Battle of Britain diary

[AlanG]

July 11 1940

Flight Lieutenant Al Deere was leading six Spitfires of B Flight 54 Sqn over the coast of Deal. He spotted a He 59 being 'escorted' by twelve Bf109s from II./JG51. Deere's Red Section dove down to attack the Bf109s whilst Allen's Yellow Section dealt with the He 59. The He59 was shot down by P/O Johnny Allen. Then Al Deere 'ran' into trouble himself. Deere found himself heading straight towards a Bf109. They both opened fire but Deere could not evade the Bf109 heading at him. Within seconds they collided, with the Bf109 heading just over Deere's cockpit. The contact bent the propellers backwards and smashed his vertical stabiliser and rudder. This forced Deere to crash land in a field near to Manston.
The Intelligence Officer back at base put down in the report that Deere had rammed the Bf109 due to lack of ammunition. Deere observed that he "Might be mad. But he's not that mad"

(Extracts from Nine Lives - Alan C Deere and The Most Dangerous Enemy - Stephen Bungay)

[colin m]

AlanG stona Brilliant input people. This is better than anything I was hoping for. I can only find basic on line information. Please do keep up the good work.

[AlanG]

Colin

I have quite a few books on the BoB but unfortunetly quite a few don't mention dates. they just recall certain battles. I'm sure i'll miss quite a few dates but that's not to say anything wasn't happening.

[stona]

AlanG stona Brilliant input people. This is better than anything I was hoping for. I can only find basic on line information. Please do keep up the good work.

I've got quite a lot of stuff on the Battle. At the moment I'm mainly using the day by day, combat by combat accounts in Simon Parry's series 'Battle of Britain Combat Archive' and also Nigel Parker's series 'Luftwaffe Crash Archive'. 'The Battle of Britain Then and Now' is also a good source, along with various other accounts like Patrick Bishop's 'Battle of Britain - a day by day chronicle'. Dilip Sarkar's 'The Few' contains a lot of pilot accounts, as, obviously do various pilot memoirs.

The problem is picking a few tasty titbits from the banquet of information!

Hopefully the ones I stick in here will be of a general, if passing interest

Cheers

Steve

[AlanG]

A few books i don't have there Steve. Best i start looking on Amazon

[AlanG]

July 11 1940

One German loss on this day was a He 59 shot down by an Avro Anson of 217 Sqn Coastal Command. Four crewmen were later found near the Channel Islands and captured resulting in them becoming POWs.

In the evening the Luftwaffe made a mistake in thinking that the RAF fighters would all be occupied over Portland so launched an attack on Portsmouth with twelve He111s from I./KG55 and Bf110s.
These raiders were met yet again by 601and 145 Sqns. The Germans arrogance cost them three He111s for no loss to the RAF.

[stona]

In the evening the Luftwaffe made a mistake in thinking that the RAF fighters would all be occupied over Portland so launched an attack on Portsmouth with twelve He111s from I./KG55 and Bf110s.
These raiders were met yet again by 601and 145 Sqns. The Germans arrogance cost them three He111s for no loss to the RAF.

And effectively another two.
One He 111 from I./KG 1 crashed and burned on its return to Bapaume, killing four aircrew, and completely destroying the aircraft.
A second from I./KG 55 landed with 80% damage at Villcoublay with two wounded aircrew. Someone would have to trawl the records to see if that aircraft ever flew again, but it certainly didn't any time soon.

This is also a case where, though RAF pilots claimed nine He 111s, only three were confirmed* and the Luftwaffe had lost five!

*All to 145 squadron. F/Lt. Dutton got one, as did P/O Storrar. The third was shared between the entire squadron, a practice that would made the eyes of a few Luftwaffe 'experten' roll!

[stona]

Friday 12 July

Another not exactly glorious July day. Early morning fog and low cloud over the Channel and SE England with showers and the odd thunderstorm, but improving later. Bright with sunny spells in the west as the cloud lifted. Heavy rain in the north (I know, hard to believe). Largely due to the weather this was a fairly quiet day.

The largest action took place over Convoy Booty. The Luftwaffe lost two Do 17s and two He 111s and the RAF two Hurricanes, both to return fire from the bombers. Sgt. Leonard Jowitt (28) of No.85 Squadron, a Mancunian with one victory in the Battle of France was killed as was F/O James Allen (25) of No. 151 Squadron, born Auckland, New Zealand.

A notable fight took place over Aberdeen, when three Spitfires of No 603 Squadron intercepted and shot down an He 111 of 9./KG 26, which fell on the ice rink at South Anderson Drive, Aberdeen, killing all its crew. P/O Gilroy, who was leading A Flight, 603 Squadron, noted in his combat report that the Heinkel ‘crashed in flames into Aberdeen’s new ice rink’.

One of the RAF’s non-fatal casualties today was in fact RN pilot Sub.Lieut. Smith who was flying with B Flight, 145 Squadron. He made a forced landing near Ringwood, his Hurricane broke in half after making two summersaults and Smith was lucky to walk away with some bruises and a fat lip.

