Their Finest Hour (38 page)

Another Minister I consorted with at this time was Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, with the whole man-power of the nation to manage and animate. All the workers in the munitions factories were ready to take his direction. In October he, too, joined the War Cabinet. The trade-unionists cast their slowly framed, jealously guarded rules and privileges upon the altar where wealth, rank, privilege, and property had already been laid. I was much in harmony with both Beaverbrook and Bevin in the white-hot weeks. Afterwards they quarrelled, which was a pity, and caused much friction. But at this climax we were all together. I cannot speak too highly of the loyalty of Mr. Chamberlain, or of the resolution and efficiency of all my Cabinet colleagues. Let me give them my salute.

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I was most anxious to form a true estimate of the German losses. With all strictness and sincerity, it is impossible for pilots fighting often far above the clouds to be sure how many enemy machines they have shot down, or how many times the same machine has been claimed by others.

Prime Minister to General Ismay.

17.VIII.40.

Lord Beaverbrook told me that in Thursday’s action upwards of eighty German machines had been picked up on our soil. Is this so? If not, how many?

I asked C.-in-C. Fighter Command if he could discriminate in this action between the fighting over the land and over the sea. This would afford a good means of establishing for our own satisfaction the results which are claimed.

Prime Minister to C.A.S.

17.VIII.40.

While our eyes are concentrated on the results of the air fighting over this country, we must not overlook the serious losses occurring in the Bomber Command. Seven heavy bombers last night and also twenty-one aircraft now destroyed on the ground – the bulk at Tangmere – total twenty-eight. These twenty-eight, added to the twenty-two Fighters, make our loss fifty on the day, and very much alters the picture presented by the German loss of seventy-five. In fact, on the day we have lost two to three.

Let me know the types of machines destroyed on the ground.

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air.

21.VIII.40.

The important thing is to bring the German aircraft down and to win the battle, and the rate at which American correspondents and the American public are convinced that we are winning, and that our figures are true, stands at a much lower level. They will find out quite soon enough when the German air attack is plainly shown to be repulsed. It would be a pity to tease the Fighter Command at the present time, when the battle is going on from hour to hour and when continuous decisions have to be taken about air-raid warnings, etc. I confess I should be more inclined to let the facts speak for themselves. There is something rather obnoxious in bringing correspondents down to air squadrons in order that they may assure the American public that the fighter pilots are not bragging and lying about their figures. We can, I think, afford to be a bit cool and calm about all this.

I should like you to see on other papers an inquiry I have been making of my own in order to check up on the particular day when M.A.P. [Ministry of Aircraft Production] said they picked up no fewer than eighty German machines brought down over the land alone. This gives us a very good line for our own purposes. I must say I am a little impatient about the American scepticism. The event is what will decide all.

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On August 20 I could report to Parliament:

The enemy is of course far more numerous than we are. But our new production already largely exceeds his, and the American production is only just beginning to flow in. Our bomber and fighter strengths now, after all this fighting, are larger than they have ever been. We believe that we should be able to continue the air struggle indefinitely and as long as the enemy pleases, and the longer it continues, the more rapid will be our approach first towards that parity, and then into that superiority, in the air, upon which in large measure the decision of the war depends.

Up till the end of August, Goering did not take an unfavourable view of the air conflict. He and his circle believed that the English ground organisation and aircraft industry and the fighting strength of the R.A.F. had already been severely damaged. They estimated that since August 8 we had lost 1115 aircraft against the German losses of 467. But of course each side takes a hopeful view, and it is in the interest of their leaders that they should. There was a spell of fine weather in September, and the Luftwaffe hoped for decisive results. Heavy attacks fell upon our aerodrome installations round London, and on the night of the 6th, sixty-eight aircraft attacked London, followed on the 7th by the first large-scale attack of about three hundred. On this and succeeding days, during which our anti-aircraft guns were doubled in numbers, very hard and continuous air fighting took place over the capital, and the Luftwaffe were still confident through their overestimation of our losses. But we now know that the German Naval Staff, in anxious regard for their own interests and responsibilities, wrote in their diary on September 10:

There is no sign of the defeat of the enemy’s air force over Southern England and in the Channel area, and this is vital to a further judgment of the situation. The preliminary attacks by the Luftwaffe have indeed achieved a noticeable weakening of the enemy’s fighter defence, so that considerable German fighter superiority can be assumed over the English area. However … we have not yet attained the operational conditions which the Naval Staff stipulated to the Supreme Command as being essential for the enterprise, namely, undisputed air supremacy in the Channel area and the elimination of the enemy’s air activity in the assembly area of the German naval forces and ancillary shipping…. It would be in conformity with the time-table preparations for “Sea Lion” if the Luftwaffe now concentrated less on London and more on Portsmouth and Dover, as well as on the naval ports in and near the operational area….

As by this time Hitler had been persuaded by Goering that the major attack on London would be decisive, the Naval Staff did not venture to appeal to the Supreme Command; but their uneasiness continued, and on the 12th they reached this sombre conclusion:

The air war is being conducted as an “absolute air war,” without regard to the present requirements of the naval war, and outside the framework of operation “Sea Lion.” In its present form the air war cannot assist preparations for “Sea Lion,” which are predominantly in the hands of the Navy. In particular, one cannot discern any effort on the part of the Luftwaffe to engage the units of the British Fleet, which are now able to operate almost unmolested in the Channel, and this will prove extremely dangerous to the transportation. Thus the main safeguard against British naval forces would have to be the minefields, which, as repeatedly explained to the Supreme Command, cannot be regarded as reliable protection for shipping.

