Five things you didn’t know about the Battle of Britain

Spitfires and Hurricanes soared over London today to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

Winston Churchill coined the phrase to describe the fight for air superiority over southern England in the summer of 1940.

Hitler was convinced that Germany’s Luftwaffe needed to rule the skies before an invasion of Britain could be attempted.

Of course, the Royal Air Force prevailed and the plans were shelved. But many important facts about what Churchill called the nation’s “finest hour” are less well known.

It wasn’t just a British victory

Some 2,937 airmen flew with RAF Fighter Command between 10 July, when the Luftwaffe began to attack shipping in the Channel, and 31 October 1940, the date usually given as the end of the battle.

About 20 per cent were not British, with hundreds of men from countries that had fallen under Nazi domination and volunteers from across the British Empire making their way to England to join the air war.

Some 145 Poles flew with the RAF, many of them Polish Air Force veterans who had survived the German invasion of their country the year before. The Poles had hopelessly out-of-date planes but still managed to shoot down more than 170 enemy aircraft in 1939.

These homeless men, motivated often by a hatred bordering upon despair, fought with a terrible and merciless dedication. Len Deighton

Of the top ten RAF aces of the Battle of Britain – fighter pilots who claimed the most kills – five were not British.

The highest scoring foreign flyer was Sgt Josef Frantisek, a Czech who scored 17 victories while flying as a guest of the Polish 303 Squadron.

Frantisek habitually disobeyed orders by flying off on lone sorties, lying in wait for German planes as they tried to make it home across the channel, then ruthlessly hunting them down.

Len Deighton wrote of the foreign pilots: “These homeless men, motivated often by a hatred bordering upon despair, fought with a terrible and merciless dedication.”

‘The Few’ that grew

The RAF crews who resisted the German onslaught are often called the few after a phrase in Churchill’s August 1940 speech: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

But despite being outnumbered at the start of the battle, the RAF was stronger than German intelligence believed.

Germany could put about 2,600 planes in the air, compared to fewer than 2,000 British aircraft. But some historians believe the Luftwaffe only had slightly more of the fastest single-engined, single seat fighters ready to fly than the RAF – about 800 compared to 750.

And crucially, Fighter Command proved better at keeping its operational strength up than the enemy once the fighting began.

The number of RAF planes ready for action actually went up over the four months of the Battle of Britain, while Germany struggled to replace lost pilots and aircraft.

And of course, German losses were much heavier – more than 2,500 aircrew killed compared to 544 for the RAF. Nearly 1,000 downed German flyers were captured, taking them out of the war, while RAF airmen who survived being shot down could be put back into service.

The Spitfire didn’t win the Battle of Britain on its own

Think of the Battle of Britain and you think of the Supermarine Spitfire. But the less elegant fighter, the Hawker Hurricane, actually downed more enemy aircraft during the fighting.

The Hurricane was slower than the Spitfire and its main German adversary, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, but proved to be resilient in battle and easy to repair.

Its strong frame provided a stable firing platform, and the workhorse Hurricane claimed a higher percentage of kills than the more glamorous Spitfire.

Sir Hugh Dowding, head of Fighter Command, called it “a jolly good machine, a rugged type, stronger than the Spitfire”.

Experts still disagree on whether Germany or Britain boasted the best fighter planes. The Spitfire claimed a higher top speed than the Messerschmitt and a tighter turning circle. The German plane may have been able to climb and dive faster.

A Messerschmitt was considerably faster than a Hurricane on paper but the British plane proved able to outmanoeuvre its opponent in dogfights.

Oh, we have just hit a Messerschmitt. Oh, that was beautiful! Charles Gardner

Other German planes like the feared Stuka divebomber, whose whistling bombing runs had wreaked havoc in Germany’s lightning advance across western Europe, failed to make an impact in the Battle of Britain.

And Luftwaffe pilots were hampered by lack of fuel. Fighters could only spend minutes fighting over southern England before being forced to head for home.

Timeline: four months that saved Britain
10 July 1940: Germany steps up attacks on shipping in the Channel.
14 July: BBC journalist Charles Gardner gives listeners a blow-by-blow eyewitness account of dogfights over the Channel. His breathless, sports-style commentary attracts complaints for not taking the business of war seriously enough:"There we go again...oh, we have just hit a Messerschmitt. Oh, that was beautiful! He’s coming right down. I think it was definitely that burst got him. Yes, he’s come down. You hear those crowds? He’s finished! Oh, he’s coming down like a rocket now..."
16 July: Hitlers orders preparations to be made for Operation Sealion - the invasion of Britain. "The British Air Force must be eliminated."
13 August: Goering calls it Eagle Day - the start of a new phase in the offensive, in which radar sites and airfields would be the main targets
18 August: the Hardest Day. Wave after wave of Luftwaffe attacks are met with stiff resistance. By the end of the day both sides have lost about 70 planes but the Germans have failed to achieve the expected breakthrough.
24 August: lost German planes accidentally bomb London, leading Churchill to order a raid on Berlin in retaliation. Hitler cancels an earlier order ruling out attacks on civilian areas of London.
7 September: The first mass daylight raids on London cause serious damage but take the pressure off Fighter Command, giving squadrons time to regroup.
15 September: Hitler's deadline for air superiority to be established ahead of an invasion. Heavy losses for Luftwaffe.
17 September: Hitler calls off the invasion indefinitely.
31 October: Official end of the Battle of Britain. Half-hearted German operations amid increasingly bad weather.

Technology was as important as bravery

While historians rightly focus on the courage and determination of RAF pilots, the Battle of Britain was arguably as much a test of technological superiority.

Britain’s biggest advantage lay in its Chain Home ring of radar stations, which by 1939 could provide early warning of air attacks from Cornwall to the Shetland Islands.

The radar technology of the 1930s had severe limitations: low-flying planes could pass undetected, and the coastal stations faced outwards, making them useless once enemy aircraft had crossed the Channel.

Nevertheless, radar operators, many of them women, gave Fighter Command a decisive advantage by predicting where the German attacks would come from.

One frustrated German pilot who wrote in his diary: “We can almost never surprise them.”

The Battle of Britain might never have been won… if it were not for the radar chain. Sir William Sholto Douglas

The Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir William Sholto Douglas, said: “I think we can say that the Battle of Britain might never have been won… if it were not for the radar chain.”

The Germans made terrible mistakes

The head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, failed to recognise the importance of radar and called off attacks on radar sites in August 1940.

It was one of a string of tactical blunders made by Goering, a former World War One air ace and trusted lieutenant of Adolf Hitler.

Messerschmitt pilots were ordered to fly in close formation and guard each other from attack, rather than aggressively pursuing the enemy.

Luftwaffe intelligence seriously underestimated British strength, and often failed to identify key bombing targets.

The switch to bombing residential areas of London instead of air bases towards the end of the Battle of Britain gave the RAF some breathing space and failed to achieve its aim of destroying civilian morale.

Ultimately, the Battle of Britain was the first major defeat for Hitler’s forces after a string of lightning victories.

The threat of invasion was thwarted and Britain continued the war effort, ultimately acting as the launchpad for the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe.