Fifty years ago, Adler Tag, the ‘Day of Eagles’, found Hermann Goering supremely confident in the outcome of the immense assault on the United Kingdom that was about to be launched by his Luftwaffe. On that fateful thirteenth day of August, which was to mark the commencement of the aerial offensive proper, the Reichsmarschall was convinced, and not without some justification, that the warplanes that he, as Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe, was committing to the attack had no peers. They were manned by the best-trained and most experienced crews available to any air arm in the world.
The aircraft of the Luftwaffe had been proven in combat; their crews had been blooded over Spain, Poland, France and the Low Countries. How could Adler Tag signify anything but commencement of an operation that would end in yet another victory for the Third Reich? Goering saw every reason to assure his Führer that what opposition could be expected from the Royal Air Force would be despatched, probably within days; that his Kinder (‘children’) would soon be roaming British skies without let or hindrance.
Unfortunately for the loquacious Reichsmarschall, whose technical knowledge fell far short of that which his position warranted, his single-seat fighters, even then taking-off from their bases in the Pas de Calais and elsewhere, lacked sufficient endurance for the type of campaign on which they were about to embark. The conceptual limitations of his long-range heavy fighters had still to be understood and his bombers possessed defensive armament that presupposed a measure of Luftwaffe air superiority.
Furthermore, he and his staff had been deluded by the so-called ‘Studie Blau’, the vital, yet fundamentally inaccurate, intelligence appraisal of RAF capabilities prepared by the Operations Staff of the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe. Thus, unknowingly, the Luftwaffe was being committed on that day to a gruelling battle of attrition for which it was ill equipped; a battle from which it was eventually to withdraw battered and exhausted – the aerial drama of all time: the ‘Battle of Britain’.
Of the dramatis personae of the epic aerial conflict that was to unfold over Southern England in the weeks that followed, it was to be the pilots of the single-seat fighters of the opposing sides that, contemporaneously at least, were to receive the most acclaim. This was understandable in view of the more emotive part that they played in the drama. Indeed, today, a half-century later, military aviation’s annals devote more attention to their activities than to those of the crews manning other participating warplanes.
In so far as the Royal Air Force was concerned, its role of defender entirely justified the emphasis placed on the exploits of its fighter pilots. For the Luftwaffe, the aggressor, the situation was different, however, for its single-seat fighters had a supporting task, their primary mission being protection of the bomber forces engaged. How well they fulfilled this role during the historic encounter remains to this day a matter for contention. Nonetheless, of the personnel operating the six basic types of warplane employed by the Luftwaffe during the Battle, it was the pilots of the Bf 109E single-seat fighter that were then and remain to this day the prima donnas of the German effort; those responsible for the major share of the combat losses sustained by their opponents. Their Messerschmitt mount was to become virtually synonymous with this episode of World War II.
There can be no doubt that the Bf 109E flown by all elements of the Jagdflieger involved in the Battle was a highly competent warplane; as outstanding a fighting machine as either of its principal opponents, Hurricane or Spitfire, and a highly dangerous adversary. By the time that this Messerschmitt fighter appeared in force in British skies, it was the object of carefully fostered mystique; a myth of invincibility assiduously created by the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin. In some respects, the Luftwaffe itself was to fall victim to this myth as a result of the comparative ease with which the Bf 109E had conquered all pre-Battle adversaries.
There was nothing mysterious about the Bf 109E, however. It was a well-conceived, soundly-designed fighter that, like its opponents, possessed its share of shortcomings. It offered excellent handling characteristics and response at low and medium speeds; it was extremely stable, could be pulled round in high-g turns, and its climb and dive performances were second to none. On the debit side, its controls tended to heavy up as speed increased, demanding more physical effort from its pilot than did its British contemporaries; the absence of a trimmer necessitated continuous application of rudder in order to fly straight at high speeds, and it suffered an incipient swing during take-off and landing. A big advantage was its direct fuel injection which was much superior to the carburettor feed of its British opponents, but there was little to choose between Bf 109E and Spitfire between 12,000 and 17,000ft (3,660 and 5,180m), the German fighter being undeniably superior above 20,000ft (6,100m).
Designed by Dipl-Ing Willy Messerschmitt and Dipl-Ing Robert Lusser, the Bf 109 flew some months before the Hurricane or Spitfire, on May 28, 1935, with Hans Dietrich ‘Bubi’ Knoetzsch at the controls, For this event, which took place at the small factory airfield between Augsburg and Haunstetten, the first prototype had been fitted with a Rolls-Royce Kestrel V liquid-cooled inline engine affording 695hp for take-off, its intended Junkers Jumo 210 engine being unavailable. When first arriving at the Erprobungsstelle, or Proving Centre, of the Luftwaffe, the E-Stelle test and evaluation pilots looked askance at this then radical and highly innovative fighting machine. Its steep ground angle, with poor view for taxying in consequence, its cramped cockpit with sideways-hingeing canopy, its narrow-track undercarriage and its automatic wing leading-edge slots aroused extreme scepticism among the conventionalists.
Second and third prototypes were meanwhile completed with the intended Jumo 210A inverted-vee engine rated at 680hp for take-off; the Messerschmitt fighter gained the approbation of the Luftwaffenführungsstab, the Operations Staff, and, in March 1936, the decision was taken to build the Bf 109 as the next service fighter of the Luftwaffe. This production decision virtually coincided with the first flight of the Spitfire prototype, the German fighter’s future principal antagonist.
The initial example of the first production model, the Bf 109B, left the Augsburg-Haunstetten assembly line in February 1937, the impetus behind the Messerschmitt fighter enabling conversion to the new warplane of the premier Luftwaffe fighter Geschwader, JG 132 Richthofen, to begin almost immediately at Jüterbog-Damm. Indeed, the programme tempo was such that, in the following month, March, 16 Bf 109Bs were shipped direct from the factory to the Tablada airfield, Seville, for use by the Condor Legion committed to the Nationalist cause in the ongoing Spanish Civil War. Personnel of III Gruppe of JG 132 were hurriedly assigned to 2 Staffel of Jagdgruppe 88, which relinquished its He 51 biplanes, and operational status with the new fighter was achieved by late April 1937, less than three months from the first production Bf 109B rolling from the asembly line!
The early career of the Messerschmitt fighter seemed shrouded in mystery, but on November 11, 1937, a pre-series airframe, the Bf 109 V13, fitted with a specially-boosted Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine, raised the world airspeed record for landplanes to no less that 379.38mph (610.53km/h). While being blooded in action in Spanish skies, the fighter was the subject of extraordinarily rapid development. Series manufacture of the Bf 109B gave place successively to the improved Bf 109C and D, but these retained the comparatively low-powered Jumo engine. Design emphasis was now being placed on the perfection of a very much more powerful model, the Bf 109E employing the new inverted-vee Daimler-Benz engine.
