The Battle of Britain Begins: August 13, 1940

Per Scriptum E. Wesley -- Mackinac Center Intern

The Battle of Britain is rightly known as "Britain's finest hour." The British sustained considerable damage from air raids during this period, but held out long enough for America to turn the tide of the war. However, in many ways, the first day of actual fighting was already won before it began.

The original Nazi plan had been to knock out British radar before the massive air assault on August 10th (named operation "Adler" - meaning "eagle"). However, after having their radar stations at Dover, Pevensey, and Rye knocked out, the British simply kicking in their backup systems, rendering the Nazi attack of little effect. Weather had been contrary on the 10th, so the Nazis postponed Adler Tag (Eagle Day) until the 13th, which was forecast to be perfect weather. "We were ordered to get a good nights sleep and wake up early. This was the day that all Germany had been waiting for" (Luftwaffe pilot based at Air Fleet 2).

August 13th dawned completely different from the forecast. Providentially, the German pilots woke to a very low, overcast cloud cover above the fidgety waves of the English Channel. At 5:10 am, various bomber squadrons left for their English targets. When in the air, last minute messages were sent from higher command to call off the entire attack due to the unexpected weather. Most got the word, but the 74 strong KG2 bomber squadron under the command of Oberst Johannes Fink did not. Fink's long range communications had malfunctioned. While the unaware squadron raced toward Britain their fighter escorts broke off after hearing the command update. They were now alone, and completely vulnerable to British fighter attack. Fink comments:

I had seen the fighter escort earlier and had observed some unusual antics by Joachim Huth but thought that he was only trying to indicate to me that he had made the rendezvous with our bombers. We carried on through the cloud which although hindered our visibility, it was at times very heavy in places, I received a misunderstood message from the second wing leader radio operator 'Angriff ausfuhren' which was the order to proceed with attack. I kept a look out and instructed other crews to do the same but we saw no sign of the escort, we assumed that in the cloud they were keeping their distance.

I was constantly on the lookout for some of my less experienced pilots in these conditions as it was easy to stray too close to another aircraft. Then suddenly there was a break in the cloud. We were at about 10,000 feet and on course coming in to the Thames Estuary. I could see the coast of North Kent to my left. We had passed the naval base of Sheerness which was one of our targets, but the other target of Eastchurch Airfield lay dead ahead. What is even more surprising, was that with only ten minutes flying time to the RAF airfield we had no opposition, it now seemed that Eastchurch was there for the taking.

Nazi bombing of Eastchurch left the operations room disabled and some Spitfire damage (German records indicated 10 destroyed, while English records state only one was damaged and could be repaired). Fink turned to go home, but now it was Britain's turn. The 111 and 115 Hurricane squadrons were sent up to intercept Fink. On Fink's return journey, the clouds parted, and the Hurricanes were providentially given the chance to hunt down the Nazi Dorniers in the sunshine. The 111 Squadron shot down 4 Dorniers and damaged one more, but Fink himself made it back to base at Arras angrier than a hornet. He had lost a total of 5 planes, and 5 more were extremely damaged.

During the battle, Nazi navigator Oberleutnant Gerhardt Oszwald was captured and taken to a London Scottish Regiment outpost. While in an adjoining office to the unit canteen, he watched the preparations of the regiment. "At a counter, a long line of men were queuing unhurriedly to buy regimental cap-badges and tartan stocking tabs; from somewhere he heard the far keening of bagpipes. Still dazed from the shock of the forced landing, Schlegel puzzled: If England's due to be conquered in three days, how can they take time off for this?" The Scots were used to defending freedom: it could wait a little while for some tartans and a little bagpipe music.

Because the weather had cleared, the Nazis decided to continue the attack with full vigor in the afternoon. However, they were working off of old maps, and the targets they wanted to bomb weren't all that important to the British military. At the end of the day, the British had won hands down. Three Nazi communications failures resulted in incomplete missions, and allowed the RAF to pelt at will the remaining Nazi bombers. The Luftwaffe lost 34-53 aircraft and almost 200 aircrew. The British lost 15 fighters, with only 3 pilots dead (not counting the 68 airmen killed during the Detling raid in the mess hall). As Dowding said, "it's a miracle." That miracle would have to last Britain until America arrived.

Image of Stpaulsblitz from Wikipedia