16–30 SEPTEMBER
Air Vice-Marshal Park, not an unreasonably hard taskmaster, expressed himself less than satisfied with the performance of II Group on the previous day, in spite of what his pilots considered to have been a stunning victory. First, in less than twenty-four hours, it became suspected from a crash-count that the German losses were nothing like as many as had been claimed – possibly less than half. Second, his controllers had scrambled, and had operated into a favourable position, some 300 fighters, which had been opposed by half that number of German fighters, protecting some 150 bombers. With the added advantage of fighting in their own air space, the results, Park reckoned, were just not good enough.
If Park was justified in his criticism, then the quality of the pilots, and – especially – of the leadership, needed examining. The overall professionalism and skill of the average pilot had certainly declined since mid-July for the reason that experience had been replaced by inexperience, with some exceptions, like the Fleet Air Arm pilots and the Czech, Polish and Free French, a number of whom had been flying professionally for years.
There is little doubt that the quality of leadership had overall similarly declined. Many of the peacetime veterans had been killed and others had been rested or posted elsewhere. One of the most successful, and most missed, James ‘the Prof’ Leathart of 54 Squadron, for example, had been despatched to special work at the Air Ministry. Others were found wanting and left quietly, some to training command. Their replacements usually brought about improvements of fighting quality and morale. But the replacement of others, promoted from outside or from within the squadron, did not always enhance the quality of the squadron.
To lead a fighter squadron, or Staffel, during the demanding days of August and September 1940 was a taxing business for young men, many of whom had not been alive in World War I when the RAF and the Luftwaffe were created. They were full of zeal, a determination to show their superiors and their own men that they were fully qualified to lead in the air and on the ground. But the pressures were sometimes almost too many and too heavy to withstand.
Leathart recalled how the circumstances of the Battle obliged him to work from three bases, his assigned, regular base at Hornchurch, the satellite at Rochford and the forward base at Manston: ‘At Hornchurch I had an office, at Rochford a corner of the mess table, at Manston nothing. There was a great deal of admin. work, writing to the bereaved, fixing problems about, say, the maintenance of aircraft, trouble with the Merlins and so on.
‘I was immensely helped at Hornchurch by the station CO “Daddy” Bouchier [Group Captain Cecil Arthur Bouchier OBE, DFC] – a marvellous man. Pat Shallard, our IO [intelligence officer] was a great help, too. I had to compile squadron reports with Pat at least twice a week. Then all claims of victories had to be dealt with with Pat, and then Group took about a week to confirm or otherwise.
‘The adjutant was a great support through all this, too. But the heaviest duty of all was dealing with new pilots. These varied widely. Some showed immediate promise, others couldn’t even fly properly. Most had done no more than five hours on Spits and never fired their guns. I never saw them at first. Al Deere or Colin Gray [flight commanders], or John Allen before he was killed, would report to me.
‘If they didn’t take them up to see if they were any good, I did. I’d get on their tail to see if they could throw me off – all that. I knew that it was murder to send them off without any squadron training. I said to “Daddy” Bouchier one day, “I can’t train them all!” So between us we fixed for the squadron to go for a few days to Catterick and not return until the new boys were trained. We swapped places with 41 Squadron. Of course, some of these youngsters sacked themselves – pranged their aircraft and so on. Then they just disappeared.’
Another, and very sensitive, responsibility was making judgments on which pilots needed a rest. There were familiar tell-tale signs, like too much drinking, heavy smoking, shaky hands, etc. They were sent off to 12 or 13 Group as a rule.
Squadron loyalty was not something that usually had to be cultivated, though to a degree it depended on the quality of the CO. Leathart recalled: ‘We all lived in our tight little squadron worlds and hardly ever saw anyone outside, not even our chums. We were totally dedicated to what we were doing, and at the time it is true to say that we were more loyal to the reputation of the squadron than we felt loyalty to our country. Of course that narrow view changed later, but it was how we felt at the time.’
