Turner - Battle of Britain
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The Battle of Britain was one of the crucial conflicts in the history of civilisation. It started officially on 10 July 1940 and ended on 31 October 1940. Hitlers plans for the invasion of England were thwarted by two types of fighter aircraft, the Spitfire and Hurricane, and a relative handful of young pilots, The Few. This fine book tells the momentous story of this unequal struggle, from the key events leading up to it, by graphic day-by-day accounts recording the action and commentary on the strategy. The authors personal knowledge of key figures means that there are many thrilling first- Read more...
Abstract: The Battle of Britain was one of the crucial conflicts in the history of civilisation. It started officially on 10 July 1940 and ended on 31 October 1940. Hitlers plans for the invasion of England were thwarted by two types of fighter aircraft, the Spitfire and Hurricane, and a relative handful of young pilots, The Few. This fine book tells the momentous story of this unequal struggle, from the key events leading up to it, by graphic day-by-day accounts recording the action and commentary on the strategy. The authors personal knowledge of key figures means that there are many thrilling first
Abstract: The Battle of Britain was one of the crucial conflicts in the history of civilisation. It started officially on 10 July 1940 and ended on 31 October 1940. Hitlers plans for the invasion of England were thwarted by two types of fighter aircraft, the Spitfire and Hurricane, and a relative handful of young pilots, The Few. This fine book tells the momentous story of this unequal struggle, from the key events leading up to it, by graphic day-by-day accounts recording the action and commentary on the strategy. The authors personal knowledge of key figures means that there are many thrilling first
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Other books written by John Frayn Turner
Service Most Silent
VCs of the Royal Navy
Prisoner at Large
Hovering Angels
Periscope Patrol
Invasion 44
VCs of the Air
Battle Stations
Highly Explosive
The Blinding Flash
VCs of the Army
A Girl Called Johnnie
Famous Air Battles
Fight for the Sky (with Douglas Bader)
Destination Berchtesgaden
British Aircraft of World War 2
Famous Flights
The Bader Wing
The Yanks Are Coming
Frank Sinatra
The Bader Tapes
The Good Spy Guide
Rupert Brooke The Splendour and the Pain
Douglas Bader
Heroic Flights
VCs of the Second World War
The Life and Selected Works of Rupert Brooke
Awards of the George Cross
VCs of the Royal Navy
Prisoner at Large
Hovering Angels
Periscope Patrol
Invasion 44
VCs of the Air
Battle Stations
Highly Explosive
The Blinding Flash
VCs of the Army
A Girl Called Johnnie
Famous Air Battles
Fight for the Sky (with Douglas Bader)
Destination Berchtesgaden
British Aircraft of World War 2
Famous Flights
The Bader Wing
The Yanks Are Coming
Frank Sinatra
The Bader Tapes
The Good Spy Guide
Rupert Brooke The Splendour and the Pain
Douglas Bader
Heroic Flights
VCs of the Second World War
The Life and Selected Works of Rupert Brooke
Awards of the George Cross
First published by Airlife in 1995
Reprinted in this format in 2010 by
Pen and Sword Aviation
An imprint of
Pen and Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Reprinted in this format in 2010 by
Pen and Sword Aviation
An imprint of
Pen and Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright John Frayn Turner 1998, 2010
9781783034079
The right of John Frayn Turner to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.
Typeset in 10.5/13pt Palatino
by Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire
by Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by CPI UK
by CPI UK
Pen and Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen and Sword Aviation, Pen and Sword Maritime, Pen and Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History, Pen and Sword Select, Pen and Sword Military Classics and Leo Cooper.
For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
I n a conflict on such an epic scale as the Battle of Britain, it is clearly impossible to cover every single sortie of every aircraft. I have sought to convey the overall story and also to focus on a few of the pilots and squadrons. These represent the achievements of The Few as a whole. I have chosen to deal in detail with 12 Group because I feel that its activities have not hitherto been put into the perspective of the entire battle. Of course I appreciate that 11 Group bore the brunt of the air fighting and acknowledge it freely and fully in the text. But no matter whether the participating pilots were in 10, 11 or 12 Groups, they all contributed to the eventual victory and so did their counterparts on the ground, both men and women.