The first series Bf 109E fighters began to leave the assembly lines at the beginning of 1939, all production of the fighter by the parent company having meanwhile been transferred to Regensburg. The Erla Maschinenwerk at Leipzig and the Gerhard Fieseler Werke at Kassel had become the principal suppliers and the Wiener-Neustädter Flugzeugwerke in Austria was preparing for large-scale manufacture of the fighter. The DB 601A engine of the Bf 109E had received final clearance for service use late in 1938 and, in addition to being built by the Daimler-Benz plants at Genshagen and Marienfelde, this was being produced by the Henschel Flugmotorenbau at Altenbauna and the Niedersachsische subsidiary of the Büssing-Werke of Braunschweig.
Installation of the DB 601A engine in the Bf 109 airframe transformed the performance of the Messerschmitt fighter from good to excellent. It was a remarkable engine by international standards and its use of direct fuel injection was to endow the Bf 109E with a considerable advantage. Negative g, such as occurred in sudden transition from level to diving flight and interrupted the fuel supply to engines possessing normal float carburettors, no longer presented a problem, enabling the Messerschmitt fighter to out-dive its opponents. Furthermore, fuel injection reduced fuel consumption and afforded better results from relatively low octane petrol. The DB 601A was rated at 1,175hp for take-off and was thus more powerful than the Merlin then being installed in contemporary production versions of the Hurricane and Spitfire,
The Bf 109E retained the 40-mile (65km) range FuG 7 R/T equipment of earlier versions of the fighter, together with the Carl Zeiss C/12C reflector sight, armament of the initial model, the Bf 109E-1, comprising four 7.9mm Rheinmetall Borsig MG 17 machine guns. However, the Luftwaffenführungsstab by now generally favoured the more lethal if slower-firing 20mm MG FF cannon as a wing-mounted weapon and it had been decided to standardise on these as soon as the supply situation permitted. Thus, the cannon-armed sub-type, the Bf 109E-3, was to follow closely on the heels of the initial production Bf 109E-1, this retaining the twin fuselage-mounted synchronised MG 17 machine guns with 1,000 rounds per gun and mating them with a pair of MG FF cannon, each with 60 rounds, to provide a combined weight of fire of 290lb/min (131kg/min). At this juncture, no armour protection was provided for either pilot or fuel tank; these, as was also a bullet-proof windscreen, were features to be introduced in the light of operational experience.
In general, the handling characteristics of the DB 601A-engined Bf 109 were essentially similar to those of its Jumo 210A-engined predecessors, marked increases in loading notwithstanding. Admittedly, turning circle suffered somewhat and control was noticeably heavier at the upper end of the speed range. In other respects, the Bf 109E handled well. Take-off with flaps at 20 degrees was remarkably short and initial climb was excellent. Although the fighter stalled at quite high speeds, this phenomenon was gentle even under g, with no tendency to spin, and aileron vibration and buffeting afforded ample warning of the approach of the stall. At a normal take-off weight of 5,875lb (2,665kg), the Bf 109E achieved maximum speeds ranging from 290mph (466km/h) at sea level, through 322mph (518km/h) at 6,560ft (2,000m) to 348mph (560km/h) at 14,560ft (4,440m). A fuselage tank following the contours of the pilot’s seat housed 88 Imp gal (400 litres) of fuel, but this was sufficient for only a 1.1-hour endurance at maximum continuous power at 19,685ft (6,000m), but at range cruise of 233mph (375km/h) at 22,965ft (7,000m) maximum range was 410 miles (660km). With weight reduced to 5,400lb (2,450kg), initial climb rate was 3,280ft/min (1,000m/min), and an altitude of 9,840ft (3,000m) could be attained in 3.6 min.
Whereas total Bf 109 production had barely exceeded 400 machines in 1938, no fewer than 1,091 examples of the E model were to leave the assembly lines between January 1 and September 1, 1939, representing an average monthly production tempo of 136.4 aircraft, and the spring and summer months saw the Jagdstaffeln feverishly engaged in conversion to the Bf 109E. When the codeword Ostmarkflug launched the assault on Poland, the Quartermaster-General’s strength return to the Oberbefehlshaber listed 1,056 Bf 109s on Luftwaffe strength, of which 946 were serviceable.
Prior to Adler Tag, the lessons taught by the French campaign had hastily been incorporated in the Bf 109E. These included a cockpit canopy of revised design and embodying heavier framing, together with some protection for the pilot. This took the form of 8mm seat armour weighing 53lb (24kg) and a curved plate attached to the hinged canopy weighing a further 28.6lb (13kg). The fire rate of the MG FF cannon was being improved and the enhanced weapon was to be introduced by the Bf 109E-4 which rapidly replaced the E-3 during the summer and autumn of 1940.
By August 10, three days before Adler Tag, 934 Bf 109Es (against an establishment of 1,011) were available to Luftflotte 2 based in the Netherlands, Beigium and northern France, and Luftflotte 3 based in France, and of these 805 were serviceable. On Adler Tag, the Bf 109E-equipped element of the former Luftflotte was provided by the Stab and three Gruppen of each of Jagdgeschwadern 3, 26, 51 and 52, and the Stab and I Gruppe of JG 54, plus the Bf 109E-1/B and E-4/B fighter-bombers of 3/Erprobungsgruppe 210. Luftflotte 3 included the Stab and three Gruppen of each of Jagdgeschwadern 2, 27 and 53.
The Jagdflieger were aware that their Bf 109Es possessed sufficient endurance for a mere 20 minutes actual combat over Britain and that London represented the effective limit of their tactical radius. This embarrassing limitation had been foreseen and a jettisonable 66 Imp gal (300 litre) fuel tank had been developed, and, in fact, manufactured in some numbers. However, produced from moulded plywood, it was found to leak seriously after comparatively short exposure to the elements and its incendiary proclivity resulted in its rejection by Bf 109E units.
Influenced by the ‘Studie Blau’, Hermann Goering and his staff seriously underrated the effectiveness of the British fighter opposition to be encountered. At the outset, the Bf 109Es were assigned the task of engaging the British fighters in open combat, a role for which the German fighters were ideally suited, but when the vulnerability of the twin-engined Bf 110 became obvious to the Luftwaffenführungsstab, it became necessary for the single-seaters also to provide close escort for the bombers. The fewer than 700 serviceable Bf 109Es available to Luftflotten 2 and 3 were to be found inadequate for the dual task.
Initially, the Bf 109E-equipped Jagdgruppen were able to take full advantage of the superior climbing and diving capabilities of their mounts, and the excellent tactics that had been evolved during the Spanish Civil War enabled them to play havoc with the outmoded tactics retained by RAF Fighter Command. During the first weeks of the Battle, the compact, but totally impracticable formations flown by the Hurricanes and Spitfires were frequently bounced by Bf 109Es with frightening results for the defending forces. The inflexible RAF fighter tactics were disastrous and, eventually, the defending fighters were forced to imitate their opponents.