There were always supplementary tasks for the CO. Before the advent of VHF radio sets, for example, the pilots of 54 Squadron could hear Hornchurch but Hornchurch could not hear them. ‘This was ridiculous, so I went to the nearest Radio Rentals shop and for 2s 6d a week rented a set with a high-frequency channel that could pick us up. We kept it at the dispersal beside a telephone, and the duty airman simply passed on our messages by landline.’
Leathart also recollected how he persuaded ‘Daddy’ Bouchier of the advantages of De Wilde ammunition, of which this squadron was suffering a particularly severe shortage. ‘I set up a range at Hornchurch with full petrol cans as targets. Then I used rifles, first with ball or tracer – no effect except a leak. Then with De Wilde, and these immediately caught fire. That did the trick, and “Daddy” went hunting for us.’
While Leathart had commanded 54 Squadron for some time, including during the French campaign, Dennis Armitage had leadership thrust upon him soon after ‘Wilkie’ Wilkinson had been killed beneath his parachute and the senior flight commander had been burned a week later. He did not relish the job of leading 266 at the time: ‘It was the evenings that got me down. We would return to our home base at dusk, tell our crews what repairs our aircraft needed and get a bite of grub. Then the lads would let themselves go. Some would go pub-crawling; some would seek out the local female attractions; some would stay in the mess playing darts and snooker and shove-halfpenny; nearly all would get a belly-full of beer before they went to bed. But as temporary acting squadron commander I would retire to my office by the hangar where I would find the squadron adjutant, the engineer officer who was responsible for the aircraft maintenance, and a male typist waiting for me. I would deal with the wants and worries of the engineer officer first and then with the aid of the adjutant and the typist I would get down to the awful job of writing to the parents or wives – not often wives, I’m glad to say – of the lads who had not come back. For several days there was at least one to do every night…. I tried hard at first, often tearing up two or three letters before I was satisfied, but I’m afraid before the end I had developed a more or less stereotyped letter which needed little more than the name and address adding.
‘This part of the job was indeed a harrowing one but once you were in the air it was all right….’
Some 200 of the surviving fighter pilots commented on the quality of leadership almost fifty years later. The answers varied widely, the great majority being satisfied and in most cases greatly admiring of their COs. Others experienced a bewildering succession of COs and there were undoubtedly exceptions to the general excellence. One Australian, with an exceptionally fine record, lost his first CO at Dunkirk, and there were five more before the end. One he described simply as ‘mad’; another who was posted away was not missed – ‘the best thing that ever happened to us’. Another was ‘a disaster’ and lasted two days. The final one ‘was completely without experience and took us to 15,000 feet on 15 September of all days when we had been ordered to 25,000. We had no real leaders from the time the squadron was formed until the end.’
Another Australian commented unfavourably on the hierarchy. ‘Leigh-Mallory was a leader with no understanding of flying fast fighters and he was quite hopeless in his selection of squadron commanders.’ As for his own CO, ‘he should never have been given command of a fighter squadron. He had flown into a tree landing on his first and only night flight in a Spitfire.’
Nor did he have much respect for Fighter Command’s C-in-C: ‘I met “Stuffy” Dowding at Wittering when I was acting CO of 266 Squadron and was shaken by his aged appearance and complete lack of understanding of the problems faced by a squadron formed with pilots straight from an Anson [elderly, twin-engined, general-reconnaissance machine] Flying Training School.
‘I thought that “Stuffy” failed to appreciate the fact that when the Low Countries and France fell Fighter Command was outflanked. The Group boundaries had been drawn on the assumption that attacks would come direct from Germany. If he had redrawn the Group boundaries to meet the new threat he could have had the attack spread between two Groups and taken the strain off 11 Group.’
Perhaps Pilot Officer Richard Jones of 64 Squadron was luckier. ‘Squadron Leader A. R. D. Macdonald’, he writes, ‘was an exceptional leader and gentleman inspiring confidence and complete loyalty, and always commanding maximum respect. He was always concerned and personally interested in everyone who served under him.’
