Dogfight Page 5
‘Christ, Messerschmitts—BREAK, BREAK.’ There was no need for a second warning.[27]
Remarkably, none of Deere’s companions lost their lives and the squadron optimistically claimed nine German fighters in the ferocious air battle that ensued. However, upon returning to base the pilots were not in a celebratory mood.[28] An Englishman voiced the concerns of the others: ‘Everyone was so damn busy making certain he got into the right position in the formation that we were very nearly all shot down for our pains.’ The strategic planning concentrated on bringing down bombers—thereby ignoring the possibility of engagement by enemy fighters. The problem lay with the heavily regimented flying patterns established for RAF units.
Each squadron of twelve machines was operationally divided into two flights—A and B—of six aircraft each, which were themselves broken down into two sections of three fighters.[29] The sections of A Flight were known as Red and Yellow and those of B Flight were Blue and Green. Once airborne, pilots were trained to fly in very tight formation around these units. The three aircraft in each section were deployed in V-shaped sections, known as ‘vics’. A single vic in turn formed up with the remaining three vics in a much larger V-formation totalling the squadron’s twelve machines. When two or more squadrons formed together they created a wing.
While excellent for parade-ground flying, tight formation flying soon proved inadequate to the demands of modern fighter-on-fighter combat. The real problem was that because pilots were required to fly in such close proximity, a great deal of effort was spent simply adjusting air speed in order to maintain formation. In other words, most of the pilots were concentrating on keeping ‘on station’ rather than the all-important job of active fighting observation. A costly measure designed to offset this cumbersome configuration was the employment of a ‘tail-end Charlie’ whose sole job was to ‘weave’ across the back of the formation to protect the squadron’s rear. These poor souls were often the first casualties when combat was joined.
By contrast the Luftwaffe’s Spanish adventure led to the abandoning of the three-aircraft vic formation in favour of a Rotte of two aircraft. The forward machine of the pair was piloted by the leader, known as the Rottenführer, who concentrated on locating and attacking enemy fighters. Two hundred yards behind, above, and slightly to the side, the wingman, or Rottenflieger, covered the leader. The formation was designed to allow the lead pilot to concentrate solely on aggressive attacks, confident that he was not going to get a nasty surprise as he closed in for the kill. In this way a number of leaders became Luftwaffe aces, accumulating successes under the protection of much lower-scoring wingmen.
Two Rotten were formed up into a Schwarm of four aircraft in which the second pair flew slightly behind and above some 300 yards distant. Known as the ‘finger-four’, this was vastly superior to the British three-machine vic.[30] A series of three Schwärme could be combined in staircase fashion to make up a Staffel, which had the ability to sweep nearly a mile and a half of air space.[31] This loose and combat-ready aerial alignment of fighters was aggressive and tactically flexible. This configuration was also harder to spot than the more densely packed V-formations of the RAF.
Compounding the weakness of RAF formation flying were the carefully choreographed manoeuvres designed to deal with intercepted bombers: Fighting Area Attacks. Having identified the formation of bombers, the fighters were then ordered to break off in formation by the squadron leader in sequence. Deere’s commanding officer’s order to ‘No.5 attack’ was just one of six such set-piece schemes composed to meet an array of situations. This particular pattern was designed to deal with a string of bombers and stretched the fighters into a line abreast formation to pick them off. Once again, this might have worked well if the bombers were unescorted, but with covering fighters the results were often disastrous. It is little wonder that the Germans described the combination of close vic flying and the Fighting Area Attacks as Idiotenreihen (‘rows of idiots’).[32]
The combination of close-formation flying and time taken to form up Fighting Area Attacks were simply too demanding and time-consuming. Unfortunately, although some squadrons were realising the inadequacy of peacetime tactics, both the Fighting Area Attacks and formation flying were deeply ingrained in RAF thinking. Consequently, both were still being taught to varying degrees late into 1940. Dunkirk also revealed the inadequacy of prewar gunnery training.
