Battle of Britain diary

[Fernando N]

Interesting reports guys, thanks :thumb2:

[stona]

Interesting reports guys, thanks :thumb2:

Cherry picking is not too difficult in this period as, often, there was not a great deal happening. Things are soon going to get much, much more complicated

[stona]

Saturday 3 August

More bad weather, dull and overcast over entire UK with fog in the Channel.

Despite 437 RAF fighters flying 144 patrols no combats were reported by Fighter Command and there were no serious accidents.

An He 111 of 7./KG 55 failed to return from Bristol. This may have been the aircraft claimed to have been brought down by a trawler off St Alban’s Head, Dorset.

[AlanG]

August 3 1940

Hitler asks yet again the office of the King of Sweden to address the British Government to seek peace with Germany.

Churchill did not flinch saying; 'Before Britain would even listen to any peace proposals, it would be necessary that effective guarantees, by deeds not words, should be forthcoming from Germany which would ensure free and independent life of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and above all France'.

[stona]

Sunday 4 August

Cloudy in the morning, clearing later with a few sunny spells.

Very little action today, Blenheims of No. 236 Squadron tangled with Bf 109s of JG 51 over Le Havre, one Blenheim was damaged.

20 year old Sgt John Walsh was killed when his Spitfire spun into the ground during dogfight practice. First on the scene was 13 year old Alan Morrod who raced to the wreck in the hope of saving the pilot, only to be beaten back by the fire. The commanding officer of RAF Leconfield sent the lad a certificate in recognition of his bravery.




The Luftwaffe suffered 9 aircraft damaged, including 2 write offs, all in non-operational accidents.

[Tim Marlow]

Fascinating, never heard of Alan Morrod’s exploit before....its well worthy of remembrance and recognition!

[stona]

Fascinating, never heard of Alan Morrod’s exploit before....its well worthy of remembrance and recognition!

Though we are officially in the Battle of Britain period we are still a week or so from what most people imagine the Battle to have been, with huge and what were intended to be overwhelming Luftwaffe formations taking on Fighter Command. Many of the events of this early period, when the two sides were feeling each other out and the Germans were trying, and failing, to come up with a coherent plan, are simply lost in the mythologising that would surround the coming weeks.

He was a brave young man and he deserved the recognition he did receive. He would be in his nineties now, so probably no longer with us.

[AlanG]

Many of the events of this early period, when the two sides were feeling each other out and the Germans were trying, and failing, to come up with a coherent plan.

Very true. On the 4th August the German Commanders carried out a 'war game' on the up coming action and invasion. Learning nothing from it they didn't already 'know'.

[stona]

Monday 5 August

The weather takes a turn for the better, slight haze lingering over the Channel, but otherwise a pleasant summer day.

Between 08.30 and 09.10 a confused action took place between Spitfires of Nos. 64 and 65 Squadrons and about 25 Bf 109s off Cap Gris Nez. The RAF lost Sgt L R Isaac, shot down into the sea and 2 other Spitfires returned damaged. For the Luftwaffe, Ofw Karl Schmid of 1,/JG 51 was also shot down and killed. 1 other Bf 109 returned with 40% damage.

At 14.00 12 Spitfires of No 65 Squadron, patrolling over a Channel convoy, saw and chased off a formation estimated at 30 Bf 109s. 2 Bf 109s were damaged with no RAF losses.

An hour later 9 Hurricanes of No 151 Squadron were tasked to intercept 5 Ju88s escorted by 30 Bf 109s. Despite RAF claims for a Bf 109 seen falling into the sea there were no losses on either side.

[stona]

Tuesday 6 August

Heavy low cloud and strong westerly winds across the whole country.

In view of the horrible weather, and the resulting lack of action, Here is an 85 Squadron Intelligence Report, which gives some insight into how our fighters operated at the time. It would have been mainly compiled by an unknown intelligence officer from the three combat reports of the aircraft which attacked the enemy aircraft, and is not exactly written in the clearest way, particularly the erratic timeline. I don’t think anyone cared at the time!

“Section took off from Martlesham at 05.43 hours with orders to patrol Lowestoft at 20,000 feet. At 05.59 ordered to vector 120 for five minutes and patrol convoy Arena. Later, at 06.06 section were brought down to 8,000 feet and at 06.33 were ordered to patrol below cloud base, being warned that an e/a was in the vicinity. After orbiting once at 10,000 feet, Yellow 1 saw one Do 17 to his left and flying line astern. Yellow Section delivered its attack at 9,000 feet. Yellow 1 attacked from beam quarter closing in from 300 yards to 50 yards, delivering five second burst, noticing that his bullets were hitting the port side motor. Yellow 1 then broke of the attack to allow Yellow 2 and 3 to deliver theirs. The Dornier meanwhile diving for cloud. Yellow 2 closed from 300 yards to 50 yards slightly above e/a dead astern, having sighted him on his port side on Yellow 1 giving the Tally-Ho. Yellow 2 gave one continuous long burst closing in very slowly. The e/a port engine was smoking profusely and the a/c went into a slow left hand dive to the east. On coming through the clouds Yellow 2 saw e/a proceeding slowly above the water and obviously out of control. A few seconds later the tail broke off and e/a nose-dived into the sea and sank without trace. Yellow 3 closed to 150 yards with one burst of eight seconds, delivering his attack dead astern. Enemy machine gun fire from top gun was silenced and Yellow 3 following e/a through clouds about 800 yards astern reports e/a port engine having failed completely. It attempted to flatten out above the water but tail broke off and machine nose dived into sea and disappeared completely almost immediately.

