As evening came, the Press Officers and propaganda pundits of both sides began their exaggerated claims. In fact, the Germans had lost forty-six aircraft and had shot down thirteen RAF fighters. Additionally one fighter had been destroyed on the airfield at Eastchurch.
It was clearly a British victory — or was it? No less than forty-seven RAF aircraft had been destroyed on the ground, and to add to that loss, there came from RAF Bomber Command the news that eleven Vickers Wellington bombers had been shot down over Germany.
And in an attack that had more effect upon morale than upon the Fiat and Caproni aircraft factories, thirty-six bombers of the RAF flew all the way to Milan and Turin and back.
The German night bombers were also active against the major cities of England, Scotland, and Wales. Of all these attacks, two scored unusually accurate hits on aircraft factories: Shorts in Belfast and, far more important, the factory at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, which had just begun producing the Spitfire Mk II. Both of these attacks were made by Heinkels of the specially trained Kampfgruppe 100, a unit that was to play an important part in future attacks.
The Air Fleets had mounted their greatest effort so far: 1,485 sorties. Fighter Command had responded with 701 sorties. Compared with July, when the Controllers had been using 600 sorties a day just to protect the convoys this was nicely anticipated.
Like two men who have exchanged blows, both sides reeled back: surprised, pained, and apprehensive. The next day's air fighting was much reduced in scale. But now both air forces were locked in battle, and as the summer days shortened, the Luftwaffe had to force a quick, violent conclusion.
Both sides continued to overestimate the damage they were inflicting. This did not affect the British very much, because their strategy was simply to keep Fighter Command intact as a fighting force until the weather became too bad for an invasion attempt. They could never hope to destroy the German Air Fleets.
The Germans, on the other hand, had to destroy Fighter Command before moving on from RAF targets to invasion targets. So it was vital for Luftwaffe strategy that they maintained an up-to-date picture of the state of their enemy. But they did not do so. They gave too much credence to the air-combat reports, and they did not distinguish between targets that were essential to Fighter Command and those that were not. Even when the targets were the right ones, there was a tendency to both figuratively and literally tick off the targets attacked, as if they no longer existed.
German intelligence had formed a very accurate assessment of the number of fighter aircraft available in July. But they went wrong in calculating the rate of manufacture. And even more wrong in guessing what Beaverbrook's repair units were doing.
Neither did the Germans accurately estimate the supply of pilots. The situation was grave but not so grave as the German planners hoped. They calculated that, by now, the RAF squadrons in 10 Group, 12 Group, and 13 Group had been stripped to reinforce those in 11 Group — the front line.
So it was decided to test Fighter Command's overall strength by launching simultaneous attacks from all sides. Luftflotte 5, in Norway and Denmark, had gained considerable experience from isolated attacks and reconnaissance flights against Scotland and the north of England. Now it was to contribute a major part of the day's carefully planned offensive.
15 August
The day began with another example of Luftwaffe stall muddle. The weather experts forecast heavy cloud. On the strength of that forecast, Göring decided that the great assault could not take place. Instead he would hold an inquest on Adlertag. It was typical of him that he should want to play host at Karinhall, his great house and hunting estate. So the Air Fleet's senior staff journeyed all the way to Schorfheide, 40 miles outside Berlin.
By mid-morning the cloud had reduced to scattered patches in a clear blue sky, and the wind was a negligible 2 mph. German air reconnaissance reported that the same fine weather extended from central France across most of England.
The detailed orders for this massive air attack had long since been distributed to the Air Fleets. The spearhead of the attack was to come from Fliegerkorps II. Originally such units had been intended as mixed commands but gradually they had become more specialized. This one comprised two Dornier Do 17 bombing Geschwader—one of them Fink's — and the Condor Legion Geschwader with Heinkel He 111s, plus three separate and self-contained Ju 87 Gruppen and the outstanding Jabos of ErprGr 210. All of this was under the command of General Bruno Loerzer, the First World War friend of Göring who had plucked him from the obscurity of an arthritic ward of a military hospital to a front-line flying unit. Needless to say, Loerzer was invited to this day's great social event, Göring's luncheon followed by a military discussion. It was a sort of day which Göring much enjoyed, from the lavish hospitality champagne, excellent food, brandy, and cigars to the lecture, or tirade, that inevitably ended such occasions. And all that was taking place in distant Karinhall.
Bruno Loerzer was often to be seen at Göring's elbow, enjoying his jokes, holding his maps, and listening attentively. Some said he spent far too much time away from Fliegerkorps II HQ in Ghent, Belgium, and certainly his Chief of Staff, Oberst Paul Diechmann, was well able to handle the command in Loerzer's absence. On this fateful day, Diechmann looked at the clear blue sky and decided to launch the whole assault on his initiative.
So at the HQ of IV (Stuka)/LG 1 the teleprinters came to life. Two Staffeln of von Brauchitsch's Ju 87s were assigned to dive-bomb the RAF airfield at Hawkinge. More Ju 87s (from II/StG 1 in the Pas de Calais) were to attack Lympne. A Gruppe of Dornier Do 17s of KG 3 the Blitz-Geschwader were sent to Rochester airfield and another Gruppe headed for RAF Eastchurch. As the bombers finished forming up near the coast, a great umbrella of fighters — husbanding their fuel by last-minute take-offs — rose to escort them.
Having committed his units to one of the great air assaults in history, Diechmann went over to Kesselring's 'Holy Mountain' to see how it developed. Kesselring was of course away at Karinhall but his Operations Officer, Major Hans-Jьrgen Rieckhoff, was there. He had heard the aircraft, and wondered what was afoot. He was appalled to hear what Oberst Diechmann had done, in spite of Göring's instructions.
Diechmann pointed out that Göring had not forbidden that the attack should start this day; he had simply called a conference based upon a weather forecast which had proved entirely wrong.
Rieckhoff reached for the phone to countermand the orders but Diechmann said it was too late, the bombers were on their way to England. Rieckhoff decided to phone Kesselring immediately. He placed a call with all possible priority but when he got through to Karinhall he was told that it was Göring's instruction that the conference was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.
Fliegerkorps IV s decision to launch the attack committed to action units from Lannion in Brittany all the way to Stavangcr in Norway. It was to be the most intensive day's fighting of the entire battle.
Artfully, Air Fleet 5 began by sending a formation of Heinkel He 115C reconnaissance float-planes from Kustenfliegergruppe 506 for a feint attack upon the Scottish coast. This was to draw 13 Group's fighters far to the north of the real attacks.
The main force consisted of seventy-two Heinkel He 111 bombers of KG 26, Lцwen-Geschwader, a unit famous as torpedo and anti-shipping specialists. Escorting them were twenty-one Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engined fighters: the second and third Staffeln of ZG 76. There was every reason to believe that they would provide adequate protection, for they had decimated an unescorted force of RAF Wellington bombers over Heligoland in December 1939. So confident were the commanders that, to accommodate the weight of the extra fuel carried in the 1,000-litre 'Dachshund bellies' slung under them, these special Bf 110D-1/R1 aircraft had left their gunners behind.