The German bombers were robust enough to endure terrible amounts of gunfire, especially small-calibre gunfire. Their strength did not depend upon bracing wires and wooden spars: these metal bombers had armour protection, with some of the vital mechanical parts duplicated. Even more valuable were the self-sealing fuel tanks. Of a very simple layered construction, they had a crude rubber middle layer. As a puncture allowed fuel to spill, the crude rubber dissolved, swelled, and sealed the hole. The events of the day were to prove how effective these devices were in getting damaged bombers home.

Not only did Townsend's machine-gun bullets fail to shoot down his Dornier but a lucky shot from one of its machine guns hit his Hurricane's coolant system. The engine stopped when still twenty miles from the English coast. Townsend took to his parachute and was fished out of the ocean by a trawler that sailed into a minefield to reach him.

A little later, another squadron commander found another Dornier. This time the commander was the remarkable Douglas Bader. This peacetime fighter pilot had had both legs amputated after a flying accident but when war began he had been allowed to rejoin the RAF and fly once more as a fighter pilot. Already he had caught up with his contemporaries, and at the end of June he'd been made a Squadron Leader and assigned to command 242 (Canadian) Fighter Squadron. This squadron was flying old Mark I Hurricanes with two-blade fixed-pitch propellers. It consisted of Canadians who were serving in the RAF (it was not an RCAF unit) and had seen some air fighting in France. The squadron was deficient in equipment and morale when Bader arrived. He was now in the process of remedying those defects.

On the morning of 11 July at about seven o'clock Bader answered the phone in the dispersal hut near the aircraft. There was a single 'bandit' flying up the coastline near Cromer and the Controller wanted a flight of Hurricanes to intercept it. Bader looked at the low cloud and decided that the Hurricanes would not be able to form up, so he would go alone. It was a significant decision from the man who later became the most enthusiastic proponent of 'big wings', in which the fighters went to battle in large formations. It is interesting, too, to record that Bader (who was later to urge that the Controllers should advise rather than order the fighter pilots about the enemy) this day found his victim without the assistance of the radar plotters.

His victim was a Dornier Do 17 of Wetterkundungsstaffel (weather reconnaissance unit) 261. It had already fought off two Spitfires. One of them — flown by the commander of 66 squadron — had been damaged in the oil tank.

When Bader found his Dornier it was just under the cloud base at about 1,000 feet. Methodically Bader closed without being spotted until he was about 250 yards behind; then the German rear gunner opened fire. Bader fired two bursts as the Dornier turned to face back the way it had come and made a shallow climb until disappearing into the cloud. Cursing, Bader flew back to Coltishall and reported that his Dornier had escaped, but a few minutes later the telephone told him that the plane had crashed into the sea just a short time after his action. Modestly Bader described this as "a lucky start for the new CO. of 242 Squadron," but there was no doubt that his success had come from skill and experience. There could be no such successes stemming from luck alone.

The fighting over the sea was an added worry for Dowding, for, unlike the Luftwaffe, his pilots had no dinghies, no sea dye, and no air-sea rescue organization. Landing fighters on the water was unwise: the radiators hit the water and tipped the aircraft upside down, in which position they sank. Yet landing in the sea by parachute gave small chance of being found. But so far there were no complaints or even hesitation. This day's fighting showed the way in which his squadron commanders were determined to lead the action. To forbid them to do so would be a blow to morale, but how many such men could he afford to lose?

The RAF fighter pilots — like the Regular officers that so many of them were — had tried to adapt the tight vee formations of peacetime to the needs of war. But tight formations require all a man's concentration and leave no spare moments for looking round. The modern high-speed monoplanes were more complex than the biplanes and, apart from watching the sky for enemy aircraft, pilots needed to attend to their instruments. And in tight formations, each aircraft blocks a large sector of his neighbour's sky. Adding a 'tail-end Charlie' to weave from side to side at the rear of the formation, and thus protect the tail, had resulted in the loss of too many tail-end Charlies. By the middle of July, weavers were seldom seen.

Before the war, the RAF had practised 'Fighting Area Attacks': carefully choreographed flight movements that, typically, provided a line of fighters with a burst of fire, as each took a turn at the victim. But the Germans would not readily play victim, and what had worked well enough at air displays was no tactic for modern war. Squadrons engaged in the Channel fighting soon saw the advantages of the loose Schwarme the Germans flew, and depleted squadrons gave the RAF an excuse for trying new formations.

The Rotte, or pair, was the basis of the formation that Werner Molders, the German fighter ace, had started to evolve in the skies of Spain. The vee, a human triangle, is not psychologically stable, as any reader of romantic fiction knows. The Rotte consisted of a leader and his wing man. The leader was the senior flyer and best marksman; his wingman stayed glued to him and was responsible for guarding the tail. When two Rotten joined to make a Schwarm, the senior pilot took charge but the pair remained effective. Wingmen were usually told that even if the leader flew into the ground the wingman must follow. There were other subtle advantages to the German formations: for instance, the slightly different altitude of each aircraft was another way in which collision risk was reduced.

The RAF tried such formations unofficially. But, dogged by peacetime flying regulations, no Fighter Command formation was as loosely spread as were those of the Germans. And tight formations were easier to see in the sky. The sad truth was that no RAF unit could learn overnight the stalking skills that several years of combat had taught the Germans.

17 July

This fact was demonstrated on a miserable day of rain and cloud when twelve Spitfires of 64 Squadron flying out of Kenley were 'bounced' off Beachy Head. The German came out of nowhere, knocked a Spitfire down, and disappeared so fast that no member of the RAF formation even got a glimpse of the enemy aircraft.

Still lacking any proper tactical directives except vague new orders about attacking the British Home Fleet, the Luftwaffe brought more and more units into the fighting. As well as Air Fleets 2 and 3 in France and the Low Countries, Air Fleet 5 in Scandinavia was sent on missions across the North Sea. Kustenfliegergruppe (coastal aircraft units) continued the exacting task of dropping mines into the Firth of Forth and the estuaries of the Thames and Humber, and were at it almost every night. There were surprise attacks on factories as far apart as Glasgow and Yeovil, and after-dark experimental night-bombing units were flying over Britain testing their radio-guidance system.

18 July

Just as the Air Fleets lacked a common strategy, so they lacked a sound appreciation of Britain's defences, upon which their tactical policy might have been based. And yet, on 18 July, a ruse devised by Air Fleet 2 suggested that someone on the staff realized how British radar worked. Shortly after eight o'clock in the morning, RAF radar operators saw a Staffel or so of aircraft circling for height and getting into formation for an attack on a coastal convoy that was moving through the Straits of Dover.