was informed that two weather squadrons had reported back from their Atlantic recces and all the indications were favourable. Meanwhile, the Reichsmarschall was not informed about the first loss of the day, which was serious and guaranteed to put him in an evil temper. Half-a-dozen He 111s is of II/KG27 had been out during the night over the English West Country and South Wales to keep the people awake and drop their bombs on targets like Plymouth, Swansea and Bournemouth. B Flight of RAF 87 Squadron on detachment from Yorkshire to Filton, outside Bristol, had scrambled and Pilot Officer Peter Comely, new to the squadron, had intercepted one of these Heinkels after it had bombed Bristol docks. He damaged it so badly that the crew baled out into the dark soon after midnight. The German High Command knew no details; all that was known was that the Gruppekommandeur, Major F.-K. Schlichting, his second-in-command and two more senior officers had failed to return. There was nothing to be gained by passing this news on to the Reichsmarschall at the start of a day of such high hopes.
The 12th of August was to be the day for putting out the eyes and the airfields (or some of them) of the RAF. The tall radar towers, long since correctly identified, were clearly proving more effective than the German High Command had reckoned. It was still not appreciated how efficient were not only the CH and CHL radar, but, equally important within the defence structure, the communications and co-ordination of the early-warning system. The last month’s fighting had disquietingly revealed how, time after time, the weight and direction of Luftwaffe attacks had been anticipated so early by the RAF that the fighter squadrons were there, awaiting them like tipped-off gangland rivals. Only the previous day, the big raid on Portland and Weymouth had been met by Spitfires and Hurricanes from five squadrons, which were soon reinforced by twenty more Hurricanes and a dozen Spitfires.
For Adlerangriff, then, every radar station between Portland and the Thames Estuary was to be put out of action, mainly by low-level bombing attacks which, it was predicted, would topple the towers and destroy the buildings and communications. The first of these radar-breaking assaults, timed for around 9 a.m., was assigned to that superb pilot, leader and Me 110 specialist, Hauptmann Walter Rubensdoerffer of Erpro 210. He had already shown himself a pioneer in the exploitation of the single- and twin-engined Messerschmitt fighters in the bomber role, beginning with a single 250 kg bomb under the 109’s belly and two 500 kg bombs for the 110.
All the previous day, Rubensdoerffer had been planning his operations against the easternmost radar stations, and his commanders and aircrew knew as exactly what they were to do as if they had rehearsed the raids for weeks. The locality of the targets posed no problems. From Gris Nez crews could see the obtrusive towers of Dover CHL, and in clear conditions others, too.
Rubensdoerffer led off his four sections of four fighter-bomber 110s from Marck, a few miles east of Calais, at 8.40 a.m. The Messerschmitts, taking a shade longer than usual to become airborne with their big loads, swung inland briefly through 360 degrees and then picked up a westerly course down-Channel. There was still a little haze about but not enough to obscure the white cliffs of Dover, and the sun was burning it off fast. Keeping at low level over the water and reckoning on confusing the radar ‘eyes’ by sustaining a 270 degrees course, south-east of Beachy Head the sixteen 110s suddenly broke north towards Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay.
Now Erpro 210 broke up into its four sections, and Rubensdoerffer himself set course for a more inland CH station, Dunkirk, north-west of Dover. Hauptmann Martin Lutz had been assigned the first and easiest target, Pevensey CH, right at the start of their run and dead ahead as they raced towards land. Oberleutnant Wilhelm-Richard Roessiger had been ordered to follow the coast east to the towering masts just beyond Rye, while Oberleutnant Otto Hintze with his four fighter-bombers was deputed to knock down those provocative towers above Dover.
Lutz’s fighter-bombers dropped their eight 500 kg bombs dead on their Pevensey target at the end of a 300+ mph glide. They could scarcely miss. There was no opposition on the ground or in the air. Concrete buildings collapsed and spread their fragments widely, as if made of paperboard. Telephone lines were torn apart, airmen and WAAFs were killed and injured, smoke and dust rose from the craters. The noise was stupefying, and the awful silence and darkness that followed seconds later told of severed power lines – in fact, the main supply cable had gone.
At Rye along the coast, Roessiger’s foursome destroyed every hut, but as at Pevensey the reinforced transmitting and receiving blocks and the watch office survived though the personnel were severely shaken. The damage at Dunkirk, too, proved the success of Rubensdoerffer’s training: every bomb bang on target.