Sergeant Pilot Cyril Bamberger DFC of 610 and 41 Squadrons found it difficult to evaluate leadership ‘because we were nearly always climbing at low speeds. In these circumstances the enemy aircraft leader nearly always initiated the attack and we were on the defensive…. One had confidence in and trusted certain flight commanders and squadron leaders – others gave you the jitters from take-off.’
Flying Officer Edward Morris was one more of those who suffered frequent changes of CO if not of station commander: ‘The leadership of the station commander, Group Captain Grice, whose calm presence always seemed to be in the thick of things, stands out. In the background was the Group commander, Sir Keith Park, who one knew by sight from visits and in whom my superiors had confidence, which was good enough for me. One knew of the C-in-C by repute but he was a shadowy figure at my level. The squadron commander was the most important leader to the ordinary pilot. In 79 Squadron we had experience of a range of COs from outstanding to inadequate….’
Norman Norfolk DFC of 72 Squadron recalled that ‘the only time during the Battle I received any sort of spur and encouragement’ was after he had been the target between two Staffeln of Dorniers, one firing rear and the other front guns, which had left him badly shaken.
As so often, in peace and war, it was leadership’s failure to communicate that could be cited as the worst fault. Norfolk continued: ‘We never saw or heard from the hierarchy and were never told the general strategy or day-to-day tactical principles, and as far as I know the squadron commander was in the same position. As far as leadership at squadron level was concerned, it was difficult because changes due to casualties and postings resulted in lack of continuity. Only once do I recall a general discussion on tactics which occurred after mostly finding ourselves thousands of feet below the bombers on interception. The CO was persuaded to ignore ground controllers’ initial vector south and fly north until some height had been gained. This resulted in a much better attacking position but made the squadron unpopular with the ground controllers.’
An Australian survivor, Charles Palliser, retained a high regard for the leadership he witnessed. Like many others, he singled out Victor Beamish as an exceptional leader, ‘a most remarkable personality’. Beamish’s first words to this pilot were, ‘Palliser, do you feel frightened in combat?’ When the Australian replied that, ‘Leading up to the fight, I’m scared stiff,’ Beamish said promptly, ‘Right me lad, so remember that the German pilot you’re approaching is just as frightened as you, so if you hit him first and hit hard, you have the ascendency, so get in there!’ Palliser never forgot those words.
‘“Butch” Barton, a diminutive Canadian, was a wonderful example of dedication and tenacity when he assumed command of 249 [Palliser continued]. This was after John Grandy’s* move to Air Ministry. I and the rest of 249 would have followed “Butch” anywhere. Leadership generally was excellent. Douglas Bader was extremely headstrong and brash in some of his ideas; however, he was a “fighter pilot”. Bob Tuck, then OC 257, was “one of the boys ” who commanded much respect.’
It is as difficult to make a general judgment on the German as the British leadership. There were the exceptional leaders like Galland, Walter Oeusau, Hans von Hahn, Hannes Trautloft, the one-legged Huth, Luetzow and Schellmann. And Erpro 210 was led in turn by several of the boldest and most admired pilots after Rubensdoerffer was killed on 15 August. There were exceptional Kampfgeschwader leaders, too. But as the Battle continued, more and more of the best leaders were lost, as in Fighter Command, and not all the replacements were of the same high quality.
But the real advantage enjoyed by Kesselring and Sperrle was that the majority of their pilots were peacetime trained, some had fought in Spain and nearly all of them in Poland, Norway or the French campaign. No German leader had to cope with young men of nineteen and twenty straight from wholly inadequate OTU training, without even any air-to-air gunnery experience behind them.
Because of the relatively larger reserve of experienced pilots the Luftwaffe possessed to plug the gaps as the fighting intensified, the overall standard of leadership of the German fighter squadrons, towards the end of the Battle, may possibly have been higher than that of Fighter Command.
