Battle of Britain diary

[Guest]

Food was a problem.

Father transformed the front garden into a potatoes field. The house semi two up 1.5 down

The back a chicken run 12 chickens. The remainder of the back garden rows of carrots cabbages turnips swedes & lettuce.

One naughty boy it was noted managed to rip all the leaves from the carrots. Tut unruly behavior.

Favourite on a Sunday tea. Mother made up a bowl of vinegar & sugar. Home made bread with the thinnest of margerine covering. Old fashioned deep yellow.

Dip the lettuce into the vinegar sugar mix & it was heaven on earth. Munch the lettuce & bread.

War was not all bad.

[JR]

Can you imagine the mobile phone footage today !

[colin m]

Great work again everyone and thank you all for your input. I know it's been discussed already, but I'm still quite surprised by the scale of the numbers Steve is quoting.

[stona]

I'm still quite surprised by the scale of the numbers Steve is quoting.

It certainly was a different era!
I remember reading somewhere that the UK government had ordered a total of 160 Eurofighters to be operated by the RAF. The notion of hundreds of aircraft in the air at the same time makes no sense today.
On July 10 1940, shortly after the Battle of France and as the Battle of Britain began, Fighter Command alone disposed of 56 Squadrons, probably about 700 aircraft.
Then there were all the aircraft in Bomber, Coastal and Training Commands.

A fully equipped Spitfire in 1940 cost about £12,000. It is notoriously difficult to say how much that would be in today's money, but in terms of purchasing power that makes a Spitfire equivalent to over £600,000 today. That's still a bargain. How much for an F-35? Well, it depends on the type and specification, but let's call it £200,000,000....EACH.

BTW, to 'buy' a single engine fighter, invariably a Spitfire, your Spitfire fund had to raise £5,000, so you didn't really meet the cost even though you got your name on the side. Nonetheless, that was equivalent to raising about £250,000 today, and it was done time and time again. Try that with a 'go fund me' page :smiling3:

[spanner570]

I'm really enjoying this, Steve. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to give us a day by day, minute by minute account of the goings on during the B.O.B.

Here's couple of true stories told by my late father's bestest buddy.

In October 1940 HMS Ark Royal came to Liverpool for a re-fit. He was given the task of replacing parts of some wooden decking.

"I had just finished planing the boards nice and smooth when the air-raid sirens sounded, I ran for the nearest cover". The carrier received minor damage - Right where his lovingly planed deck happened to be situated.

On another occasion, he was walking at night with his wife along the riverside at Wallasey, which is on the Wirral side of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool, When again the sirens sounded. it was night time and 'Blackout Black'. They ran to a small building and hurled themselves under some benches. The bombs dropped and when the 'All Clear' was sounded, they emerged from their shelter only to discover the small building was a glass bus shelter.

Thanks again to Steve and the contributors to this great thread.

Ron

[stillp]

I'm still quite surprised by the scale of the numbers Steve is quoting.

Me too, not only the huge numbers of aircraft involved, but also the small proportion that had any success. Hardly surprising when you think how difficult it must be, first to find the enemy, then to get enough hits to put them out of action, but many books/films/comics seem to imply that most sorties involved shooting down a couple of enemies!
Pete

[adt70hk]

Steve, Laurie and all the other contributors - thank you so much for this!

ATB

Andrew

[minitnkr]

Great blog. Thanks Steve. PaulE

[stona]

Wednesday 28 September

Cloud over the Channel, Thames Estuary and much of southern England.

Following something of a debacle the previous day the commanders of all German Jagdgeschwaders at the Channel had again been summoned to a meeting with Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring and General Loerzer. Kesselring explained in very clear terms that Goering was furious about the high bomber losses. His instructions from 20 September that airstrikes performed in daylight would only be carried out by small formations of bombers, a maximum of one Gruppe’s size, escorted by very strong formations of fighters and Zerstorer units had obviously not been followed. The 60 Bf 109s and Bf 110s sent to escort 15 Ju 88s on the morning of 27 September were far too few. In contrast, the mission had gone much better when 200 fighters had been dispatched to escort 30 He 111s. This was the only raid that had reached and bombed its objective. Goering reiterated the importance of sending out overwhelming formations of fighters along with only small groups of bombers.

