The German Predictions

The Luftwaffe's evaluation and study2 were not optimistic. Accepting the opinion that Britain could only be conquered by a drastic curtailment of its sea traffic, the Luftwaffe

"Hitler's decision to invade the USSR has been interpreted as a contradiction of his previous statements. In November 1939, he said, "We can oppose Russia only when we are at peace in the west." In June 1940 while still fighting against the French, he said he would move against Russia 'when the military position makes it at all possible." The end of the Battle of Britain did bring peace in the west by Hitler's standards the attacks by Bomber Command were no more than pin-pricks and considering the speed of the blitzkrieg he envisaged, the military position did make the attack on the USSR possible.

Luftwaffe Operations Staff evaluation of August 1938, and the Luftwaffe General Staff (Operations Branch I) study of May 1939.

The Results pointed out that the most important western and southwestern ports were beyond bombing range.

The study continued with a pronouncement that Britain's fighter defences would make German attacks too costly to continue, and that terror bombing against the towns and cities including London would not bring a decision. The study said that the most effective targets would be the British aero industry, oil storage, ports, and harbours. War industry and supply centres, as secondary ones, were almost as important.

It was not an encouraging view and of course it could not take into account the losses the Luftwaffe suffered before the Battle of Britain. In the three months April, May, and June, the Luftwaffe lost 2,784 aircraft, including 579 single-engine fighters. In the light of these losses, it is surprising that the Luftwaffe virtually ignored what their own study had chosen as the prime target Britain's aero industry. Even better would have been Britain's fighter aircraft factories. But such targets were essentially strategic ones, not really suitable for a programme that called for invasion before the end of summer. Obviously the destruction of radar stations a tactical target would have put Britain's eyes out, and made the rest of the plan easier.

What plan? Was the Luftwaffe trying to:

1 Reduce Great Britain by bombing alone, as Douhet said was possible but had no historical precedent?

2 Deprive the RAF of air superiority so that a landing could not be harassed by attacks from the air? In effect this would have meant destroying Fighter Command and Bomber Command.

3 Establish its own air superiority so that it could attack the British army and navy? This would have meant the destruction of Fighter Command and it would have enabled the German fighter force to withdraw and defend Germany.

4 Prepare the way for a seaborne invasion? This would mean neutralizing Bomber Command, and Royal Navy units, while preserving British ports and Harbours so that the German invaders could use them: Mine-laying from the air would have little or no place in such a plan.

The answer is yes to all four questions. At one time or another these were each stated to be the Luftwaffe's objectives. But it was Göring's ambition to achieve the first of these objectives that doomed the campaign from the very start. Probably Göring realized that Hitler had no intention of launching the invasion except against a passive shore.

For the pinpoint destruction of tactical and strategic targets the Luftwaffe possessed magnificent equipment. The Knickebein could put a bomb into any chosen target with an accuracy of 300 yards, which was good enough for any average Gruppe to wipe out a factory. And Knickebein equipment was already fitted to all the German bombers. For smaller targets KGr 100 had X-Ger'at, which was even more accurate.

German experiments and training flights warned the British about both types of beam. Working feverishly, they found it possible to jam the Knickebein by the time that heavy night attacks began on 28 August. But the jammers had only been ready for one week! And the jamming of the X-Ger'at was not completely effective until 1941. There is no need to elaborate upon what the Luftwaffe could have achieved during May and June had the night-bombing units been given even the muddled list of targets that Luftwaffe intelligence had prepared.

But the Germans decided to fight the Battle in daylight, and most historians agree that Dowding and Park showed masterly generalship in husbanding their fighter aircraft. There had been no precedent for such ideas as letting the German fighters range across southern England without engaging them, and constantly ordering fighters to attack only bombers. These responses are now universally regarded as the right ones.

The Results

Many Germans object to the way in which the results of the fighting are presented to the British and American reader. The RAF Bomber Command squadrons flying over Germany by night during the summer of 1940 suffered considerable losses. If German bomber losses in the daylight raids are to be included in the British totals, why, ask the Germans, aren't these RAF bomber losses included as German victories? In fact, few British historians include in their figures even the RAF aircraft destroyed on the ground by bombs or gunfire.

There is also a dispute about the number of Hurricanes and Spitfires that were written off because of German action. The official British figure for Hurricanes and Spitfires lost is 1,960, yet only 934 were entered as lost by German action. This has yet to be satisfactorily explained.

Many German historians also feel that the British have deliberately inflated the German losses. The German High Command diary records figures well below the ones that British sources still use. Four days of the Battle can be used to illustrate the discrepancy (see Table 3, p. 295).

Of course, the figures issued by the propaganda men at the end of each day's fighting bear no relationship to the truth. As Figure 33 shows, the Germans simply divided their losses in half, while the RAF multiplied their victories by two (the RAF provided accurate figures of their own losses). As a basis for these inflated claims the RAF used the reports that their fighter pilots submitted after combat.

It would have been simple for the British government to get more accurate figures. Most of the air fighting took place over land, and aircraft crashed in an overcrowded island, networked with constantly manned Observer Corps posts. The fully alerted civil police, and the ambulance services, were promptly on hand to arrest German aircrew and succour the wounded. The RAF recorded each crash too, immediately providing round-the-clock armed sentries to prevent souvenir hunters removing vital parts from wrecks both British and German.

To collate these reports would have been an easier task than sifting and sorting the claims and contradictions of excited and exhausted fighter pilots, with overlapping claims that were sometimes shared with squadrons based miles away.

It is interesting to note that the figure for the period in July, when 60 per cent of all fatal air battles took place over the sea and inflated figures might be expected, is the most accurate. The worst distortions come at the time when the RAF most needed its propaganda victories.

Wild claims for each day's total victories had to be supported, so the RAF accepted the exaggerated reports of the individual pilots. For instance, the victory claims for Bader's wing alone, on 15 September, were greater than the German figures for the entire day's extensive air fighting. To avoid the consequences of their policy, the Air Ministry refused to investigate their pilots' claims, and simply said that individual scores were not recognized by the RAF.