At Dover, AC2 Clifford Vincent was on watch duty high up a radar mast, with views far to the north overland and across the Channel to enemy soil. ‘Vincent just had time to marvel at the sight of the rapidly approaching fighter-bombers before the masts rocked from the explosions around their bases and shrapnel went clanging through the girderwork. As the dust and smoke cleared, he looked below to where Flight Lieutenant Peter Axon was shouting and gesticulating to him to climb down.’1
There was no need to hurry. None of the towers had more than superficial damage, and it was the same at the three other stations. Lattice-work radar towers, so visible and seemingly so vulnerable, were proving almost immune to high explosive.* Dunkirk continued to transmit and report without a break, and the other three stations, thanks to the cleverly contrived emergency measures – stand-by diesel power units, for example – were soon on the air again.
But at Dover the aftermath silence was broken by a different high explosive sound, ‘a new bloody bang’. More a c-r-u-m-p. And in the town, houses collapsed and citizens died with not an aircraft in the sky. These were the first rounds of German long-range artillery fire from France to land on British soil, reducing by another degree Britain’s island protection of past centuries.
While the shattered personnel, with outside help, strove to repair ruptured lines and implement emergency measures at the three most severely damaged radar stations, Kesselring received satisfying reports that Rubensdoerffer had been seventy-five per cent successful. These reports were issued by General Wolfgang Martini, head of signals at the German High Command, upon whom Kesselring utterly relied. The Feldmarschall concluded that he could now attack with impunity, confident that his Geschwader would have surprise on their side, and that Adlerangriff would open with the enemy all-but blind when the later raid to the west was also completed successfully.
To test his belief, Kesselring therefore mounted several attacks on convoys in the Thames Estuary and off the North Foreland, using the most precise, but most vulnerable, weapon he had: Ju 87s, which had already suffered such savage losses when caught with the promptitude radar-directed fighters could achieve. The Feldmarschall was partly justified in his confidence. The cogs of the elaborate reporting system had not been destroyed, but had been knocked temporarily out of synchronisation by Rubensdoerffer’s accurate breakfast-time attacks. ‘The next two hours [after 9.30 a.m.] saw one of those happily rare periods when the Fighter Command system worked inefficiently. Three squadrons were constantly in the air throughout the two hours, one over the Sussex coast and two over the Straits, but although German forces flew over the coast no interceptions were made.’2
It was the Foreness CHL station, untouched by the radar station attacks, that picked up the blips, first of 50+ over the North Foreland, on a northerly heading as if to cross the Thames Estuary. Then this force began flying to and fro east–west as if searching for the reported convoys. Another force of 12+ was picked up also moving north at no great speed, and the Biggin Hill and Hornchurch controllers surmised that the two groups were meeting before delivering their attack on the convoys ‘Agent’ and ‘Arena’ off the North Foreland in the Estuary.
To counter this threat, 65 and 501 Squadrons, already airborne near Dover, were ordered north to intercept, and the Spitfires of 54 Squadron at Hornchurch and the Hurricanes of 111, temporarily at Hawkinge, were ordered off. For once, they were all too late, and the German top cover of 109s came down and mixed it with the searching fighters.
But the second dive-bombing attack by Ju 87s on ‘Agent’, between Deal and Ramsgate, was driven off by a mixed force of Hurricanes, at a stiff price – four being shot down in the mêlée with the ‘snappers’, and none claimed. The Polish Pilot Officer Lukaszwickz, who had been with 501 for only five days, was killed. So was Pilot Officer Robert Beley, who had been with 151 for a month, and at about 11.40 a.m. was forced to bale out, badly wounded, over the sea. He was still alive when picked up by a launch, but died later. The other pilots survived.
Almost simultaneously with these convoy attacks off the Kent coast, Kesselring and Sperrle launched a ferocious attack on the centre of England’s south coast, comprising – amongst much else – the naval bases at Portsmouth and Portland, the industries of Portsmouth and Southampton, including the vital Supermarine Spitfire works at Woolston, and the key radar station at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.
The heart of this force comprised 100 Ju 88s of the Eidelweissgeschwader, KG51, based at Etampes, Orly and Melun-Villaroche. This force had taken off shortly before 11 a.m. and made a rendezvous with its fighter escort half an hour later. One hundred and twenty Me 110s of Zerstoerergeschwader 76 and 2, from other French airfields, accompanied the bombers north from the Normandy coast. Another twenty-five fighters, 109s of JG53, were then despatched direct, in order to save fuel, to the target area where they were ordered to give top cover. These pilots, especially, found the long sea crossing a taxing exercise, knowing that they would have little more than ten minutes combat time to spare at their extreme limit of range before having to return, or ditch in the Channel.