Today these instructions would be followed to the letter. In the morning Luftflotte 2 conducted two major operations with 120 fighters and only half a dozen bombers at a time. On both occasions both the British radar and air observers gave too low altitude for the intruders, with the result that the British fighter pilots ended up at a height disadvantage. The German Bf 109s were operating at up to 30,000 feet, where they had an advantage over the British Spitfires and at which height the Hurricane could barely fly, let alone fight. Richard Barclay of No 249 Squadron made a diary entry to this effect.

“We had hundreds of 109s above us. We were too high for the Hurricane anyway. An awful trip as we were quite helpless, just waiting to be attacked.”

Kesselring’s plan to use a few bombers to lure Fighter Command up to fight worked today. 11 Group committed squadrons which were ‘bounced’ by the Bf 109s, suffering heavy losses. Twelve British and only two German fighters, not a single bomber, had been shot down when the British radar detected what appeared to be 100 German aircraft on their way towards the Portsmouth area. With the raids on Southampton and Bristol fresh in his mind Brand was obliged to send off his fighters. The raid was comprised entirely of fighters, 42 Bf 110s from ZG 26 and 53 Bf 109s from JG 2 and JG 53. In the ensuing clash five Hurricanes were shot down. No 607 Squadron lost two of its experienced pilots, F/Lts William Gore and Maurice Irving. P/O Richard Jones of No 19 Squadron was another shot down.

“Suddenly four feet of my starboard wing just peeled off, my initial reaction was that it was poor show on a new aircraft. Then a loud bang and a hole appeared above the undercarriage. I was obviously the target for an enemy fighter up-sun…the aircraft was not responding to the controls, I realised too that the hood was completely jammed. I subsequently crash landed with a dead engine in one of only two suitable fields in a heavily wooded area outside Hawkhurst. Unfortunately, I did so amongst a flock of sheep and regret that several were killed.”

Air Vice-Marshal Brand would likely have been even more unhappy if he had known that the Germans had not lost a single aircraft.

None of the bombers had reached their targets, but that was not really the point. Fighter Command had lost 15 aircraft with 9 of the pilots killed. 11 of the aircraft lost were Hurricanes, which could not fight effectively at the elevated altitudes now used by the Luftwaffe fighters. The Germans had lost just 3 Bf 109s. The Luftwaffe had won today’s battle today, but it was no nearer it objective.

The Luftwaffe, as usual, was back over London tonight. Bombing was described as ‘evenly distributed over London’. Other bombs fell in the counties of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, but bombing was not as widespread as on previous nights.

Bomber Command dispatched 109 sorties to targets in Germany and the Fokker factory at Amsterdam as well as making the now routine attacks on the Channel ports. None of the aircraft sent to Amsterdam identified the target and none bombed. 1 aircraft was lost tonight.

[stona]

I've just noticed that for some reason, probably as I saved the texts to my computer, the last few days have gone wrong relative to their dates. I can't edit them now but they should read as follows:

Wednesday 25, Thursday 26, Friday 27 and Saturday 28.

This leads us to:

Sunday 29 September

A fine start but cloud developing with rain.

Luftwaffe operations were limited by the weather today. Bombers, mostly solitary, raided extensively but were not intercepted. Between 06.50 and 09.00 bombs were reported falling on Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire and Surrey. Later, between 11.00 and 12.00 Essex, Kent Suffolk and Sussex reported bombing. Lowestoft was hit. Sittingbourne also reported heavy bombing.

At 18.00 KG 55 set off to bomb Liverpool. In order to avoid 10 Group’s fighters the bombers flew over the Irish Sea, following the Irish coast. They were intercepted by the Hurricanes of No 79 Squadron based at Pembrey in Wales. One bomber was shot down and two others damaged, but three Hurricanes were lost. P/O P F Mayhew made a forced landing at Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in Irish Republic. The Irish kept his aircraft, but he was subsequently repatriated.

Today the RAF had lost 5 fighters, including a No 253 Squadron aircraft shot down by another Hurricane, and had 2 damaged. The Luftwaffe had lost 5 aircraft with another 8 damaged.

The Luftwaffe made its usual nocturnal effort. London and the counties of Surrey and Sussex were most heavily bombed, but Liverpool was also attacked and bombs fell in Edinburgh and as far north as Aberdeen.

Bomber Command dispatched 79 sorties tonight, Homberg, Cologne and Hamm were the principal targets. Though invasion barges were know to be dispersing they were attacked in Dutch ports. All the aircraft returned safely.