Those tumultuous fine days, 18 August and 7 September, had been followed by breaks in the weather, followed again by a resurgence of the fighting. When 16 September dawned rainy and overcast with little or no daylight action, many were considering the likelihood that the same pattern in the fighting would be re-enacted. Meanwhile, on this day and the next, Kesselring and Sperrle despatched individual bombers, which relied upon cloud cover for protection, to specific targets, without much benefit or damage. Phil Leckrone, an American of 616 Squadron who later helped to form the first Eagle Squadron, and Colin Macfie pursued a Ju 88 lurking over an east-coast convoy and shot it into the sea. It proved to be a useful ‘kill’, too, as the all-officer crew included a hauptmann, an oberleutnant and, for some inexplicable reason, a senior officer in the Luftwaffe’s medical corps.
There were several provocative fighter sweeps from the Pas de Calais on the 17th, when the losses were about even, but Sub-Lieutenant Anthony Blake added to his score with two 109s in rapid succession. He was the highest scoring Navy pilot, but he and eight more naval pilots did not survive the Battle.
The following day dawned brighter, and 11 Group prepared itself for a renewal of heavy fighting. Tony Bartley of 92 Squadron started the day promisingly when he intercepted a recce Dornier and shot it down into the sea near Gravesend. Kesselring then started sending over very heavily escorted Ju 88s in small numbers, and 92 Squadron quickly added to its first score with three of these fast bombers in the mid-afternoon period.
A combination of good interceptions by the Duxford Wing and the relative inexperience of the aircrew of 8/KG77, who had only recently been brought into Luftflotte 2, led to unusually heavy bomber losses. Nine in all were shot down, including the Gruppekommandeur’s plane, with almost all the other crews killed, too.
The civilian population’s concern now was almost entirely with the night bombing, the daylight raids a minor sideshow for those who witnessed them. This night bombing, which had been rumbling on for weeks before the great assault of 7 September, now reached a new pitch in the third week of September. For pilots coming in to London for a night out, the bombing was an alarming experience, even for those whose airfields had been frequently bombed earlier in the Battle. Sergeant Ian Hutchinson of 222 Squadron remembered: ‘When we went into London from the airfield, we’d see houses on fire and others that had been destroyed. I must confess that I was more terrified being in London during a bombing raid than ever I was when flying…. It was a very frightening experience…. I was very relieved to get back to Hornchurch.’1
As distant from being a fighter pilot as was conceivable, the fashionable photographer, Cecil Beaton, was at a typical Bloomsbury party in Fitzroy Square at this time – ‘eight of us, the majority socialistic young women with lank hair.
‘When the guns were heard some of us went on to the roof to see if there was anything to be seen – and, my heavens, there was! The Germans were dropping chandelier flares all the way from the docks along the river to Chelsea…. An enormous red glow lit up the sky, against which domes and steeples, and the bobbles of near-by plane trees, were silhouetted.
‘It was cold on the roof, and so much shrapnel was falling around us that it was foolhardy to remain. But a raid is more exciting and stimulating, and somehow less unnerving, when one is out of doors.
‘However, we came below … the bombs were not confined to the docks. A terrible swishing noise, like the tearing of a giant linen sheet, ended in a vast explosion preciously near the house … the entire solid building rocked. Then followed the sickening noise of air-raid wardens running to the scene of the crime….’2
Hundreds were dying nightly in the London and Liverpool blitzes in particular, and the wardens, heavy rescue workers, firemen, ambulance men and nurses were as much in the front line of the Battle as Sergeant Hutchinson of 222 and the hundreds of others who made up ‘the few’ in the sky. The injured had to be cared for, the mutilated dead dealt with.
