"Is the Story of ‘The Few’ More Myth Than Reality?" Topic
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Tango01 | 01 Sep 2020 9:24 p.m. PST |
"Embedded in British popular memory of the Second World War is the image of ‘the Few' of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain. It is easy to understand the power of this image: Britain alone, David of the democratic world, facing the totalitarian Goliath. Yet this image masks the historical reality. It would have been very difficult for the Luftwaffe to win the Battle of Britain. The balance of forces was never ‘the Few' facing ‘the great many'. The Germans certainly had more bombers, dive-bombers and heavy fighters than the RAF, but they were adapted chiefly to support a land battle and were highly vulnerable to a well-organised fighter defence. Dive-bombers and heavy fighters (the Me110) were soon withdrawn; German medium bombers ploughed on but hundreds were shot down. The key battle was between the rival fighter forces, for they were vital to air superiority, and here the RAF enjoyed growing advantages as the battle wore on. The first advantage, little understood by the German side, was the tight web of communications (telephones, radio command and control, the observer corps and radar), which enabled Fighter Command to direct its force in the most economical way. Second, the British aircraft industry outproduced German fighter output by a wide margin during the battle: 2,091 against 988. By September the RAF could field more fighter aircraft than the Luftwaffe. Third, a crash programme of pilot training ensured that the RAF always had a larger cohort of fighter pilots on hand than the Luftwaffe, a margin that also widened as the battle went on. The principal advantage the Luftwaffe enjoyed was better training and more battle experience, which explains why British losses were marginally worse than German. After weeks of ineffective pounding of RAF bases – many of which were up and running again within days – the Luftwaffe failed to win air superiority. Hitler postponed any planned invasion. Every effort by historians to play down the importance of the aerial battle, or to argue that Hitler was never serious about invasion, misses the point that with complete air superiority German options opened up. There is no doubt that the British Army would have been the few against the many, even if the RAF was not…" Main page link Amicalement Armand
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Midlander65 | 02 Sep 2020 3:52 a.m. PST |
The idea that fighter command was the plucky underdog, heavily outnumbered in the air by German single seat fighters, clearly is a myth and one that I thought was fairly widely understood to be a myth today, at least amongst anybody who takes an interest in the subject. But Churchill's famous line that 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' seems fair enough to me. The ratio of fighter pilots to UK population (setting aside the other nations whose ultimate liberation depended on the UK's survival in 1940) is higher than the combatants to population ratio in any other significant battle I can think of. On the other point mentioned that maybe the Germans weren't serious about invading and/or couldn't whatever the air battle outcome, I think that is quite true. They just didn't have the sea transport or navy for the job and showed at Dunkirk (and again off Crete) that their airforce was not effective enough against ships to stop the RN doing what it needed to. An invasion fleet would have been slaughtered at sea by the RN, with any survivors that did land cut off from reinforcement and supply. |
Tango01 | 02 Sep 2020 12:52 p.m. PST |
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newarch | 02 Sep 2020 12:59 p.m. PST |
I'm reading a book of first hand accounts by Battle of Britain pilots at the moment. What really struck me was how many pilots died or were horribly injured and the sheer work rate of keeping squadrons airborne, pilots often only returned to base to refuel and rearm and then got straight back out there again. Like most British things, it was quite the international affair, we had pilots from all over the world defending our country, quite magnificent really. |
Legionarius | 03 Sep 2020 7:58 a.m. PST |
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Tango01 | 03 Sep 2020 12:01 p.m. PST |
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Skarper | 14 Sep 2020 3:11 a.m. PST |
Pretty much a myth. Clive Ponting's excellent if controversial book '1940 – Myth and Reality' first brought this to my attention. I also enjoyed the TV series 'Piece of Cake', though some people thought it disrespectful. The irony being that the war was allegedly fought to protect freedom, a large part of which is freedom of expression. I suspect being very young the pilots and ground crew had no clear idea what it was all about. Afterwards there is a tendency to make sense of it all and there is a 'consensus' formed. Overt propaganda plays a big role too. For me, the men most ignored in popular culture are the merchant marine. Theirs was the longest and most dangerous struggle and also the only one that could have lost the war for Britain. Needless to say, I hope, all those who serve their country in time of war warrant our respect and gratitude. |
typhoon2 | 22 Sep 2020 11:28 a.m. PST |
The Battle for Britain was a strategic draw, which equates to a win for the defender. Britain remained in the fight, distracting the Germans and providing a rallying point for engaged and potentially-engaged nations. When discussing the battle in the air remember that the RAF was also providing convoy escorts in the Western Approaches and out into the Atlantic plus attacking the German embarkation points. If I recall correctly 10% of assembled invasion barges were sunk by RAF bombers and RN shore bombardment, albeit at quite a cost. While Hitler may have been ambivalent about invading the Kriegsmarine expended quite a bit of effort on developing new craft to support the invasion and undertook several exercises with the army that showed how advanced they were becoming by September. The Fallschirmjager units were also reformed and an airhead was very much a possibility if air superiority had been achieved. Churchill was not a universally-popular choice and a division ofairborne troops, with regular army units pouring into captured airfields and the distraction of shipping crossing the channel with heavy kit, might have caused elements of Parliament to sue for peace before things got worse. The RN would have done its best but with half an eye on long-term survival, whether carrying on the fight from Canada or trying to win a subsequent battle of the Atlantic with most of its destroyers sunk in the Channel. The RAF pilots did splendidly, but the same can't be said of all the ground crew – those at Manston allegedly spent a lot of time in dugouts, refusing to move, and leaving air crew to refuel their own aircraft. I doubt if the Luftwaffe could have won complete air superiority, even if Hitler didn't interfere, but it was certainly not so apparent at the time and in no way undermines the incredible efforts of those in the front line. |
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