There can be no doubt that the Bf 109E was highly effective and the master of both the Spitfire and the Hurricane in several performance respects, although it lacked certain qualities inherent in the British warplanes. The combination of cannon and machine guns provided the Messerschmitt fighter with a formidable armament and, although the MG FF cannon had a very much lower rate of fire than the Browning machine guns of the British fighters, their explosive shells could do infinitely more damage. Insofar as the Jagdgruppen were concerned, however, by September they had largely lost their freedom of action, being assigned to the close escort of bombers, and were severely handicapped in being no longer permitted to pursue the tactics best suited to the Bf 109E.
Unable by this time to use its speed to advantage, the fact that the Bf 109E could be out-turned by both Hurricane and Spitfire took on an importance that it had not previously possessed, the operational attrition of the Jagdgruppen steadily escalating. Infuriated by the losses sustained by his bombers, Reichsmarschall Goering made matters worse by insisting that the Bf 109Es stay still closer to their charges. The Bf 109E-equipped Jagdgruppen were thus emasculated, continuing the struggle until October 31, when, the Luftwaffe having achieved little of strategic significance, the fighters were withdrawn from the assault.
Throughout the Battle, the RAF fighter pilots had treated their Bf 109E mounted opponents with the greatest respect. Indeed, most of the 1,172 aircraft lost by RAF Fighter Command during July-October 1940 had fallen to the guns of the Messemhmitt single-seater. In that period, 610 Bf 109Es had been lost on operations. During the course of the epic conflict, the Jagdflieger, who had considered themselves the hunters at the outset, had begun to see themselves as the hunted, not as the result of overwhelming qualities displayed by their opponents, but because of the strict limitations imposed on their tactics by their own Oberbefehlshaber. The Reichsmarschall had scored an ‘own goal’, but for which the outcome of the Battle might have been different.
When committed to the Battle of Britain, the Messerschmitt Bf 110 enjoyed an awe-inspiring reputation, albeit one that owed more to German propagandists than to operational feats. Referred to as a Zerstörer, or ‘destroyer ‘, a term borrowed from naval parlance, the Bf 110 was a product of the strategic fighter concept; a high-performance, twin-engined, multi-seat aircraft, the primary task of which was that of clearing a path through an enemy’s defensive fighter screen for bombers following in its wake. Secondary roles included close escort of bomber formations and the free-ranging intruder mission within enemy airspace. The concept was particularly favoured by Goering, who saw his Bf 110-equipped Zerstörergruppen as the élite of the Luftwaffe.
Development of the Bf 110 had virtually paralleled that of the single-seat Bf 109, following the structural formula established by its stablemate and displaying much the same independence of spirit. Neither Dipl-Ing Willy Messerschmitt nor his Chief Engineer, Dipl-Ing Robert Lusser, had subscribed to the view that the requirement that the Bf 110 was intended to meet was practicable in the form envisaged by the Luftwaffenführungsstab. Accordingly, they had elected to ignore some parameters of the official specification and, as with the Bf 109, place the accent uncompromisingly on ultimate performance.
The result was an elegant and competent, indeed, outstanding combat aircraft. It was to be found supremely tractable, its basic design proving amenable to power plant changes and to accommodation of armament, avionics and other equipment far beyond anything envisaged at the time of its creation. But its designers never anticipated its deployment other than in conditions of local Luftwaffe superiority if not supremacy; a situation such as that in which the Bf 110 was to find itself over Southern England during the Battle was totally unforeseen.
No aircraft designer, however talented, had at that point in time come up with a formula enabling a large and heavy twin-engined long-range fighter to compete in terms of agility with a relatively lightly loaded short-range single-seater. Thus, the Bf 110 was to fall lamentably short of the expectations generated by the réclame of the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin. This was to lead to a widespread belief that the Messerschmitt twin-engined fighter was an indifferent warplane. On the contrary, its lack of success in that summer of 1940 stemmed from an inadequate understanding of the intrinsic limitations of its concept rather than inherent weaknesses in the aircraft itself.
The first prototype, the Bf 110 V1, powered by two Daimler-Benz DB 600A engines each affording 910hp at rated altitude, was flown for the first time on May 25, 1936 at Augsburg-Haunstetten by Dr-Ing Hermann Wurster. During an early test phase a speed of 314mph (505km/h) was clocked in level flight at 10,830ft (3,300m) at a loaded weight of 11,025lb (5,000kg). For a relatively large, twin-engine aircraft it proved very agile and, in mock combat with a pre-series single-seat Me 109B flown by Ernst Udet, the newly-appointed Inspector of Fighter Pilots repeatedly failed to keep his larger opponent in his gun sight for sufficient time to render a hit likely, and experienced some difficulty in staying with the twin-engined fighter in steep turns.
In January 1937, as a result of evaluation of a second prototype, the Bf 110 V2, at the Rechlin Erprobungsstelle, instructions were given that Messerschmitt should commence preparations for a pre-production series of aircraft. The proposed series model, the Bf 110A, was to be powered by a pair of DB 600Aa carburettor-equipped engines affording 986hp for take-off. By the time that the pre-series Bf 110A airframes had attained an advanced stage in construction, however, the DB 600 engine was considered basically unsuited for fighter installation and was already being phased out of production in favour of the direct-fuel-injection DB 601. The Reichsluftfahrtministerium confidently expected that the DB 601 would be available by the spring of 1938, when deliveries of the Bf 110 to the schweren (heavy) Jagdgruppen were expected to commence. Accordingly, instructions were issued to curtail the Bf 110A series, adapting the four airframes that had reached an advanced stage in assembly to take Junkers Jumo 210Da engines of 680hp for take-off.
As it became increasingly obvious that the more sanguine predictions for DB 601A engine delivery could not be met, the decision was taken to build an interim model, the Bf 110B with direct-fuel-injection two-stage supercharged Jumo 210Ga engines. While it was considered that the Bf 110B would possess an inadequate performance for combat purposes, it was seen as an ideal tool for equipment and armament evaluation, and the development of operational techniques. It was accordingly issued during late 1938 to I (Schweren Jagdgruppe)/LG 1 of the so-called Luftwaffe Lehrdivision, or Instructional Division, whose task was that of formulating tactics and techniques. In January 1939, this Gruppe was to become I(Z)/LG 1 when the title schwere Jagd was abandoned in favour of that of Zerstörer.
With the DB 601A engine, the Messerschmitt Zerstörer became the Bf 110C, a pre-series of 10 being delivered to the Luftwaffe early in January 1939, and acceptances of the initial production Bf 110C-1 by I(Z)/LG 1 began before the end of that month. Production of the Bf 110C-1 gathered momentum rapidly owing to the high priority that it enjoyed, and by the early summer of 1939, Focke-Wulf and the Gothaer Waggonfabrik had tooled up to supplement the output of Messerschmitt’s Augsburg-Haunstetten factory, and MIAG at Braunschweig was preparing to phase into the programme.