Nurse Frances Faviell reported: ‘After a heavy raid with many casualties there was a task for which we were sometimes detailed…. This was to help piece the bodies together in preparation for burial. The bodies–or rather the pieces–were in temporary mortuaries…. It was pretty grim, although it was all made as business-like and rapid as possible. We had somehow to form a body for burial so that the relatives, without seeing it, could imagine that their loved one was more or less intact. But it was a very difficult task – there were so many pieces missing, and, as one of the mortuary attendants said, “Proper jigsaw puzzle, ain’t it, Miss?”’3
In the fighter-to-fighter duels that took place during this quiet daylight spell, the fighting qualities of the Me 109 and the (generally) greater experience of the pilots of Luftflotte 2 led to occasions when RAF fighter losses were heavier than the Luftwaffe’s losses in 109s, although – as always – many RAF pilots escaped to fight again, whereas every 109 shot down over Britain meant a lost pilot, too. For example, on 20 September, II Group lost six Spitfires, including three from 222 Squadron, while only one 109 fell over this country or the Channel. (A second crash-landed on the French side.) Among those who were shot down and lived was that great survivor George Bennions DFC of 41 Squadron. He had already crash-landed three times, and his aircraft been damaged by shells two days earlier, when the ventral gunner of a Ju 88 he was pursuing put 200 bullets into his Spitfire, forcing him to land at Lympne. (After being credited with twelve enemy aircraft, Bennions was forced to bale out, seriously injured, on 1 October.)
The continuing absence of any really large-scale raids following the débâcle of 15 September seemed to support Dowding’s belief that his Command had so much gained the upper hand that the worst was over. But it was not in his nature to celebrate even a confirmed victory, and the prolonged lull did not deceive him into believing that there would be no more 100+ raids. Instead, he ensured that the required equipment and supply of aircraft remained satisfactory, and on 21 September ordered the formation of very high-flying spotting flights to patrol the coast with Spitfires to give early warning in the kind of detail neither the Observer Corps nor the CH stations could hope to provide. This was dangerous work indeed, for the 109 operated at a higher ceiling than the Spitfire and was also faster at the 35,000 feet level these new patrols flew.
It was not only in the air assault against England that the enemy had by now run into serious trouble. In Holland, Belgium and France, and even in Germany and Norway, his airfields, ever since the fall of France, had come under intermittent attack from Bomber and Coastal Commands. In July the two Commands had flown 383 sorties against these objectives, in August 714. By night they had found the targets difficult, and by day almost suicidal: on 9 July seven of twelve Hudsons had been lost attacking Stavanger, on 13 August eleven of twelve Blenheims attacking Aalborg. Without fighter escort – because none could be spared – the daylight bombers had finally been instructed to abandon their missions if there were less than seven-tenths cloud cover. Yet despite all difficulties the two Commands had maintained an offensive, and the German-held airfields, though only minimally disrupted, had been at least made less comfortably secure for their occupants.
Very much more productive had been the attacks which followed against the German barge concentrations. The major effort had begun on 5 September, after Coastal Command had photographed invasion craft moving in large numbers towards the Channel ports. On the night of 7 September, when Invasion Alert No. 1 came into force in Britain, Bomber Command’s Blenheims, aided by eleven Battles and twenty-six Hampdens, struck at the shipping and docks at Calais and Ostend. Then, progressively, almost the whole British bomber force began to join in the work: on the night of 13/14 September 91 sorties, on 14/15 176, on 18/19 180, on 19/20 171. The targets now were easy to find: just across the Channel, on or near water, and well illuminated once the first bombs had gone down. ‘Blackpool Front’ the crews dubbed it; and the effect of these attacks was even more spectacular than that resort’s peacetime illuminations. ‘It was an amazing sight,’ one pilot reported, ‘Calais docks were on fire, so was the water front at Boulogne. The whole French coast seemed to be a barrier of flame broken only by intense white flashes of exploding bombs and varicoloured incendiary tracers soaring upwards.’