Meanwhile, the frantic British efforts being made to put back on the air the damaged radar stations were eventually successful. The back-up reserve stations were being activated too, but as with any unexpected and stunning blow time was needed to recover, and in the inevitable confusion the Ju 88s and their escort were missed by the CHs and CHLs including, less forgivably, the undamaged CH at Poling. Electronic magic gave way to the human eye, therefore, and the admirable, steady Observer Corps posts at Shoreham, Worthing and Middleton, west of Brighton, sent in long-range sightings of the 200+ hostiles proceeding like a distant cloud of locusts down-Channel.
The warning signal was flashed to the Observer Corps centre at Horsham, and thence to 11 Group at Uxbridge and 10 Group at Box. Within minutes, more than fifty Spitfires and Hurricanes were airborne and heading for the obvious target of Portsmouth, anxious as always not to make contact with a height disadvantage. The squadron commander of 213’s Hurricanes from Exeter, Hector McGregor, thought he might be best placed to make first contact. He had had a rough time the previous day when he had shot down a Ju 88, but had lost one of his flight commanders and four more of his pilots in a stiff fight over Portland. And now, as his Hurricane struggled for height, he was hell-bent on evening up the score.
KG51’s Kommodore, Oberst Dr Fisser, led his Geschwader west, some fifteen miles off the flat west Sussex coast, the triangular configuration of the Isle of Wight dead ahead. Both he and his Geschwader had, in eleven months of war, been extremely lucky, their most recent loss being on 27 July. His map showed clearly the formation of the balloon barrage over Portsmouth and its vicinity, and he followed the plan of holding his westerly course down the Solent to deceive the defences that his force was going to repeat yesterday’s raid on Portland. Then he ordered his armada sharply to starboard, just as a man o’ war might do, in order to enter Portsmouth harbour through a gap in the balloons. Fisser and fourteen of his crack crews had other plans, though, and as he circled he watched his bombers going in like a huge serpent in line-astern.
The anti-aircraft fire, from every ship in the harbour, firing for once from a steady gun platform, and from the Army’s guns ashore, was in its intensity like nothing Fisser, or any of his crews, had seen before – 4.7 and 4.5 inch, 3 inch, 2 pound pom-poms, Bofors and even 20 mm filled the sky with black puffs and criss-crossing tracer. Now Fisser himself turned south-west, losing height and gaining speed rapidly as he raced at 300 mph and at 5,000 feet over Foreland, the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight, heading for the little seaside resort of Ventnor. There, on a strip of high-level ground close to the town, were sited the tall towers of the CH station which covered the whole mid-Channel area, and whose screens were now scarred with the blips from Fisser’s main force and, more ominously, the detachment coming directly for the station.
Fisser wasted no time. Like Rubensdoerffer, he wanted to get in and out as fast as possible, and he aimed the nose of his Ju 88 at the towers and the buildings, all connected by a criss-cross pattern of white concrete paths which would have given away the target in much less favourable visibility. Like most 88 commanders, he favoured the shallow dive approach which gave his bomb-aimer the best visibility and more time to make last split-second adjustments than in the 45 degree or steeper approach.
Fisser saw no anti-aircraft fire, and it was almost impossible to miss with the four 250 kg, delayed-action, high-explosives they all carried. Lighter by a ton, he pulled up steeply above the scattered boarding-houses and small hotels of the seaside resort, over the chalk cliffs and the breakers on the shore, and watched the bombs explode. Fisser was a veteran of the Polish and French campaigns, had dropped bombs across half of Europe (or so it sometimes seemed), but he could never have seen such concentrated devastation. The whole target was engulfed by white-and-black clouds, with more exuding from the inferno as he turned away and ordered his planes to close in, climbing at full throttle, to escape the avenging wrath of the British.
But already the first reports were coming in from behind that still distant Hurricanes were diving towards them. And, belatedly, the Bofors anti-aircraft fire had burst into action – or perhaps it had been firing when they were all too preoccupied with their run-in. It was accurate firing, too, and as Fisser continued his turn overland north of Ventnor, he suddenly realised that his whole detached force was in a dangerous position, with a height disadvantage and only a scattering of Me 110s to give them any support before they could clear the area.