Gunnery
‘Looking back,’ wrote Deere in his memoirs, ‘I can see how dreadfully we neglected gunnery practice ... and what an important part it plays in the part of a successful fighter pilot.’ In these early operations covering the retreat of the BEF, he concluded that ‘squadron morale carried us safely through the early fighter battles of the war, not straight shooting’.[33] The limited amount of live training in the prewar period was in part due to a shortage of ammunition and then, after the war started, the decreasing time available to train pilots in war fighting. The ability of pilots like Colin Gray to knock out an enemy machine required a specific collection of skills. Obviously, the pilot’s first task was to manoeuvre his fighter into a favourable attacking position. Just as difficult was the need to assess the correct range at which to fire. Fighter machine-guns were calibrated in order to concentrate lethality on an enemy machine. In prewar training this was thought to be about 400 yards. Pilots over France compressed this to some 250 yards. Airmen who went on to rack up large tallies invariably manoeuvred even closer.
On 1 June 1940 highly accomplished New Zealander, Flight Lieutenant Wilfrid Clouston of 19 Squadron, knocked out two Me 109s at close range north-east of Dunkirk. In the very spare and abbreviated language of his combat report completed at his home base of Duxford, the Hurricane-flying Wellingtonian detailed the engagement:
...I turned to attack with Blue two and saw my tracer enter E/A [hereafter: the enemy aircraft]. He pulled up into a steep climb, and then fell away into glide. Blue 2 then attacked and the engine then stopped. This enemy aircraft was last sighted going down obviously out of control, in a spiral dive. I then climbed up to the cloud base and sighted another Me 109 which attacked. I closed to approx. 50 yards and the enemy aircraft stalled and went into a spin with the engine stopped. As the engagement stopped at approx. 1500 feet it was impossible for the enemy aircraft to recover.[34]
The final requirement for success was the ability to gauge the angle of attack. Unless the RAF pilot was engaged in a direct front-on or rear-on attack, he would be required to use deflection. The calculation is similar to clay-bird shooting when required to fire slightly in front of the ‘bird’ allowing it to pass directly into the spread of lead pellets from the shotgun. Thus RAF pilots had to be able to aim ahead of an aircraft in order for it to fly into the Hurricane or Spitfire’s machine-gun fire.[35] The Anzacs seemed well suited to this, perhaps in good part because hunting was a popular and widespread pastime back in the Dominions. The accuracy of Anzac and other RAF pilots was often noted by those who came upon the wreckage of an enemy machine shot down on friendly territory, first in France and later in England.
Early in the war destroyed aircraft were magnets for story-hunting newspaper men. In Kain’s first and widely covered kill, a Los Angeles Times reporter examined the wrecked bomber, observing that ‘there were 16 bullet holes completely through the propeller of the right engine and the motor itself, mute testimony of a deadly aim’. One elderly former pilot who also explored the burnt-out machine noted, with reference to the famous Great War ace Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock, that Kain had the ‘Mannock eye’.[36]
In spite of the successes of New Zealanders like Kain, Deere, Gray and Clouston and the Australians Clisby and Olive, the fight for France in the air was a decidedly uneven affair.
The cost of the RAF undertaking was a significant drain on Fighter Command. Although the 453 fighters and 435 airmen lost in total was somewhat less than the Luftwaffe tally, the Germans were able to make good some of their losses by liberating nearly 400 aircrew POWs with the su
rrender of France.[37] The cost to pilots and their squadrons had been immense, particularly for those of the AASF.
In accumulating his sixteen victory credits, the Hastings-born Kain had survived a number of potentially fatal engagements in the face of overwhelming odds. His skill and good fortune meant that by early June he was the only surviving pilot of the original 73 Squadron deployment to France. On 6 June, south-east of Paris, he took off to fly to England on leave when in a slow roll over the airfield his aircraft struck the ground, throwing the airman to his death.[38] The BBC on 10 June relayed the news to its listeners touching lightly on a couple of highlights from Kain’s illustrious flying career.