The fact remains that up to now the intensified air war has not contributed towards the landing operation; hence for operational and military reasons the execution of the landing cannot yet be considered.

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I stated in a broadcast on September 11:

Whenever the weather is favourable, waves of German bombers, protected by fighters, often three or four hundred at a time, surge over this island, especially the promontory of Kent, in the hope of attacking military and other objectives by daylight. However, they are met by our fighter squadrons and nearly always broken up; and their losses average three to one in machines and six to one in pilots.

This effort of the Germans to secure daylight mastery of the air over England is, of course, the crux of the whole war. So far it has failed conspicuously. It has cost them very dear, and we have felt stronger, and actually are relatively a good deal stronger, than when the hard fighting began in July. There is no doubt that Herr Hitler is using up his fighter force at a very high rate, and that if he goes on for many more weeks he will wear down and ruin this vital part of his air force. That will give us a great advantage.

On the other hand, for him to try to invade this country without having secured mastery in the air would be a very hazardous undertaking. Nevertheless, all his preparations for invasion on a great scale are steadily going forward. Several hundreds of self-propelled barges are moving down the coasts of Europe, from the German and Dutch harbours to the ports of Northern France; from Dunkirk to Brest; and beyond Brest to the French harbours in the Bay of Biscay.

Besides this, convoys of merchant ships in tens and dozens are being moved through the Straits of Dover into the Channel, dodging along from port to port under the protection of the new batteries which the Germans have built on the French shore. There are now considerable gatherings of shipping in the German, Dutch, Belgian, and French harbours – all the way from Hamburg to Brest. Finally, there are some preparations made of ships to carry an invading force from the Norwegian harbours.

Behind these clusters of ships or barges there stand large numbers of German troops, awaiting the order to go on board and set out on their very dangerous and uncertain voyage across the seas. We cannot tell when they will try to come; we cannot be sure that in fact they will try at all; but no one should blind himself to the fact that a heavy full-scale invasion of this island is being prepared with all the usual German thoroughness and method, and that it may be launched now – upon England, upon Scotland, or upon Ireland, or upon all three.

If this invasion is going to be tried at all, it does not seem that it can be long delayed. The weather may break at any time. Besides this, it is difficult for the enemy to keep these gatherings of ships waiting about indefinitely while they are bombed every night by our bombers, and very often shelled by our warships which are waiting for them outside.

Therefore, we must regard the next week or so as a very important period in our history. It ranks with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, and Drake was finishing his game of bowls; or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon’s Grand Army at Boulogne. We have read all about this in the history books; but what is happening now is on a far greater scale and of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilisation than those brave old days.

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In the fighting between August 24 and September 6, the scales had tilted against Fighter Command. During these crucial days the Germans had continuously applied powerful forces against the airfields of South and Southeast England. Their object was to break down the day fighter defence of the capital, which they were impatient to attack. Far more important to us than the protection of London from terror-bombing was the functioning and articulation of these airfields and the squadrons working from them. In the life-and-death struggle of the two air forces, this was a decisive phase. We never thought of the struggle in terms of the defence of London or any other place, but only who won in the air. There was much anxiety at Fighter Headquarters at Stanmore, and particularly at the headquarters of Number Eleven Fighter Group at Uxbridge. Extensive damage had been done to five of the group’s forward airfields, and also to the six sector stations. Manston and Lympne on the Kentish coast were on several occasions and for days unfit for operating fighter aircraft. Biggin Hill Sector Station, to the south of London, was so severely damaged that for a week only one fighter squadron could operate from it. If the enemy had persisted in heavy attacks against the adjacent sectors and damaged their operations rooms or telephone communications, the whole intricate organisation of Fighter Command might have been broken down. This would have meant not merely the maltreatment of London, but the loss to us of the perfected control of our own air in the decisive area. As will be seen in the Minutes printed in the Appendix, I was led to visit several of these stations, particularly Manston (August 28), and Biggin Hill, which is quite near my home. They were getting terribly knocked about, and their runways were ruined by craters. It was therefore with a sense of relief that Fighter Command felt the German attack turn on to London on September 7 and concluded that the enemy had changed his plan. Goering should certainly have persevered against the airfields, on whose organisation and combination the whole fighting power of our air force at this moment depended. By departing from the classical principles of war, as well as from the hitherto accepted dictates of humanity, he made a foolish mistake.

This same period (August 24 to September 6) had seriously drained the strength of Fighter Command as a whole. The Command had lost in this fortnight 103 pilots killed and 128 seriously wounded, while 466 Spitfires and Hurricanes had been destroyed or seriously damaged. Out of a total pilot strength of about a thousand, nearly a quarter had been lost. Their places could only be filled by 260 new, ardent, but inexperienced pilots drawn from training units, in many cases before their full courses were complete. The night attacks on London for ten days after September 7 struck at the London docks and railway centres, and killed and wounded many civilians, but they were in effect for us a breathing space of which we had the utmost need.

During this period I usually managed to take two afternoons a week in the areas under attack in Kent or Sussex in order to see for myself what was happening. For this purpose I used my train, which was now most conveniently fitted and carried a bed, a bath, an office, a connectible telephone, and an effective staff. I was thus able to work continuously, apart from sleeping, and with almost all the facilities available at Downing Street.

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We must take September 15 as the culminating date. On this day the Luftwaffe, after two heavy attacks on the 14th, made its greatest concentrated effort in a resumed daylight attack on London.