McGregor’s Hurricanes were first on the Ventnor scene, as he had predicted, but 152 Squadron’s Spitfires came in seconds later, and a whirling fight ensued before Fisser could get his 88s away. McGregor himself got on the tail of a 110, ignoring the rear-gunner’s fire, and despatched it with a single burst. Then two more of his squadron began harassing Fisser’s 88 and were joined by two more of 152’s Spitfires. The Kommodore was killed at the controls. The Junkers, trailing flames, dived towards the ground, was pulled up violently, presumably by one of the crew, and headed towards Godshill Park, yawing and only partly under control. It struck the ground heavily, sending up a cloud of pale earth, and slid to a halt, its back broken but the fire self-extinguished.
Leutnant Schad and Oberleutnant Luederitz, both wounded, staggered from the wreckage, and their captors succeeded in extricating the fourth crewman, badly burned, a few minutes later.
Most of Fisser’s Geschwader were still attacking Portsmouth at 12.25 p.m. as he lay dead in this pleasant park on the Isle of Wight a few miles away. The anti-aircraft fire remained intense and accurate throughout the Portsmouth attack. Ten more 88s fell to the RAF fighters’ guns, or the ground gunners (most likely both) besides McGregor’s 110 victim, which went into the sea off Foreland. By a curious freak of the tides in these uncertain waters, the body of Fritz Budig was washed ashore near Gosport, while his pilot’s body was found on the beach near Boulogne five weeks later.
In Portsmouth, by 1 p.m. the cacophony of battle had been succeeded by the mournful sounds of its aftermath, of the bells of ambulances and fire engines, the crackle of many fires and, intermittently, of falling masonry, and the cries of those needing help and those attempting to give succour. There were about 100 casualties, a small enough statistic compared with the massive raids later in the war, but a sharp and painful stab in the heart of this small city.
From the Luftwaffe’s point of view, it had been an expensive business, less for the ten per cent losses of aircraft than the irreplaceable loss of two experienced leaders – one of them at the hands of Squadron Leader McGregor, whose squadron had suffered so seriously the previous day, and with two more pilots killed in this raid. On the other hand, Fisser’s confidence – before he was killed – that he had knocked out Ventnor CH station was well founded. Of all the radar sites Kesselring and Sperrle had set their hearts on destroying, Ventnor came nearest to being completely crushed. Every building had been demolished, partly for lack of water to extinguish the fires, the lattice work of the masts had been damaged, and vital cables and power had been severed. But only three days and nights passed before this important radar station was on the air again, thanks to the rapid erection of a mobile station nearby.
By 2 p.m. on this day of softening-up, Kesselring and Sperrle could agree that the radar station attacks had fulfilled their purpose. Surely, it seemed to these two experienced commanders, the RAF’s eyes had been put out. As for the enemy airfields on their target list for the day, there was every reason to believe that the Kampfgeschwader and Zerstoerergeschwader would prove themselves to be equally successful on these raids.
The RAF airfields scheduled for destruction were the three nearest the coast, Lympne, Hawkinge and Manston. By an odd and unfortunate stroke of fate the first two airfields were on the itinerary of the RAF’s Inspector-General, the admirable Air Chief Marshal Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt. (‘What a time for bullshit!’ airmen exclaimed incredulously.) Lympne was first bombed before Rubensdoerffer’s radar station attacks, Dungeness reporting a small raid building up soon after 7 a.m. No. 610 Squadron’s Spitfires were at once scrambled from Biggin Hill and climbed to 10,000 feet, while the raid appeared to be heading for the Thames Estuary and the two convoys which were to be targets later in the morning.
The raid suddenly turned south-west and came in near Romney marshes at 16,000 feet, the bombers in three vics of three escorted by a dozen Me 109s. Squadron Leader Ellis found himself too low to get among the bombers before they dropped their bombs – more than 140 of them at 8.16 a.m. – on Lympne, and his pilots were soon in a one-to-one sustained dogfight with the Messerschmitts. Ellis was the undoubted winner. Four of his Spitfires were damaged, only one seriously, and one of his flight commanders had to bale out. But 610 put one of JG26’s 109s into the sea, and a second had a more prolonged death over the village of Elham, watched by many of the villagers: ‘The inhabitants came out of their houses to watch as the plane, chased by a frenzied group of Spitfires, flew wildly about the sky with its undercarriage lowered. After scything in low over the village, it flew into Running Hill, where it cartwheeled across a meadow and disintegrated in a cloud of dust without catching fire. The pilot, Oblt Friedrich Butterweck of JG26, was found dead in a field six miles away.’3
While this combat was still in progress, Lympne’s station commander was issuing urgent orders to tidy the place up before Ludlow-Hewitt arrived with his entourage. War was important, but so was protocol. There was general relief when the word got round that the Inspector-General had rearranged his timetable to visit this airfield at 5.35 p.m. Cooks, clerks, kitchen staff, orderlies and batmen swarmed out on to the grass with shovels and barrows for a day of relentless digging in the sun.