By 13 September, according to the German figures, 994 German invasion craft had reached the ports of Le Havre, Boulogne, Calais, Gravelines, Dunkirk, Ostend and Nieuport, and another 1,497 were on their way. That night, RAF bombers sank eighty barges at Ostend, to give striking confirmation to the German naval staff’s report to Hitler three days earlier:
The English bombers and the mine-laying forces of the British air force, as the experiences of the last few days show, are still at full operational strength, and it must be confirmed that the activity of the British forces has undoubtedly been successful, even if no decisive hindrance has yet been caused to German transport movements.4
Two nights later, on 15 September, one of the bomber crews, like Learoyd a month earlier, performed an act of extreme heroism which earned him the Victoria Cross. Sergeant John Hannah, a youthful wireless-operator/air gunner with 83 Squadron, was over Antwerp when his Hampden was hit and set on fire. The navigator and rear-gunner were compelled to bale out, but Hannah stayed, fought the flames with extinguishers despite bursting ammunition and a melting aluminium floor, and finally, badly burned, crawled forward to hand the navigator’s maps and log to the pilot, who made a successful return.
On 19 September the German High Command ordered the invasion shipping to be thinned out in order to avoid further losses from the British attacks, and by 23 September the decrease was obvious to Coastal Command’s reconnaissance. From then on Bomber Command could turn its main attention once more to Germany. During September over 1,600 bomber sorties were, in fact, directed against the invasion ports, and over 1,000 tons of bombs cast down upon them.
In the fortnight of intensive attack only 21 out of 168 transports, and 214 out of 1,697 barges, had actually been put out of action – just over twelve per cent in both cases. But the disruptive effect of smashed jetties, docks, roads and railway lines had been considerable – as was that of the lucky hit which blew up an ammunition train on the night of 17 September. At all events it was too much for the Germans, who found that in addition to failing to subdue Fighter Command, they could not keep an invasion fleet safely waiting in the Channel ports.
No hint of relaxation of alertness against the threat of invasion was allowed to percolate through to the armed forces, nor the civilian population. It was premature for that. But the view of the War Cabinet and of the most senior officers in all the Services was that with the days shortening, the weather deteriorating and the equinox approaching, it would now be most foolhardy of Hitler to attempt a crossing in 1940. On 21 September ‘Cromwell’ was cancelled and Alert No. 2 reinstated.
Anthony Eden, while relaxing one morning at Elham, was therefore all the more surprised to hear from Churchill by telephone on 22 September that he had just received a call from the American President that, for sure, the Germans would invade that very day. Eden took a walk to the Dover cliffs. He peered down through the fog and noted an exceedingly choppy sea. He then returned home and telephoned Churchill. An invasion, he said, seemed highly unlikely, and in any case they would all be sea-sick by the time they arrived by barge.
The next day Roosevelt telephoned again, this time to apologise. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘The codes got mixed. It was Indo-China, not England, and Japan, not Germany.’ And that, indeed, was the case.
If any shape could be made of Luftwaffe strategy by day at this time, it tended to reveal a renewal of interest in the aircraft factories. On 24 September the current leader of Erpro 210, Martin Lutz, made a carefully prepared glide bombing attack on the Spitfire works at Woolston. The material damage was less important than the loss of skilled personnel when a 250 kg bomb struck an air-raid shelter killing almost 100 of the senior staff and wounding fifty more.
Much more serious damage was done the following day to the Bristol factory at Filton, Bristol. The Middle Wallop controller had good notice of the build-up of a moderate to large raid heading for the West Country, and early deductions suggested it was heading for the West-land aircraft factory at Yeovil. A sudden change of course by the sixty escorted bombers of Luftflotte 3 took everyone by surprise, and it was suddenly clear that the entire force was heading for Bristol. There was no interference except by anti-aircraft fire with the high-level precision bombing, which did great damage to the works and to its rail communications. Five of the bombers were shot down on the way back to the coast, but that was poor consolation for the 170 injured and the relatives of the eighty-two dead.
On the following day, Thursday 26 September, the target was again Woolston, and again cleverly concealed approaches by strong forces of Heinkels, and uncharacteristically poor control work, led to another failure to intercept before the bombing, although ample numbers of fighters were in the vicinity. The consequences were baleful:
The Germans had struck almost as severe a blow at the British aircraft industry as on the previous day at Filton. The northern part of the Supermarine works was extensively damaged; two workshops received direct hits and production was completely stopped; and over thirty people were killed.5
Earlier in the Battle the consequences of these raids would have been more serious. But there were other centres by now producing Spitfires, and overall output was only briefly affected.