By August 31, 1939, a total of 159 Bf 110C fighters had been accepted, although the Quartermaster-General’s strength returns for that date indicated that only 68 of these, plus 27 Bf 110Bs, had actually been taken into the inventory. Two Zerstörergruppen, I/ZG 1 and I/ZG 76, had meanwhile been working up on the new warplane, and these, together with I(Z)/LG 1, were to be included in the Order of Battle against Poland.
Output of the Bf 110C had risen to more than 30 per month, and a further 156 were to be delivered during the first four months of hostilities when tempo was progressively rising – the average monthly production during 1940 was to be 102.6 aircraft – and the Zerstörer element of the Luftwaffe expanding commensurately. Powered by two DB 601A-1 12-cylinder inverted-vee engines each rated at 1,050hp for take-off, the Bf 110C-1 carried an armament of two 20mm MG FF cannon each with 180 rounds, four fixed forward-firing 7.9mm MG 17 machine guns each with 1,000 rounds and a flexibly-mounted aft-firing MG 15 with 750 rounds. With maximum speeds ranging from 295mph (475km/h) at sea level to 336mph (540km/h) at 19,685ft (6,000m), and a high-speed cruise of 262mph (422km/h) at sea level and 304mph (490km/h) at 16,400ft (5,000m), performance compared favourably in these respects with the best single-seat fighters extant.
Normal maximum range at economic cruise of 217mph (350km/h) at 13,780ft (4,200m) was 680 miles (1,095km), but the introduction of auxiliary tanks in the wing outboard of the engine nacelles raised internal fuel capacity by a further 121 Imp gal (550 litres) to increase maximum range to 876 miles (1,410km).
Early operational experience had resulted in the successive introduction of the Bf 110C-2, differing solely in having FuG 10 HF radio in place of the original FuG 3aU R/T and the Bf 110C-3 which differed in having improved MG FF cannon. These now gave place to the Bf 110C-4 in which, for the first time, some attempt was made to provide at least nominal armour protection for pilot and gunner, normal loaded weight rising some 490lb (222kg) over that of the Bf 110C-1 to 13,779lb (6,250kg). Further escalation in weight resulted from a demand for adaptation of the aircraft for the Jagd-bomber (Jabo) mission, two EM 250 racks being introduced beneath the fuselage centre section for a pair of 551lb (250kg) bombs.
The substantially increased overload weight necessitated more power for take-off and emergency use, and thus the Jabo model, the Bf 110C-4/B, was fitted with DB 601N engines which, with increased compression and 96 Octane fuel, had a maximum take-off output of 1,200hp with full boost for one minute. Issued to the Erprobungsgruppe 210, the Bf 110C-4/B fighter-bombers of two staffeln of this unit were to operate throughout the ensuing Battle singly and in small groups, and taking maximum advantage of the element of surprise by using terrain-following tactics.
A parallel development was the Bf 110C-5 which had a single Rb 50/30 reconnaissance camera in the cockpit floor, forward-firing armament being restricted to the quartet of machine guns. This sub-type was to reach the Aufklärungstaffeln, or reconnaissance squadrons, in time to participate in the Battle, initially in mixed units with the Do 17P and Do 17Z.
On July 20, 1940, a total of 278 Bf 110s was available to Luftflotten 2, 3 and 5, and of these 200 were serviceable. Overall strength of the Zerstörergruppen that were to participate in the assault on the United Kingdom was virtually unchanged on August 13, Adler Tag, comprising 289 aircraft of which 224 were serviceable. Apart from the langstrecken Zerstörergruppen I/ZG 76 and V(Z)/LG 1 with Bf 110C-4s and D-1s*, and 1. and 2. Staffeln of E.Gr.210 with Bf 110C-4/Bs, the principal Bf 110-equipped units committed to the Battle were the Stab and I and II/ZG 2, the Stab and I, II and III/ZG 26, and II and III/ZG 76.
Theoretically, with their superior endurance, the Bf 110s were to entice the RAF fighter squadrons into combat. The bomber squadrons would then follow at a suitable distance, arriving when the defending fighters had exhausted their fuel and were thus powerless to intervene. Furthermore, it was anticipated that the RAF fighters, sitting on their bases rearming and refuelling, would be extremely vulnerable and would afford excellent targets for the bombers and the additional Bf 110s escorting them.
This theory was to prove fallacious from the outset. To the chagrin of the Zerstörergruppen, the capabilities of their mounts fell far short of their expectations. The flying characteristics of the Bf 110 were very pleasant; its controls were fairly light, well harmonised and very effective up to 250mph (402km/h), although they began to heavy up above this speed. Stability was good fore and aft and directionally, but neutral laterally, and manoeuvrability was very good for so large an aeroplane. It was sluggish by comparison with the manoeuvrability of the Hurricane and Spitfire, however, and a serious fault was provided by the wing leading-edge slots which kept popping open in tight turns, gun sighting being ruined by the resultant lateral wobble.
While the forward-firing armament was undeniably lethal, it was difficult to bring to bear on the Bf 110’s more agile opponents and the single 7.9mm MG 15 wielded by the radio operator/gunner in the rear cockpit afforded little protection against attack from astern. The acceleration and speed of the Bf 110 were insufficient to enable its pilot to avoid combat when opposed by superior numbers of interceptors, and as soon as RAF Fighter Command had taken the measure of the Messerschmitt Zerstörer, the Bf 110-equipped Gruppen began to suffer frightful operational attrition. During August alone a total of 120 Bf 110s was lost on operations, the preponderance of them after Adler Tag. Thus, within less than three weeks, the Zerstörergruppen lost some 40 per cent of the aircraft on strength when the assault began.
It was patently obvious that the Bf 110 should have been withdrawn from the aerial offensive, but an overall shortage of Bf 109Es, coupled with their inadequate range, necessitated retention of the Messerschmitt Zerstörer. Incapable of defending the bombers that it was intended to escort, the Bf 110 was hard put to defend itself and its losses were out of all proportion to its achievements. Despite a substantial reduction in sorties and changes in tactics, the Zerstörergruppen had lost a further 83 aircraft by the end of September, their presence in the area providing a defensive liability for the overstretched Bf 109E units.
The catastrophic losses had already dictated the disbandment of some Gruppen, including I and II/ZG 2, and the folly of pitting the Bf 110 against a determined force of single-seat fighters was finally accepted by the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, which, throughout the final weeks of the Battle confined the Messerschmitt twin to the fighter-bomber and reconnaissance tasks. Reichsmarschall Goering’s boastful claims for his élite Zerstörergruppen had been proved singularly hollow.
No warplane possessed greater réclame in the opening months of World War II than the Junkers Ju 87 two-seat dive bomber, its notoriety assiduously propagated by German publicity. Indeed, the Polish and French campaigns in which it had participated had endowed the Ju 87 with a fearsome reputation as an outstandingly effective precision bombing instrument and a supremely effective ground strafer. With its banshee-like wail emitted as it hurtled vertically earthwards, it had a devastating psychological effect on the recipients of its attention. Synonymous with the sobriquet of Stuka – a derivation of Sturzkampfflugzeug, a term embracing all dive bombers – the Ju 87 was seen by the German High Command as a successor to long-range artillery, and first and foremost a tool for the direct support of ground forces.