The ubiquitous Inspector-General, with unfortunate timing, arrived simultaneously – to the very minute – with a second large force of bombers. Ludlow-Hewitt was hustled into a shelter while Ju 88s plastered the airfield from end to end, in many cases reopening the craters which had been filled in with such speed and diligence after the first raid. A second wave, intended to complete the work, was of Dorniers, dropping smaller bombs. The Inspector-General left as soon as it was suitable to do so. ‘I’ll return in a few days’ time,’ he told the station commander, Squadron Leader Montgomery. The crater-filling began again before he was out of sight.
After this pasting, even a Tiger Moth would have been hard put to land at Lympne. What was much more serious was that Hawkinge, a few miles to the north-east, was also being severely dealt with by a Staffel of Ju 88s. Hawkinge so far had had a mixed day. No. 501’s Hurricanes, led by Squadron Leader Henry Hogan, had already scrambled several times before Mike Crossley arrived to give some support in the afternoon. The Inspector-General had additionally kept everyone on their toes, disregarding the hundreds of enemy contrails above.
Ludlow-Hewitt was on his way to Lympne when the Junkers came over Hawkinge just before 5 p.m. They had been picked up by the disrupted radar station at Rye and 32 Squadron was ready for them. No. 501 was scrambled yet again and 64’s Spitfires were already in the air. No one has properly explained why the 88s at 5,000 feet were not dealt with more severely. An American, Pilot Officer A. G. Donahue, got amongst them, but the German rear gunners, unusually well-coordinated, coned him and set his Spitfire alight. ‘Floating down by parachute in the evening breeze, he nursed his burns in the cool air.’4 But no one made any claims. It seems likely that the high speed of this most modern German bomber once more got it out of trouble – that plus the relative invulnerability of its radial engine, by contrast with the glycol-cooled, in-line engine of the Dorniers and Heinkels.
The devastation was appalling. Two hangars, workshops and domestic buildings were all flattened and others were burning. The fire crew were for a while helpless as the water tower had become a surreal many-spouted fountain from bomb splinter holes.
Corporal Wireless Operator D. G. Lee, later a warrant officer, who was in charge of the Signals Sections of the Operations Block, had warning of what was to come from listening in to the R/T, which had become ‘a confused babble of voices, with a few shouted “Behind you!’s”. Almost immediately after this our building started shaking in a peculiarly regular manner but no bombs were heard falling and no explosions. While we were still puzzling over what had caused this rhythmic earthquake, the screamers started coming down out of the sky. We had no time to get out of the building to the air-raid shelters as all hell was let loose outside, so we scrambled underneath radio benches, teleprinter tables, etc., expecting every moment to be our last.’
The ‘rhythmic earthquake’ was caused by inaccurate, high-level ‘carpet bombing’, according to this Corporal, the bomb-aimers releasing at regular brief intervals while flying in close formation. The only damage from this high-level attack was to the next door golf course.
Over the station there lay a slowly drifting cloud of dust and smoke from the low-level attack, which gave the German pilots as they came in yet again enough evidence to presume that Hawkinge was out of commission. They would have been astonished to hear Mike Crossley, six feet six inches, with his squadron which would never make it back to Biggin Hill, call out on the R/T (at least that was working) that he had to come in – like it or not.
‘OK,’ replied the controller apologetically, ‘but you see how we are.’ He added, perhaps unnecessarily, ‘Try and avoid the craters.’
All five Hurricanes made it, and moreover survived a second strafing and bombing attack a few minutes later. The tall Crossley led the way, looking as always when he had his hood open as if it could never be closed.
Corporal Lee also recalled the speed with which the recovery and repair services reacted. Although all electricity services had been severed, within minutes ‘the civilian “Works and Bricks” engineers were already hard at work getting the [emergency] generators started up and very soon the Signals Section was back in business again. The Army then moved in and worked all night filling in the bomb craters on the landing field, blowing up a few unexploded bombs in the process and by next morning at first light, another squadron of fighter aircraft was able to land, refuel and get ready for the next attack.’
It was a swift sequence of recovery activity that was to be repeated time and again in the coming weeks at many airfields in southern England.