It is learned in London today that Flying Officer E.J. Kain, well-known as ‘Cobber,’ has been killed in action. Flying Officer Kain, who was 22, came from New Zealand. He was the first British airman to win distinction in France. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in March for his gallantry in attacking (with another aircraft) seven enemy bombers and chasing them into enemy territory.
Flying Officer Kain’s Hurricane was badly damaged in this action but he managed to escape. On another occasion, he shot down two Messerschmitts and was then shot down himself. He managed to land by parachute and after escaping into France rejoined his squadron.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Peter Fraser spoke of the sorrow felt by those throughout the country but added that Kain’s record ‘will inspire his fellow countrymen in the air force and all those waiting to go to the battlefront’.[39] Cobber and Clisby would be sorely missed, but the Anzacs who survived the ferocious battles of France and Dunkirk had gained valuable battle experience for the months ahead.
CHAPTER 3
Channel Battles
As Fighter Command licked its wounds and New Zealand and Australian airmen recovered after the final frenetic air battles of June 1940, an ecstatic Führer mulled over his next course of action. Hitler’s racial, ideological and economic aims drew him eastward to the steppes of the great Russian plains. However, he was mindful of leaving his back open to assault. The threat of a two-front war was not to be ignored, even by this most unconventional of German military leaders. The British rejection of clandestine and public offers of a negotiated agreement pushed the Führer towards force of arms, and in July he ordered that plans for the invasion of England be drawn up under the codename Operation Sea Lion.[1] Because of the strength of the Royal Navy, it was clear that an attack, if it was to have any hope of success, would require the prior degradation of the RAF ‘to such an extent that it will be incapable of putting up any opposition to a German crossing’ of the English Channel.[2] The Luftwaffe’s leadership planned to strike British airfields, aircraft factories and auxiliary facilities in south-east England and thereby eventually wear the RAF down until aerial superiority had been attained. Privately, Luftwaffe leaders went as far as hoping that the destruction of the RAF as a fighting force would create a situation where Whitehall was compelled to sue for peace without a single German soldier putting his foot on English soil.
Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, had two main air fleets at his disposal in the West: Luftflotte 2, commanded by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, and Luftflotte 3 under the hand of Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle. Formerly an artilleryman in the Kaiser’s army, Kesselring was given a Luftwaffe appointment in Hitler’s Germany and took up flying at the age of forty-eight. Known to his contemporaries as ‘smiling Albert’, he appeared charming and relaxed, but his benign exterior concealed a decisive and surefooted leader who was popular with his men. Sperrle on the other hand was as menacing as Kesselring was affable. Hitler considered Sperrle to be one of his most ‘brutal-looking generals’.[3] His love of food and extravagance led Albert Speer to comment that, ‘The Field Marshal’s craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Göring.’[4] Sperrle’s Great War experience as an observer was followed by his command of the secret German air training school in Russia in the 1920s. His subsequent command of the Condor Legion in Spain meant he possessed more operational air power experience than any German officer of commensurate rank. This offset his difficult manner and pompous inclinations.
As a prelude to the main aerial assault and anticipated invasion, the Luftwaffe undertook attacks on British Channel shipping, dubbed the Kanalkampf (Channel Battle) by the Germans. It was hoped that the raids would draw out defending fighters. At best, it was believed that it could sufficiently wear down the RAF in preparation for Sea Lion and, at worst, it would close the Channel to Allied shipping. Either way, it was assumed that the Luftwaffe would get a favourable outcome, especially as Kesselring and Sperrle possessed an impressive armada of aircraft, including 656 Me 109 and 168 Me 110 fighters. These were to support 769 twin-engine bombers and 316 single-engine dive-bombers.[5] The latter was the infamous gull-winged Stuka, the Junkers Ju 87. Although it had a formidable reputation as a terrifyingly precise dive-bomber, this had largely been gained in the absence of fighter opposition in Poland and France. Its lack of speed and vulnerability in a dive would be its undoing over Britain. The twin-engine aircraft ranged from medium bombers—the Junkers Ju 88 and Heinkel He 111—to light bombers—the slender Dornier Do 17 and Do 215 ‘flying pencils’. Aside from their relatively modest payloads, all four suffered from inadequate defensive armament and were dependent on the fighters for protection. Nevertheless, backed by massed Me 109s, their sheer numbers meant they had the capacity to rock Fighter Command on its heels.
