Announcing Volume 17 of the Battle of Britain Combat Archive Series – The most significant work on the Battle of Britain for 35 years.
If the RAF claimed that it had ‘won’ the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe never acknowledged that it had ‘lost’. The Luftwaffe simply saw the attacks against Britain as a developing campaign, during which tactics were evolved to meet changing circumstances.
‘Battle of Britain Day’ 15th September is a popular date to declare ‘victory’, heavily promoted by Churchill with the newspaper headline ‘187 Nazi Planes Down’. However, as we have seen in the three volumes of Combat Archive covering the days between the 15th and 27th September, the Luftwaffe was far from a spent force.
With the benefit of hindsight, 27th September was a far more pivotal day for the Luftwaffe, when the last organised daylight bomber formations were turned back from London. And, as the British will know well, there is a profound change in the weather at the end of September bringing with it heavy cloud cover. The majority of the Luftwaffe’s twin-engined bomber force was now committed to the night ‘Blitz’ on London and other major cities, against which Fighter Command was impotent.
From 28th September, daylight raids against London would be confined to individual attacks by twin-engined bombers using cloud cover, or high-level raids by bomb-carrying Me109s with a heavy escort. Fighter Command continued to defend with undiminished effort, although the majority of sorties saw no enemy aircraft. When the Me109s were encountered, they were flying at tremendous height, having had time to climb over France and the Channel before crossing the English Coast. Fighter Command, on the other hand, had to scramble early in the hope that the raid was not one of the many diversions that turned back just after making land. The Spitfire pilots, and less fortunate Hurricanes pilots, then had to climb close to 30,000 feet in an effort to engage the enemy, during which time they ran the danger of being ‘bounced’ from above by the 109s. This led squadron commanders to complain bitterly to 11 Group that they were being put at a fatal disadvantage, as many pilots illustrated to their cost.
With the usual blend of first hand accounts and all original research using contemporary documents from both sides, author Simon Parry and his team of experts have gone beyond where most Battle of Britain books finish. The air battles that took place after 27th September rarely get a mention in any history of the Battle but this end period was probably the closest the RAF came to losing control of the skies over England .