Lacking all aesthetic pretentions, the Junkers dive bomber was an angularly ugly creation, but it was an extremely sturdy aircraft, offering its pilot light controls, pleasant flying characteristics and, for an aircraft of its size, a comparatively high standard of manoeuvrability. Its crew members enjoyed good visibility and it was reputed to be capable of hitting its target with an accuracy of less than 100ft (30m). All very desirable though these characteristics were, successful operation of the Ju 87 presupposed a considerable measure of control in the air without which it became an anachronism, the natural prey of the fighter. Once the Ju 87 encountered determined fighter opposition, such as was to be found over the United Kingdom, its career dramatically entered its eclipse.
Like many German prototypes of the period, the Ju 87 began flight test with a British engine, a fully supercharged Kestrel V rated at 640hp at 14,000ft (4,267m). Flown at Dessau in the late spring of 1935 this, the Ju 87 V1, was to enjoy only a brief test career. During diving trials in the following summer, the entire tail assembly began to oscillate, the starboard element of its twin vertical tail surface breaking away when the pilot attempted to recover from his dive. This necessitated Dipl-Ing Herman Pohlmann and his design team, who had initiated work on the Ju 87 in 1933, undertaking hurried redesign of the tail surfaces, a new single fin-and-rudder assembly being applied to the second prototype, the Ju 87 V2, with which the flight test programme was resumed in the late autumn of 1935.
Unlike the first prototype, the Ju 87 V2 was powered by the intended Junkers Jumo 210Aa inverted-vee 12-cylinder engine for which the dive bomber had been designed, this being rated at 610hp at 8,530ft (2,600m). This aircraft was fitted with dive brakes prior to its delivery to the Rechlin test centre for official evaluation in March 1936. Attached beneath the wings just aft of the leading edges and outboard of the main undercarriage, these took the form of slats turning through 90deg. Prior to commencing the dive, the pilot had to throttle back the engine in order to close the cooling gills, switch over to the sea-level supercharger and turn the propeller to coarse pitch, a series of lines of inclination marked on the starboard front side screen of the cockpit enabling the pilot to estimate the dive angle by aligning the lines with the horizon.
Two more prototypes, the V3 and V4, offered various refinements, the latter introducing a single 7.9mm MG 17 machine gun in the starboard wing and a crutch on swing links which, attached immediately aft of the radiator bath, lowered and swung the bomb – either of 551lb or 1,102lb (250 or 500kg) – forward on release to ensure clearance of the propeller arc.
The first pre-series Ju 87A-0 dive bombers came off the Dessau assembly line before the end of 1936, 10 of these being followed by the series Ju 87A-1 early in the following year. Late in 1937, three aircraft were detached from the I Gruppe of Stuka Geschwader 162 Immelmann and sent to Spain to evaluate dive bombing techniques under operational conditions. The Ju 87A-1 gave place to the A-2 with a Jumo 210Da engine affording 680hp for take-off late in 1937, but by that time a major redesign of the aircraft was in train to accommodate the Jumo 211A engine which offered 1,000hp for take-off.
The more powerful engine was installed in the pre-series Ju 87B-0, the Jumo 211A giving place in the series model, the Ju 87B-1, to the Jumo 211 Da with direct fuel injection and an emergency take-off rating of 1,200hp. The substantial boost in power enabled the Ju 87B-1 to lift a 1,102lb (500kg) bomb with both crew members in situ whereas the Ju 87A had only been able to carry this weapon when flown as a single-seater. An alternative warload consisted of a 551lb (250kg) bomb on the fuselage crutch and four 110lb (50kg) bombs on underwing racks. Forward-firing armament was increased to two 7.9mm MG 17s with 500rpg, and a single MG 15 machine gun of similar calibre was attached to a flexible mounting in the rear cockpit with 900 rounds,
Five of the first Ju 87B-1s were despatched to Spain in October 1938, these emulating the success enjoyed by the Ju 87As that had preceded them, and with the transfer of the assembly line from Dessau to the ‘Weser’ Flugzeugbau at Berlin-Tempelhof, production tempo of the Junkers dive bomber increased dramatically, exceeding 60 aircraft monthly by mid-1939, in which year 557 were to be delivered. Nine Ju 87B-1-equipped Stukagruppen were to be included in the Luftwaffe Order of Battle on September 1, 1939, these possessing 336 aircraft of which 288 were serviceable.
Operating under ideal conditions, with negligible aerial opposition, the Stukagruppen had a devastating effect during the Polish campaign, serving primarily as a weapon for back-area bombing and exploiting to the full the accuracy of bomb aiming inherent in the steep diving attack. Only 31 Ju 87Bs were lost during Polish operations, or less than 10 per cent of the total Stuka force engaged; the legendary reputation that had been in the making in Spanish skies had now been firmly established in Polish skies and was to be consolidated seven months later over France.
The Ju 87B-2 had succeeded the B-l on the ‘Weser’ assembly line late in 1939, this incorporating several refinements, such as a broad-bladed propeller, hydraulically-operated radiator cooling gills and ejector exhausts. Manufactured in parallel was a longer-range version, the Ju 87R – the suffix letter indicating ‘Reichweite’, or Range – which, for extended-range missions such as anti-shipping operations, made provision for substantial additional quantities of fuel and oil. Although there were some factions in the Luftwaffe that, because of the relative low speed and the vulnerability of the Ju 87, now considered this warplane to be approaching obsolescence, its successes in the Polish campaign boosted the influence of the pro-Stuka element and, far from phasing out, production was boosted, and a total of 769 was to be built during the course of 1940.
Prior to the Battle of Britain, some dive bombing attacks against British coastal shipping took place in July, but these were no more than a prelude to the main assault. By July 20, Luftflotten 2 and 3 had available 316 Ju 87Bs and Ju 87Rs for the assault on the United Kingdom, 248 of these being immediately serviceable. The bulk of the dive bombers were included in the VIII Fliegerkorps of Generalleutnant Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen with seven Stukagruppen comprising the Stab, I and III/StG.1, the Stab, I and II/StG.2, and the Stab, I, II and III/StG.77. The newly-fomed I/StG.3 was assigned to the IV Fliegerkorps, while II Fliegerkorps embodied II/StG.1 and IV(St)/LG 1.
The first Ju 87 sorties in strength actually took place on August 8, five days before Adler Tag, suffering severe losses despite Bf 109Es providing top cover. On Adler Tag itself, Ju 87s en route for Middle Wallop airfield were bounced by Spitfires of No. 609 Sqn, nine of the dive bombers being promptly despatched. But this was only a foretaste of what was in store for the Stukagruppen. Within six days, 41 Ju 87s had been lost; it was patently obvious this was no replay of the Polish and French campaigns, and the Stuka had been revealed for what it was – an inadequately armed and highly vunerable warplane. To prevent the Stukagruppen from being decimated, the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe had no recourse but to withdraw the Ju 87 from the Cherbourg area to the Pas de Calais where it was to sit out the closing phases of the Battle. The last Stuka sorties in force against British targets took place on August 16, when I and III StG.2 lost nine aircraft in an attack on Tangmere, and on August 18, when StG.77 lost 16 aircraft after attacking Ford and Thorney Island. The shock administered by the combat attrition of the Battle was sufficient to disenchant some of the most ardent of the Ju 87’s protagonists within the Luftwaffe.