Although there were no serious long-term consequences to these two days of successful Luftwaffe attack on aircraft factories, the pride of the controllers had been heavily dented. The last days of the month, however, fully restored everyone’s spirits and confirmed once again the superiority of the defences.
It was both tidy and appropriate that the last day of September provided the undeniable confirmation that the Battle of Britain had been won. By no means was it the last day of fighting. Unlike at Waterloo or Blenheim, the enemy was not put to rout. No battle standards were taken, no article of surrender signed, no laying down of arms took place. More fighting lay ahead, some of it ferocious and costly. But from 1 October 1940 control of the daylight strikes over Britain was firmly in British hands, and the enemy invasion threat had been reduced to the status of suicide.
On 30 September Park, Brand and Leigh-Mallory at their headquarters all looked up at the dawn sky, consulted meteorological reports and made provision for a busy day. It started with the usual individual weather and recce flights. One of these, a Ju 88, was intercepted over North Devon by Pilot Officer Eric Marrs DFC of 152 Squadron and shot down – his fifth victory.
An hour earlier, at 8 a.m., the first signs of a big build-up over the Pas de Calais were noted at Rye and Dover. By 8.30, in spite of quite a lot of cloud, Kent and Sussex Observer Corps stations were reporting numerous formations of ‘bandits’ crossing the coast. Park had suspected that these raids might be a blind to get his squadrons airborne and low in fuel when the bombers began to arrive, and he did not fall into the trap. Some of the Corps posts reported certain identification of fighters and none of bombers, so Uxbridge was once again proved right.
About one hour later two Gruppen of 88s, later identified as from KG77, crossed in at Dungeness, entirely without escort. There had, it seems, been another misunderstanding over the fighters’ rendezvous. It says much for the determination of the crews of the KG77, which had recently suffered so many casualties, that they continued alone. Inevitably, they soon paid the price. Park had over 150 Spitfires and Hurricanes ready to intercept them, and they went in at around 10 o’clock.
For a few minutes the fighters had things all their own way, before hastily summoned Me 109s and 110s came to the Junkers’ help. No. 92 Squadron did the greatest damage, claiming nine of the bombers but paying the price of four pilots killed, including one of the flight commanders, and five Spitfires destroyed. In all a dozen 88s fell over Kent and Sussex, and the rest jettisoned their bombs or dropped them on random targets, and fled home.
In the west at midday, Sperrle made his contribution by attempting a further extremely heavy, mixed raid on Bristol and the Westland works at Yeovil. The hard-flying ubiquitous Erpro 210, led by Lutz, was once again involved. Brand was as efficiently ready for the Heinkels, Me 110 fighter-bombers and 109s as Park had been earlier.
Five squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires literally barred the way to the He 111s over Yeovil. There was a tremendous fight, involving inevitably the escorting 110s – the 109s had returned by then – and the bombers’ gunners doing what they could. But it was all too much for KG55, which, scattered and distraught, and dropping their loads around Sherborne, turned and made for the Dorset coast. Here they were met by more 110s, disposed for this protective purpose, and headed at full power for the Cherbourg Peninsula.
Lutz with his fighter-bombers meanwhile streaked for an aircraft factory north of Bristol and, as usual, succeeded in reaching it. But once again Erpro 210 paid a dreadful price. Of nineteen 110s that set out four were shot down, including Lutz himself and one of his Staffel leaders – both killed.
For the Luftwaffe the day’s fighting had been a disaster. The total losses of around fifty aircraft in the course of raids which almost entirely failed to reach their targets, and the failure to return of numerous officers, some of senior rank, were the deciding factor in the decision to withdraw not just the Stuka but all bombers from daylight attack. Never again were those vast and dreaded arrow-head formations to be seen in the sky.
For RAF Fighter Command, 30 September was, indeed, a day to remember.
* Another immensely popular and highly praised CO.