There was some cannon fire which was intermittent and haphazard.

One destroyer and another unidentified ship proceeded to patrol area where e/a sank.”

Yellow 1, F/Sgt G Allard claimed the Do 17 destroyed, shared with Yellow 2, Sgt J H M Ellis and Yellow 3, Sgt W R Evans. According to one source the Do 17 was from 7./KG 3 and Obltn Ulrich and his three crew were killed. According to another it returned to St Trond damaged. I don’t believe that two pilots imagined they saw the Dornier break up and go into the sea, but anything is possible.

[stona]

Wednesday 7 August

Blustery winds and heavy cloud over the UK with rain, sometimes heavy, and thunderstorms in the east.

Fighter Command flew just 38 patrols with 142 aircraft and there was no combat reported.

This was a very good thing for the British. The Luftwaffe had to degrade Fighter Command and to do that it had to fight it. If the weather was bad it reduced the Luftwaffe’s chances of achieving its objective(s). If it remained bad for long enough, the British would win by default.

In looking for something interesting to post for today I found the first loss of a Whirlwind fighter. P/O Irving Francis McDermott was the unfortunate pilot and his C.O., S/Ldr Eeles of No. 263 Squadron gave this account.

“As he took off on a training sortie, the port main wheel burst, the port undercarriage leg buckled and the wingtip touched the ground, but he managed to maintain control and dragged the aircraft into the air then began to circle the aerodrome. I was summoned to the Control Tower, and checked the damage to the aircraft through binoculars. The remnants of the tyre had become tangled in the undercarriage, and it quickly became apparent that it would neither retract nor withstand a landing, so I gave him the facts and told him to make up his own mind, try to land or bale out, although I strongly recommended the latter. He continued to orbit the aerodrome for a while before deciding to bale out. I advised him to climb to a safe altitude, aim the aircraft away from Edinburgh then jump. He eventually left the aircraft between Grangemouth and Stirling and landed safely although he was detained by the local Home Guard Unit and was not released until I spoke to the Officer in charge and personally vouched for him. I was tempted to leave him in their custody for a while but thought better of it.”

As for the Germans, 1 He 115 of 3./906 returned damaged from a sortie over the coast of East Anglia with a wounded NCO aboard. This was not a victim of Fighter Command and I can’t find out how it was damaged, presumably by anti aircraft fire from the ground or a ship. Two Bf 109s of 4./JG 54 were badly damaged by Bomber Command in an attack on Haamstede aerodrome. There were 7 other accidents, several resulting in the loss of the aircraft and crews.

[JR]

Steve that was a great post, smiled at the " I was tempted to leave him in their custody for a while but thought better of it.”
Great reading these accounts, thank you for taking the time to post them .

[Tim Marlow]

Always liked the whirlwind. If it had made squadron status earlier i think it could have torn great holes in the bomber streams using its canon firepower, which was much heavier than both the Spitfire and the Hurricane. It could also have been designed around the Merlin if those power plants had not been used in Defiants and Battles as well.....hindsight is wonderful ain’t it

[stona]

John, no worries, you are welcome. Obviously as my job is dependent on 'mass gatherings' I'm not exactly busy at the moment, so I have time to do the research and anyway quite enjoy it.

@Tim, the problem for the Whirlwind was that it was designed around the Peregrine, not the Merlin, which was then cancelled, limited to a production run of just 290 engines. There were good reasons why Rolls-Royce wanted to do this, and convinced the Air Ministry that they should, but it was the death knell for the Whirlwind. Petter did propose a Whirlwind II with a developed Peregrine, but Rolls-Royce made it clear that any such development programme and further Peregrine production would cost Merlin production. Bulman (R-R) wrote to the Air Ministry,

"To produce further Whirlwinds even of the current type will necessitate a curtailment of some other Rolls Royce programme" and that more Peregrines could only be produced at Rolls-Royce's Derby factory "with more than a 2 to 1 reduction of Merlin, or by postponing the Griffon'.

Rolls-Royce did not want the cancelled Peregrine raised from the dead and it did not want to undertake a development programme for an engine which was to be produced in such a limited number. I'm not sure that the company really wanted to complete the 290 engines for which it was contracted. Some of the correspondence from the company definitely gives the impression that they did not.

There was also a multitude of other problems with the Whirlwind which Westlands were slow to address, and which would have excluded it from any role in the battle of Britain. Still, it was a great looking aeroplane, and did well in the roles it eventually did take.

The Merlin powered version was proposed by Petter directly to Fighter Command (which did not in any case decide what fighters the RAF adopted) in January 1941, a bit late for the BoB, and was a non starter for any number of reasons.

[stillp]

A further note about that Whirlwind loss, from Wikipedia: " On recent inspection of the salvaged wreck of P6966, it was noticed that the defective tyre fitted was not of the correct size for a Whirlwind. Instead, it was the correct size for a Hurricane which 263 Squadron was also flying. "
Pete