With the creation of the Third Reich in 1933, elaborate measures were taken to conceal the extent of the rearmament that was taking place in Germany. Later it was to be alleged that the appearance in the mid-’thirties of what were presented as high-speed commercial transports but were, in reality, the prototypes of bombers provided but one glaring example of this subterfuge. In fact, these airliners were not the progenitors of future bombers, their basic designs having been conceived at the outset to fulfil both civil and military roles, commercial transport and bomber versions evolving in parallel.
One of these dimorphic aircraft was the Heinkel He 111, an elegant, well-conceived and efficient design created by the brothers Siegfried and Walter Günter. It was a classic aeroplane coupling exceptional handling characteristics with a performance which, in the early days of its career at least, enabled it to show a clean pair of heels to most contemporary single-seat fighters. Fully representative of the then latest aerodynamic refinements and structural techniques, it was one of the most outstanding aircraft of the mid-’thirties by any standard.
In bomber form, the He 111 temporarily placed Germany in the forefront of development of this category of warplane but, while still a formidable weapon, it had lost some of its potency by the time it was to be committed to the Battle of Britain.
The first bomber prototype, the He 111a, flew on February 24, 1935; a state-of-the-art all-metal stressed-skin monoplane powered by two 690hp BMW VI 6 OZ glycol-cooled 12-cylinder engines and knowing few if any peers on the score of elegance. A commercial airliner prototype, the He 111 V4, garnered considerable publicity on January 10, 1936, when demonstrated to the international press at Berlin-Tempelhof as ‘The fastest aircraft on the world’s air routes.’
It was, of course, the potential of the He 111 as a bomber for the future Luftwaffe that was the primary reason for the intense official interest in this aircraft, and construction of a pre-series batch of 10 He 111A-0 bombers had begun at Rostock-Marienehe some months before the commercial He 111 V4 prototype had been demonstrated to the press with such verve by Heinkel’s test pilot Gerhard Nitschke. From this point in time, the He 111 was to undergo incremental redesign that was to result in two distinct generations of the Heinkel bomber.
The first generation of which the first production representative was the He 111B, was to achieve a measure of fame as a result of its participation in the Spanish Civil War, initially with Kampfgruppe 88 of the Legion Kondor and subsequently with the Spanish Nationalist Air Force as well. By the beginning of World War II, however, the He 111-equipped Kampfgeschwader had virtually completed conversion to the second generation bomber which comprised the vast bulk of the equipment of 21 Gruppen and one Staffel with a total strength of 789 aircraft.
The second generation He 111 bomber mated the entirely new wing introduced by the first generation He 111F and J with a completely revised forward fuselage. Whereas the original wing had been of aesthetically attractive and aerodynamically desirable elliptical form, its somewhat complex structure undoubtedly inhibited large-scale production. Thus, early in 1936, Siegfried Günter had begun redesign of the wing, eliminating the elegant ellipses in favour of a straight-tapered planform, a modest reduction in gross wing area resulting in the process. Comparatively small numbers of bombers were completed with the new wing before, in the summer of 1938, an equally radical change was introduced on the assembly lines; this was an entirely new forward fuselage, resulting in what was considered to be the second generation bomber.
Intended to improve both aerodynamics and crew visibility, the new forward fuselage was innovative in that it eliminated the pilot’s windscreen that had previously broken the upper fuselage contour in conventional fashion. In place of the stepped windscreen the entire nose section was broadened and deepened, being largely formed by transparent panelling and resulting in forward fuselage contours unbroken by any projection. The pilot was seated to port and all flight and engine instruments were mounted on a panel suspended from the roof. The nose terminated in an Ikaria universal mounting for a 7.9mm MG 15 machine gun.
In order to overcome the problems that would be presented in adverse weather by the surfeit of transparent panels, provision was made for elevating the pilot’s seat and controls for landing and taxying, his head projecting through a sliding panel and being protected from the slipstream by a small retractable windscreen. Although the new cockpit glazing was to receive some criticism owing to the mirror effect when the sun was aft of the aircraft, the new forward fuselage was standardised for subsequent production aircraft, these beginning to leave the assembly lines in the winter of 1938–39.
From the outset, the second generation bomber had been planned to take either Daimler-Benz DB 601A or Junkers Jumo 211 engines with equal facility, the bomber being assigned the designation He 111P with the former power plant and He 111H with the latter, priority being given to the DB 601A-engined version owing to the supply situation.
Deliveries of the initial production model, the He 111P-1, began during the early spring of 1939, the first He 111H-1s following some six weeks later. The P-1 gave place to the P-2, which differed solely in the type of radio installed, the H-1 being equipped to a similar standard with deliveries commencing in the same month (May).
One shortcoming of the second generation He 111 was its inflexibility concerning bomb loading arrangements. The bombs were loaded into individual vertical cells, four on each side of a gangway, and this meant that the largest bomb that could be accommodated internally was a 551-pounder (250kg). Perhaps the most surprising fact in view of experience with first generation He 111s over Spain was the lack of any attempt to increase defensive armament which remained three 7.9mm MG 15 machine guns. The crew comprised pilot, navigator/bombardier, radio operator and ventral gunner. The DB 601A-1 engines of the He 111P were each rated at 1,175hp for take-off and the Jumo 211A-1 engines of the He 111H each offered 1,075hp for take-off.
Such was the importance of the Heinkel bomber that the He 111P was built by Heinkel’s Rostock-Marienehe and the NDW factories, these being joined by Arado at Warnemünde, while the He 111H was built in parallel by Heinkel’s Oranienburg facility, the Junkers plant at Dessau and the new ATG factory at Leipzig. The decision had been taken to standardise on the Jumo 211-engined version as soon as the power plant supply situation permitted, and, in the meantime, sub-types began to proliferate. The He 111P-4 introduced some armour protection for the pilot and dorsal and ventral gunners, and heavier defensive armament, this being raised to six 7.9mm MG 15s. Furthermore, the port bomb bay was blanked off and occupied by a supplementary fuel tank, bomb racks being introduced beneath the blanked-off bay.
Production of the P-series was to be finally phased out early in 1940 with the He 111P-6, this reverting to the standard internal bomb stowage arrangement but having 1,275hp DB 601N engines. The He 111H-2 embodied similar armament changes to those introduced on the P-4, the He 111H-3, which made its début in November 1939, being a dual-role version, which, adding anti-shipping operations to its repertoire, was fitted with a single forward-firing 20mm MG FF cannon in its ventral gondola. The H-3 sub-type also benefited from installation of Jumo 211D-1 engines each rated at 1,200hp for take-off. These engines were retained by the He 111H-4 which began to come off the lines early in 1940, but were eventually to be supplanted by the Jumo 211F-l offering 1,400hp for take-off.