[Guest]

Now running out of recollections.

Ration books. Issued to families. One for food one for clothes. At 2 years old I was unaware but they became more significant as I got to four or so.

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Going with my mum shopping to the Coop. They had a system in ugly metal rail. Money was put in a canister they pulled a lever & it wizzed around the shop to the accountant.

Sainsburys was also fascinating. Two long counters the length of the shop. Butter was cut from a block then patted into shape. Took a bottle & they poured milk in. Cheese mostly chedar stood on the back counter a great big roll. All ticked off in the ration book.

Clothes. grandma was a seamstress. Where she got the cloth no idea but she made my sister & I tailored clothes. She got hold of some American officer's cloth & made me a suit short trousers & a tunic.
Mother a knitter. My grandfather, a Shetlander also knitted Fairisle. he used a a round needle so there were no seams.

So here my sister & I all in handmade clothes . They were special . One of few pictures during the war as film was more or less unavailable.

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[stona]

Laurie, my mum was fairly young during the war (born '32) but her mother taught her and my aunt to knit and it's something they both continued to do for the rest of their lives. My mum is no longer with us but as far as I know my aunt still knits.
My daughters both have dolls kitted out in clothes my mother knitted for them. They are much too old to play with them now, but they still keep them and their clothes :smiling3:
My maternal grandfather was a professional soldier before the war, so obviously he spent a lot of time away, though sometime after he got back from Dunkirk he became involved with the training of our earliest airborne forces up at what is now Manchester airport. I have a lovely letter he wrote to my mother on her birthday in 1941 (IIRC) from Ringway. At least he was based in the UK.
My grandmother came from a family of Kentish market gardeners and like your parents turned the garden into a large vegetable patch. They also kept a pig and chickens. I still remember a split level shed from when I was little. Apparently the pig lived below and the chickens above but the details of the arrangement I don't remember, I think the shed was replaced in the early '60s.
I do remember my mum telling me that the pig had to be registered with 'the Ministry', presumably of agriculture. I don't know about the chickens but I'm sure that any eggs would have been a welcome addition to the rations and also tradeable on the 'alternative' market. Again, my mother told me that what we now call rather disparagingly 'the black market' was, for most people who didn't have much money to spend, an unofficial barter economy. People who had a little extra of one thing swapped it for something else that someone else had a little extra, hardly the stuff of hardened criminality!

[Guest]

Yes certainly a different life now Steve.

Just to confirm we did not have a pig. We did have goose later although the poor thing did not know it was for Christmas. Also the agony my father went through in turning the goose into a non walking goose.

On the chicken thing. On the ration book you had so many eggs per week. There were 4 of us in the family not sure how many eggs you got but certainly not many.

Now if you kept chickens then you had to trade in your egg ration for chicken feed. But there is no doubt that the eggs we had were superb bright orange.
12 chickens probably 6 eggs a day so a good trade off. We were selfish the neighbors did not get any.

My mother was also a superb cook but even more a pastry & cake maker so we had some gorgeous food. Her jam tarts were something to behold which my sister & I scoffed in quick time. Plus got told off by mother for pinching them while my father sniggered behind her back. Sure that he pinched some.

She used to make stew a lot, cheap meat etc. however this was supplemented by dumplings. These were suet dumplings & wow this was the meal of the week.

Shame a lot has been lost. Shame we had a KFC last night. The KFC faces our flat. But first for a whole year after all we have the Pizza Hut also facing us.

Temps passe never to be reclaimed.

[stona]

My mum used to make a neck of mutton stew with dumplings (suet). She would have learnt that from her mother. Apparently, this is regarded as a cheap meal today, but I used to love it! Just writing it down is making me feel hungry.

[Guest]

My mum used to make a neck of mutton stew with dumplings (suet). She would have learnt that from her mother. Apparently, this is regarded as a cheap meal today, but I used to love it! Just writing it down is making me feel hungry.

Yes on the shopping list Steve the suet that is. Assume they still sell it.

Couple of lamb chops suet dumplings few sprouts & a baked potatoe.

Queen may not like it but I will invite Prince Phil. Bet he had that at Dartmouth College.

Added extra. No chicken in those days. Chicken was a Christmas day delicacy until the poor turkey reared it's ugly head above the parapet. Probably 1950's sometime. Depends how wealthy you were or not we were a not.