[colin m]

Splendid work again chaps.

[stona]

Saturday 13 July

The Glastonbury weather continued into the weekend. Cloud and heavy rain in the north, fog and low cloud over the Channel. The weather cleared a bit later in the day.

At around 15.00 two Do 17s escorted by 20 Bf 110s were met by a large force of 12 Hurricanes of No. 238 Squadron and 3 Spitfires of No. 609 Squadron. This was one of the early examples in which the vulnerability of the Bf 110 to determined single-engine fighters was revealed. Far from protecting their charges the Bf 110s formed a defensive circle. One was shot down and another three returned damaged, one with a wounded pilot and dead radio operator, one with both crew wounded and the third with a wounded pilot. You can imagine what this did for morale.

Between 17.00 and 17.40 another battle was fought over Channel shipping off Dover. 12 Ju 87s escorted by 12 Bf 109s were met by 12 Spitfires of No. 64 Squadron, 6 Spitfires of No. 54 Squadron and 10 Hurricanes of No. 56 Squadron. The Germans, for once, were outnumbered. 56 Squadron lost two Hurricanes shot down, Sgt J Whitfield (25) a Yorkshireman and Sgt J Cowshill (20) from Northumberland were both killed. Another two Hurricanes were damaged. Sgt A Bingham flying Spitfire K9795 (a very early production Mk I) with No. 64 Squadron, made a landing at Hawkinge having been damaged by AAA over Dover, another type of 'friendly' fire.

The Luftwaffe lost one aircraft, a Bf 109 of 9./JG 51, the pilot, Ltn. Joachim Lange was killed. A Ju 87 of II./StG1 staggered across the Channel landing on a beach at Cap Gris Nez, the crew safe. Another Ju 87 of the same unit landed at Norrent-Fontes with 30% damage, but the crew safe.

The destroyer HMS Vanessa was badly damaged in this action.

[AlanG]

July 13 1940

A new German Sqn became operational. Erprobungsgruppe 210 (Erp Gr.210). They were Bf110 and Bf109 aircraft that carried bombs. The group consisted of 1 & 2 Staffel using Bf110s and 3 Staffel using Bf109s.

At 7am Erp Gr.210 moved forward from it's base at Denain to St. Omer for a convoy attack off Harwich. Their first action in the Battle of Britain is recorded to be a failure. The convoy took evasive action and no damage was noted.

[stona]

Good spot Alan. I didn't realise that Erp. Gr. 210 was ready for action so soon.

I looked this operation up and they claimed to have hit four ships. I can't find any record of anything on the British side, maybe it would need someone more familiar with maritime records. Alternatively, the pilots could be being a bit...errrr...optimistic.

[AlanG]

Apparently they were formed on July 1 1940 at Cologne-Ostheim and became operational on 13th

[stona]

Indeed. It didn't take them long. They moved to Denain on the 10th and came under II. Fliegerkorps (Luftflotte 2/Kesselring) so I suppose it was inevitable they would get involved fairly quickly.
If you want to close the Channel to shipping, bomb carrying Bf 110s is a good option to have.

[stona]

Sunday 14 July

The day dawned fine with high cloud, but the weather deteriorated later. Still, a chance for many to get the lawn cut.

There was only one large combat today as the Luftwaffe made an attack on convoy CW.6, which was butting up the Channel between Southend and Falmouth. The attack happened off the coastline between Dover and Folkestone.

The Luftwaffe would lose two Ju 87s both shot down into the sea and a Bf 109 whose pilot baled out near Boulogne, unable to make it to the French coast. Another Bf 109 landed at Wissant with 40% damage. The RAF lost one Hurricane, L1584 of No. 615 Squadron, flown by P/O M R Mudie. He managed to abandon his stricken aeroplane by parachute and was picked up by a motor torpedo boat. Sadly, early the next morning, he died of his injuries.

This raid was made famous by the wireless commentary of BBC correspondent Charles Gardner, who misidentified Mudie’s burning Hurricane as a Ju 87.

There is a link to Gardner’s live report here.

https://www.battleofbritainmemorial.org/news-and-events/news/watching-it-unfold-charles-gardners-famous-dogfight-commentary/

One other event of note was the use of a cannon armed Hurricane for the first time. Hurricane L1750 seems to have been literally sitting around at No. 151 Squadron with nobody willing to fly it. F/Lt RL ‘Dick’ Smith explains why he chose to.

“As I had always been keen on guns, I asked why L1750 was not being flown, and was told that the other pilots considered it was a much less safe aircraft than the rest of the Squadron’s Hurricanes, which had 8 Brownings, because it was much slower, less manoeuvrable, and had guns which were highly unreliable and prone to stoppages. We were short of aircraft, the idea of flying an experimental system appealed to me, and I was now leading ‘B’ Flight and often the Squadron, and having the leader with a slow aircraft helped the rest of the aircraft to keep up – so I flew ‘Z’* as routine.”

*L1750 was coded DZ-Z.