When World War II commenced, the Luftwaffe inventory of He 111 bombers was fairly evenly divided between P-series and H-series, with 389 of the former and 400 of the latter on strength, all having been taken on charge over a period of less than six months, such was the impetus placed behind the production of the Heinkel bomber. Committed to the Polish Campaign, the He 111 achieved generally favourable results, but attrition was higher than anticipated, a total of 78 bombers being lost. For the onslaught on France and the Low Countries on May 10, 1940, Luftflotten 2 and 3 possessed a total of 1,120 twin-engined bombers of which approximately half were He 111s, but the numerical heyday of the Heinkel bomber was already passing as Kampfgruppen converted to the Junkers Ju 88A. Thus, by Adler Tag, only four Kampfgeschwader remained completely equipped with He 111s, these being KG 26 based in Norway, KG 27 operating from Tours, Dinard and Rennes, KG 53 at Lille-Nord and KG 55 at Chartres, Dreux and Villacoublay.
After initial strikes across the Straits of Dover, the first sorties in force by He 111s took place on August 15 when 72 He 111H-4s of I and III Gruppen of KG 26 flew from Stavanger with the intention of attacking RAF bases at Dishforth, Ulsworth and Linton-upon-Ouse. The bomber force was escorted by Bf 110 fighters of I/ZG 76, but owing to a navigational error none was to find its target. Only 63 of the He 111s actually crossed the coast and eight of these fell victim to RAF fighters. Despite heavy operational attrition, daylight attacks by He 111 formations against targets in the United Kingdom continued for a month.
The provision of stronger escorts of Bf 109E fighters barely alleviated the situation in which the Kampfgruppen found themselves, and, on occasions, when the hard-pressed Jagdgruppen failed to rendezvous with their He 111 charges, the casualties among the bombers were unacceptable. Thus, by mid-September, a change of tactics had become imperative and, from the 16th of that month, the He 111 was to be largely confined to nocturnal sorties.
To become known throughout the aeronautical world by the sobriquet of ‘Flying Pencil’ as a result of its immoderately slim side profile, the Dornier Do 17 was, at the time of its début, one of the most elegant and beautiful shapes ever to have taken to the skies. This slimness was seen to be illusory in planform as the near-cylindrical cross section of the fuselage of this aircraft changed rapidly to what can only be described as an inverted triangle to produce an abnormally broad centre fuselage, the section then transforming once more to an ellipse. By the time of the Battle, even the pencil-like side contours had been impaired, for operational experience gained in Spanish skies had dictated fundamental redesign of the forward fuselage of the bomber, and the variant that participated in the fighting over southern England, the Do 17Z, scarcely warranted the popular epithet.
The origins of the Do 17 pre-dated the birth of Germany’s Third Reich, stemming from an outline specification drawn up in July 1932 which euphemistically referred to a ‘high-speed passenger transport and mailplane’. From the outset the Do 17 was, in fact, a dedicated medium bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, the pacific roles that, at the time, it was allegedly designed to fulfil being pure fiction. The first prototype, the Do 17c – shortly afterwards to be redesignated Do 17 V1 – was flown on November 23, 1934, this having a single fin-and-rudder tail assembly whereas the second prototype, the Do 17 V2 (formerly Do 17a), was fitted with a twin fin-and-rudder assembly for comparison purposes, this latter flying on May 18, 1935.
The Do 17, like its contemporary, the He 111, took full advantage of state-of-the-art aerodynamic developments and structural concepts, and was a highly advanced design for the early ’thirties. It initiated the German predilection for grouping all crew members in the forward fuselage and it was faster than virtually any single-seat fighter then extant. Preparations for the large-scale production of the Do 17 at Dornier’s Manzell, Allmansweiller and Löwenthal factories were in train by early 1936, when plans were also being formulated for additional production by Henschel at Berlin-Schönefeld, Siebel at Halle and by the Hamburger Flugzeugbau.
The initial models were the Do 17E bomber and the Do 17F reconnaissance aircraft, and during the early months of 1937 these began to enter Luftwaffe service, the first examples of the former being committed to operations over Spain with Kampfgruppe 88 of the Legion Kondor in March of that year. Powered by the BMW VI 7,3 12-cylinder vee engines, the Do 17E and F were, in fact, phased out of production during the course of 1937 after delivery of 536 aircraft, being succeeded on the assembly lines by the Do 17M and P, respectively bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, the former with BMW-Bramo 323D nine-cylinder radial engines of 900hp and the latter with BMW 132N nine-cylinder radials of 865hp.
The principal shortcomings of the Do 17 revealed over Spain were its limited warload and its poor defence against attack from below and to the rear, and the Do 17M did little to remedy these defects. General re-equipment of the Do 17E-mounted Kampfgruppen was therefore held in abeyance pending availability of the much improved second generation Do 17Z which was following the Do 17M by less than a year and utilised most of the jigs and tools employed by the earlier model. The same considerations did not apply to its reconnaissance equivalent, the Do 17P, however. Production of this model was launched in 1938 by Henschel, Hamburger Flugzeugbau and Siebel, a total of 330 being built for the Aufklärungsgruppen.
The Do 17Z, the design of which began early in 1938, featured an entirely new forward fuselage owing everything to the dictates of operational efficiency and little to aerodynamic refinement. The downward-firing MG 15 machine gun which was poked through a hatch in the floor of preceding Do 17 versions had too limited a field of fire to provide anything approaching satisfactory protection from below and to the rear. Furthermore, crew accommodation had always been somewhat cramped for maximum operational efficiency. Thus, for the Do 17Z, the cockpit roof was raised and fully glazed. The nose containing the bombardier’s station was also extensively glazed with a series of small, flat panels, or ‘facets’, and the lower part was bulged and extended aft to a point just forward of the wing leading edge, terminating in a position for an aft-firing MG 15 machine gun.
The pre-series Do 17Z-0, which appeared late in 1938, was a four-seat bomber, defensive armament comprising three 7.9mm MG 15 guns – one on a pillar-type mounting at the rear of the flight deck, a second protruding through the starboard panels of the windscreen and the third on a hemispherical mounting firing below the fuselage. This armament was augmented on the production Do 17Z-1 by a fourth MG 15 protruding through the nose cone. Appearing before the end of 1938, the Do 17Z-1 was somewhat under-powered by its two 900hp BMW-Bramo 323A-1 radial engines when carrying its full 2,205lb (1,000kg) bomb load. Accordingly, bomb load was reduced to 1,100lb (500kg), but was restored to the full load early in 1939 with the appearance of the Do 17Z-2 with 1,000hp Bramo 323P engines with two-speed superchargers. Restoration of the full bomb load dictated some reduction in fuel load, however, reducing depth of penetration in maximum loaded condition to a mere 205 miles (330km).