Earlier in the day Kesselring’s other airfield target had been Manston, or ‘Charlie 3’ – a code-name quite well known by the Germans. Manston was – and is – the most forward of all airfields in south-east England. For this reason alone, it was one of the most heavily attacked during the Battle. It was also another all-grass airfield. In dry weather this gave it a distinct advantage over runways, which were much more difficult to repair; and it also allowed a squadron to take off together, if it so chose. No. 65 Squadron’s CO always favoured this when conditions allowed. Just at a time when Hawkinge was being bombed, Flight Lieutenant ‘Sam’ Saunders was leading off the twelve Spitfires of 65 Squadron, in four vics of three, Jeffrey Quill leading the fourth section on the extreme right:
‘We were just formed up [wrote Quill] on the ground and awaiting Sam’s signal to start rolling. I was therefore looking out to my left towards the leading section when I became aware of, rather than actually hearing, a sort of reverberating “crump” behind and to my right. I looked quickly over my right shoulder to see one of the hangar roofs close behind us ascending heavenwards…. I caught a glimpse through smoke of what looked like a Me 110 pulling sharply out of a dive and immediately concluded that it was high time for Quill to be airborne.’5
Although 148 heavy bombs were dropped and Manston was raked by cannon and machine-gun fire, Quill succeeded in getting off the ground. More remarkable still, when he had got clear with flying speed and looked around, he saw one Spitfire after another emerge from the maelstrom intact. Only one had failed to get airborne and that was only because a bomb’s blast had reversed his propeller and stalled his engine. The Spitfires survived their hopelessly vulnerable situation, at about 120 mph and with little height, because the 109s had never seen the enemy at this speed and overshot the lot with throttles wide open. So there were no casualties, and one 110 crashed in the centre of the devastation.
Although 54 Squadron were, not surprisingly, unable to catch any of the Manston attackers, these airfield attacks were strongly resisted. All day, 11 Group was despatching, directing and redirecting its fighter squadrons. There had never been a day like it.
Typical was one of 56 Squadron’s attacks on a Gruppe of Dornier bombers at 18,000 feet protected above by a whole Gruppe of Me 109s, a formidable enough foe for twelve Hurricanes. This is how they set about their task in a fine piece of tactical extemporisation.
Attacks were carried out on the rear extreme left-hand and right-hand sections of the bombers from astern and from the quarter by the first three sections…. The rearmost section concentrated on protecting our fighters from an attack by the Me 109s. They did this by firing at long range in front of the Me 109s as they dived to attack our leading sections…. The Me 109s did not risk running into the tracer which they saw flashing in front of them.6
Only one of the German bombers was shot down, but this bold and aggressive attack apparently diverted them from their target.
But by early evening the German High Command were confident that all the radar stations, and the front-line airfields, they had attacked were permanently out of action. Disillusionment fast succeeded this comforting conclusion of the heaviest day’s operations the Luftwaffe had indulged in so far. In order to confirm the blindness of the enemy, Kesselring laid on three raids of some twenty Dorniers each to coastal towns, each well escorted. They were picked up before they left the French coast, and from intercepted R/T transmissions it was clear to the Germans that the weight and likely target of each attack was correctly estimated so that the RAF put up the right defensive opposition in plenty of time. The disappointment was profound.
By working through the night, and with massive help from the Army, Manston, like Hawkinge, was operational by dawn on 13 August, as were all the radar stations except very severely damaged Ventnor. In the whole day thirty-one German aircraft had been shot down at a cost to the RAF of twenty-two fighters and eleven pilots killed.
Dowding and Park had reason for both satisfaction and anxiety. On the one hand, the resilience and powers of recovery of the main targets were encouraging. And once again both ground control (in spite of the damage to radar stations) and the pilots and machines had shown they were up to their jobs. On the other hand, thirteen out of 11 Group’s eighteen squadrons had been in action, and most had been scrambled more than once. In all there had been some 500 sorties, and this sort of pressure on air and ground crews alike could not be tolerated for very long. With his usual impeccable timing, Dowding ordered down south Peter Townsend’s crack 85 Squadron from the north.
Readers of the New Statesman and Nation were later informed by Vita Sackville-West in her gardening column: ‘We are not allowed to buy bulbs this year…. Every bulb will go to the USA as gracious and lucrative envoys of a country which would rather say it with flowers than with bombs.’
* The same was to prove true with the lattice masts of American battleships at Pearl Harbor sixteen months later.