In addition to the list of general references, I would like to acknowledge, with sincere thanks, first-hand or other help from the following: Peter Townsend, Johnnie Johnson, Hugh Dundas, Alan Deere, Douglas Bader, Geoffrey Page, Tom Gleave, Richard Hillary, John Hannah, John Cunningham, Peter Brothers, E.S. Marrs, then P/O Stevenson, R.F. Hamlyn, Joan Pearson, Felicity Hanbury, then A.C.W. Cooper, then S/O Petters, Joan Hearn, R.S. Gilmour, John Sample, Gilbert Dalton, Richard Hough, Denis Richards, David Masters, J.M. Spaight, Jim Coates and Winston Churchill. Part of the final chapter is based on material in the official history Royal Air Force 1939 45 Volume 1 by Denis Richards.
CHAPTER ONE
Hurricane and Spitfire Prelude
T he Battle of Britain was one of the crucial conflicts in the history of civilization. It started officially on 10 July 1940 and ended on 31 October 1940. But the story goes back to the birth of the two famous fighters the Hurricane and Spitfire. For without them there could have been no battle at all. The date was 1933: only six years before the war and seven before the Battle of Britain. At that time, the Royal Air Force had just thirteen fighter squadrons. Eight were equipped with Bristol Bulldogs, three with Hawker Furies and two with Hawker Demons. All were biplanes, with fixed propellers and undercarriages.
The idea of the Hurricane was born in October 1933 when its designer, Sydney Camm, submitted a first design to the Air Ministry. By December 1934 a wooden mock-up of the single-seat, highspeed fighter monoplane existed and in the following August the first prototype was underway. On 6 November 1935, Flight Lieutenant P.W.S. Bulman, chief test pilot of Hawkers at the time, took off on the first flight. The small silver monoplane climbed off a grass strip that was surrounded by the banked curves of the famous Brooklands racing car track.
Germany was rearming rapidly and to many men like Winston Churchill it seemed that time was already getting desperately short. With the maiden flight of the Hurricane, a sense of urgency was beginning to be instilled into the British government, too. All went well throughout the early tests and on 7 February 1936 Bulman was able to recommend the fighter as being ready for evaluation by the Royal Air Force. This came a mere three months after that first flight, a tribute to Sydney Camms design. Two other pilots who participated in some of the early experimental work were Philip Lucas and John Hindmarsh.
On 3 June 1936 three years before the war Hawkers accepted a contract to construct 600 aircraft. Within a week they had issued fuselage manufacturing drawings. Soon after this, the Hurricane received official approval from the Air Ministry. Never before had such a big order been awarded in peacetime Britain. It proved in retrospect to have been a historic turning-point in the outcome of the Battle of Britain.
In the course of production, Hawkers had to make a number of modifications. As a result of rigorous tests of the original prototype by the RAF, several snags had appeared. Not surprisingly, in a comparatively revolutionary design. During the 1937 flights simulating high-speed combat duties, canopies of the closed cockpit were actually lost on five occasions, but the trouble was eventually cured.
The first production model of the Hurricane, with a Merlin II engine, made its maiden flight on 12 October 1937: only two years before the war now. Seven weeks later, seven aircraft were in the air. The Merlin II engine change put the overall production programme back. Even so, the first four Hurricanes for the RAF reached 111 Squadron at Northolt during that December and a dozen more came along in January and February 1938.
The British public became dramatically aware of the new super-fighter when Squadron Leader J. Gillan, Commanding Officer of III Squadron, took off on 10 February 1938 from Turnhouse, Edinburgh, just after five oclock on a gloomy and wild winter dusk. Gillan ascended to an altitude of 17,000 feet and flew over the clouds without the aid of oxygen. An 80-mph wind whistled him southwards at a great speed for those days. About 40 minutes later, he dipped his Hurricane into a dive, registering an air-speed of 380 mph. Once below the clouds, he made out Northolt aerodrome in the early evening darkness startled at the realisation that the ground-speed was likely to be in the region of 450 mph. The actual statistics for the flight were as follows: 327 miles from Turnhouse to Northolt in 48 minutes at an average ground-speed of 408.75 mph.
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