The Do 17Z rapidly proved popular with its air and ground crews, establishing a reputation as the most reliable Luftwaffe bomber, but it lacked the load-carrying capability of the He 111 and the speed of the Ju 88, and production was already tapering off by the end of 1939, and was finally to terminate during the early summer of 1940 with some 500 delivered. These shortcomings notwithstanding, the Do 17Z-2 was to perform the first operational sortie of World War II when aircraft of III/KG 2 took-off from Heiligenbeil, East Prussia, 45 minutes after the official outbreak of war, to bomb the approaches to the railway bridge at Dirschau, a major link across the Polish Corridor.
Equipping nine Kampfgruppen of KG 2, KG 3, KG 76 and KG 77, the Do 17Z-2 was in the forefront when the first attacks on Channel convoys took place in July 1940, and the Kommodore of KG 2, Oberst Fink, was, in fact, assigned the title of Kanalkampfführer with the task of clearing the Channel of British shipping, his Do 17Z-2s providing the principal component of the battle group entrusted with this mission. On Adler Tag the Do 17Z-2s of KG 2 bombed Eastchurch as the sole Kampfgeschwader failing to receive Goering’s postponement order, losing four aircraft in the process.
The Do 17Z-2s of KG 3 bombed Eastchurch and Rochester two days later, and on the 16th those of KG 76 attacked West Malling, following up this mission with attacks on Biggin Hill and Kenley on the 18th.
The incursions over Britain of the Do 17Z rapidly revealed the deficiencies of its defensive armament, forward maintenance units first adding two machine guns which could be fired laterally from the radio operator’s position and then yet another pair to provide a total defensive armament of eight machine guns. The Dornier bomber possessed good manoeuvrability and its structural integrity enabled diving attacks at speeds in excess of 370mph (590km/h), but it carried no armour protection for its crew. The element of surprise was employed by the Do 17Z formations whenever possible by recourse to low-level, terrain-following attacks, but attrition remained high, and, by mid-September, the numerical importance of the Dornier bomber in the front-line operational strength of the Luftwaffe had begun to dwindle.
Created to fulfil a 1935 demand for a so-called Schnellbomber, or high-speed bomber, the Junkers Ju 88A was the newest aircraft in the inventory of the Luftwaffe to participate in the Battle of Britain. Although conceived as a bomber in the design of which there was no need to compromise performance by considering potential in other roles, the Ju 88 was to prove itself extraordinarily amenable to adaptation and modification for a variety of tasks unforeseen at its conception. Even though at the time it participated in the Battle it had barely crossed the threshold of its operational career, it was tacitly recognised by the RAF as the most formidable warplane in its category extant.
First flown on December 21, 1936, the first prototype, the Ju 88 V1, was a low-wing cantilever monoplane powered by two 1,000hp Daimler-Benz DB 600Aa 12-cylinder inverted-vee engines with annular radiators. The Junkers-Werke at Schönebeck began the manufacture of production tools and jigs early in 1938, by, which time contracts had been placed for 20 pre-series Ju 88A-0 and 50 series Ju 88A-1 bombers, these shortly being followed by a further contract for 100 of the latter. Manufacture was highly dispersed and such was the scale of the programme that, by the late spring of 1938, contracts had been placed for a total of 1,060 Ju 88As and by October 1 of that year 53 per cent of the total German airframe industry workforce was committed to the programme.
With the third prototype, the engines had been changed from DB 600s to Junkers Jumo 211s which were standardised for the series model, the Ju 88A-1 having Jumo 211B-1 engines each rated at 1,200hp for take-off. Its four crew members were closely grouped in the fuselage nose forward of the front wing spar: two internal bomb bays were provided, these being capable of accommodating a maximum of 28,110lb (50kg) bombs, and two external carriers were fitted beneath each wing, each capable of lifting a 1,102lb (500kg) bomb, but normally carrying a 220lb (100kg) bomb when maximum internal load was being lifted. Initially, defensive armament comprised a single forward-firing 7.9mm MG 15 machine gun in the starboard side of the cockpit windscreen and two similar weapons firing aft, one from the rear of the cockpit and the other from the rear of the offset ventral cupola. This armament was hurriedly augmented, a second aft-firing MG 15 being added while forward maintenance units improvised mountings for a pair of lateral-firing MG 15s. As these weapons had each to be operated independently, no great weight of fire could be brought to bear.
The first production Ju 88A-1s were delivered in August 1939 to the I Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 25, this unit being redesignated as I Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 30 on September 22. Like most new combat aircraft, the Junkers bomber suffered its share of teething troubles. For example, the slatted dive brakes hinged beneath the front spar presented serious problems when extended. The fuselage was already highly stressed and limitations had to be imposed on high-speed manoeuvres. The undercarriage, too, was beset by problems, and the first 10 Ju 88A-1s delivered by Arado’s Brandenburg factory were all damaged during landings as a result of one or other oleo leg failing. Most of these shortcomings had been ironed out, however, by the time that the Ju 88A was committed to the Battle of Britain.
On Adler Tag, all three Gruppen of KG 30 were fully equipped with the Ju 88A, as were the three Gruppen of KG 51 and both Gruppen of Lehrgeschwader 1. The I and II Gruppen of KG 54 had converted, with the III Gruppe still in process of conversion, and the III Gruppe of KG I had also converted to the Ju 88A. The Luftflotte 2 included the Ju 88As of III/KG 1 under I Fliegerkorps, III/KG 4 under IX Fliegerdivision, the Gruppen of LG 1 under IV Fliegerkorps, and KG 51 and KG 54 under V Fliegerkorps.
Ju 88A highlights during the Battle included the mass attack by 63 aircraft from KG 51 and KG 54 on Portsmouth on the day preceding Adler Tag, with 15 aircraft detached to bomb radar installations at Ventnor, and, on August 15, an unescorted attack by 50 Ju 88As of KG 30 on Driffield in which seven aircraft were lost to British fighters. On the same day, LG 1 despatched from Orléans-Bricy 12 aircraft from I Gruppe against Middle Wallop and 15 from II Gruppe against Worthy Down. The Ju 88As of I/LG 1 took Middle Wallop entirely by surprise, a number of Spitfires suffering damage on the ground, but only three aircraft of II/LG 1 found Worthy Down, and of the seven aircraft of this Gruppe’s 4 Staffel participating all but two were shot down.
Although the Ju 88A fared better than other Luftwaffe bombers participating in the Battle, its high diving speed enabling it to evade even the Spitfire, combat attrition was by no means inconsiderable. Manoeuvrable for its size, the Ju 88A was a very efficient warplane and its innate sturdiness enabled it to withstand considerable battle damage and remain airborne. But it was deficient in both defensive armament and armour protection, and although some effort was expended during the Battle to rectify these deficiencies, the Junkers bomber was still considered by RAF fighter pilots to be comparatively ‘easy’ prey when the epic aerial conflict drew to its close.