Fortunately for the RAF, only a small portion of these resources were utilised in the Kanalkampf, due in part to Göring’s overconfidence, but more importantly the need to hold in reserve the bulk of the aircraft for the assault on Britain proper. In the initial throw of the dice against the convoys, Kesselring and Sperrle put into action a mere seventy-five twin-engine bombers and just over sixty dive-bombers, though supplementary units could be called upon as required. Two hundred fighters were allocated to defend these.
In Britain, Dowding was currently limited to 504 serviceable Hurricanes and Spitfires. Making matters worse, these machines were spread across Fighter Command’s four regionally based Groups—13 Group: North England and Scotland; 12 Group: Central England; 10 Group: South West England and South Wales; and 11 Group: South East England. Situated directly opposite the German air fleets and guarding the capital, 11 Group was the first line of Britain’s aerial defence but, of course, had only a portion of the entire single-engine fighter inventory. This was overseen by the most influential Anzac commander of the Second World War, the New Zealander Air Vice Marshal Keith Park.
Keith Park
Park cut his aviation teeth in the Great War, flying two-seater Bristol biplanes over the Western Front, where the New Zealander was credited with eleven victories and damage to some thirteen others by war’s end. In 1918, during a nine-month stint as commander of 48 Squadron in France, the Thames-born Park discovered and developed the leadership qualities that stood him in good stead two decades later in the unfolding Battle of Britain. At Bertangles, just north of Amiens, the newly promoted Major Park had under his command 18 aircraft, the 200 officers and ground crew required to keep them in the air and a collection of lorries and sundry motorised vehicles upon which the functioning of the base depended. In addition, the twenty-eight-year-old oversaw the safety and operational duties of personnel attached to the base, including medical staff, construction crews, intelligence officers and the cadre of soldiers who provided for the base’s security.[6]
It was among these men that Park demonstrated his considerable organisational abilities and a preference for frontline leadership. Eschewing deskbound command, the New Zealander headed as many patrols as possible himself. He would continue this approach in 1940, frequently flying his personalised Hurricane to 11 Group bases to get an accurate appraisal of the fighting. The tall, lean New Zealander made a habit of sitting in on officers’ meals to gauge the course of the battle and glean informa
tion about the struggle as it evolved. Park was also only too fully aware that cooks, aviation-engineers and armourers were as essential as pilots to maintaining a unit’s operational readiness.[7] In 1918, he was reported to have got rid of a handful of pilots who were either too conceited or simply too lazy to listen and learn from their ground crew’s considerable advice on getting the best out of their machines. During the Battle of Britain he promised to be no less holistic in his approach to 11 Group’s support servicemen and women, and was equally as efficient in weeding out problem personnel ill-suited to their tasks.[8]
In addition, Park was a great believer in knowing his enemy. Even as a humble Great War squadron leader, he assiduously observed the strategy and tactics of opponents over the Western Front. Often in the summer of 1918, flying alone above the lattice of muddy trenches, he critiqued the contest between Allied and Central Power pilots. He was honest enough to recognise superior German tactics and attempted to rectify this with his own men. The great struggle that he now faced against Kesselring and Sperrle would call upon all his native aviation intuition and considerable strategic intellect. Finally, he knew what it was like to have his back against the wall and not lose his nerve. A bomber attack on Park’s base in 1918 was a particularly hard blow to 48 Squadron, incapacitating fifteen pilots and observers, and writing off nine fighters. With the injection of seventeen new air crew in the weeks that followed, he found himself facing a sea of unfamiliar faces and set about re-establishing esprit de corps and operational proficiency. In 1940, at forty-eight years of age and after a series of postings, he was promoted to Air Vice Marshal and handed the most important command of his career; 11 Group’s morale and fighting capacity now rested in Park’s hands. He was able to muster some 200 Hurricanes and Spitfires in 11 Group.