Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940–45. Max Hastings

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СКАЧАТЬ the night of 7 September, 200 Luftwaffe aircraft raided the capital. Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, commanding 11 Group, wrote on 8 September: ‘It was burning all down the river. It was a horrid sight. But I looked down and said: “Thank God for that.”’ Next day, Churchill visited the capital’s stricken East End. He saw misery and destruction, but knew how vastly these were to be preferred in Bethnal Green and Hackney than at Biggin Hill airfield or the south coast radar sites. The Germans had made a decisive strategic error. Thereafter, urban centres of Britain paid a heavy price for the Luftwaffe’s raids, first by day and then by night. Daylight fighting continued over southern England until the end of October. But never again was Fighter Command’s survival in doubt. In a broadcast on 11 September, Churchill told the British people that the German air force had ‘failed conspicuously’ to gain air mastery over southern England. As for invasion, ‘We cannot be sure that they will try at all.’ But the danger persisted, and every precaution must be taken.

      On 12 September, when the prime minister visited Dungeness and North Foreland on the Kent coast with the C-in-C Home Forces, Alan Brooke wrote: ‘His popularity is astounding, everywhere crowds rush up and cheer him wildly.’ US general Raymond Lee perceived an improvement of temper even among the governing class, formerly so sceptical of Britain’s prospects. He wrote in his diary on 15 September: ‘Thank God…the defeatist opinions expressed after Dunkirk are now no longer prevalent.’ On 17 September, Churchill told the Commons that in future its sessions should not be advertised beforehand: ‘We ought not to flatter ourselves by imagining that we are irreplaceable,’ he said, addressing his fellow MPs in masterly language which suggested that he was confiding in a band of brothers, ‘but at the same time it cannot be denied that two or three hundred by-elections would be a quite needless complication of our affairs at this particular juncture.’

      Once more, he asserted serene confidence: ‘I feel as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow that we shall be victorious.’ He harangued Dalton, Minister of Economic Warfare, with what that assiduous diarist described as his ‘usual vigorous rhetorical good sense’, pacing up and down his room the while: ‘This is a workman’s war…The public will stand everything except optimism…The nation is finding the war not so unpleasant as it expected…The air attacks are doing much less damage than was expected before the war began…Don’t be like the knight in the story who was so slow in buckling on his armour that the tourney was over before he rode into the ring.’

      The bombs that were now falling upon city streets, as well as upon aircraft factories and dockyards, at first caused some government alarm. Cheering cockneys cried, ‘Stick it, Winnie!’ and ‘We can take it!’ as the prime minister toured blitz-stricken areas. But was this true? Tens of thousands of fugitives from cities became ‘trekkers’, plodding out into the countryside at dusk to escape the night raiders. There was evidence of near social breakdown in some bombed areas. Fighter Command, with its primitive air interception radar, had no effective counter to Luftwaffe assaults in darkness. Industrial production suffered severely. The destruction of homes and property, the incessant fear of bombardment, ate deep into many people’s spirits.

      Yet as the blitz continued, the nation learned to live and work with its terrors and inconveniences. Ministers’ fears about morale subsided. Churchill rang Fighter Command one September night to complain irritably to its duty officer: ‘I am on top of the Cabinet Office in Whitehall and can neither see nor hear a raider. Why don’t you clear London of the Red warning? We have all been down too long.’ The RAF’s daily reports of losses inflicted on the enemy cheered Churchill and his people, but were heavily exaggerated. On 12 August, for instance, Churchill was told that sixty-two German aircraft had been shot down for twenty-five British. In reality, the Luftwaffe had lost only twenty-seven planes. Likewise two days later, Fighter Command claimed seventy-eight for three British losses, whereas Goering had lost thirty-four for thirteen RAF fighters shot down. The Duxford Wing once alleged that it had destroyed fifty-seven Luftwaffe aircraft. The real figure proved to be eight.

      This chasm between claims and actuality persisted through the battle, and indeed the war. It attained a climax after the clashes of 11 September, when the RAF suggested that eighty-nine enemy aircraft had been lost for twenty-eight of its own. In fact, twenty-two German planes had been shot down for thirty-one British. Yet the inflated figures were very serviceable to British spirits, and a towering reality persisted: Goering’s air groups were suffering unsustainable losses, two-to-one against those of Dowding’s squadrons. This was partly because almost all shot-down German aircrew became prisoners, while parachuting RAF pilots could fight again. More important still, British aircraft factories were out-producing those of Germany. In 1940, the Luftwaffe received a total of 3,382 new single—and twinengined aircraft, while 4,283 single-engined machines were delivered to the RAF. The wartime direction of British industry was flawed by many misjudgements and failures. Here, however, was a brilliant and decisive achievement.

      Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, C-in-C of Fighter Command, was a difficult man, not for nothing nicknamed ‘Stuffy’. He made his share of mistakes in the Battle of Britain, for instance in being slow to reinforce 11 Group when it became plain that the German effort was overwhelmingly directed against south-east England. Most of Fighter Command’s initial tactical doctrine proved mistaken. But Dowding was more far-sighted than the Air Ministry, for instance early in the war urging the need for radar-equipped night fighters and long-range escorts. He displayed notable tenacity of purpose and made fewer blunders than the other side, which is how all battles are won.

      His most significant contribution derived from understanding that his purpose must be to sustain Fighter Command in being, rather than to hazard everything upon the destruction of enemy aircraft. Each day, he husbanded reserves for the next. Churchill never acknowledged this refinement. Dowding’s policy offended the prime minister’s instinct to hurl every weapon against the foe. The airman, an austere spiritualist, could not offer Churchill congenial comradeship. Dowding’s remoteness rendered him unpopular with some of his officers. It was probably right to enforce his scheduled but delayed retirement when the battle was won. Nonetheless, the brutally abrupt manner in which this was done was a disgrace to the leaders of the RAF. Dowding’s cautious management of his squadrons contributed importantly to British victory.

      Some historians today assert that Hitler was never serious about invading Britain. This view seems quite mistaken. It is true that the German armed forces’ preparations were unconvincing. British fears of imminent assault were unfounded, and reflected poorly upon the country’s intelligence and defence chiefs. But Hitler the opportunist would assuredly have launched an armada if the Luftwaffe had gained control of the air space over the Channel and southern England. Mediterranean experience soon showed that in a hostile air environment, the Royal Navy would have found itself in deep trouble.

      The Luftwaffe failed, first, because Fighter Command and its associated control facilities and radar stations were superbly organised. Second, the RAF had barely sufficient Hurricanes and Spitfires, and just enough skilled pilots, to engage superior numbers of enemy aircraft—though not as much superior as contemporary legend suggested. The Luftwaffe started its campaign with 760 serviceable Messerschmitt Bf109 fighters, its most important aircraft, against some 700 RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires. Almost as important, the Bf 109 carried only sufficient fuel to overfly Britain for a maximum of thirty minutes. The Luftwaffe had the technology to fit its planes with disposable fuel tanks, but did not use it. If the Bf109s had indeed possessed greater endurance, Fighter Command’s predicament would have been much worse. As it was, the Germans could not sustain decisively superior forces over the battlefield, and were handicapped by failures of strategy and intelligence. In the early stages of the battle, Luftwaffe fighter tactics were markedly superior to those mandated by Fighter Command. But Dowding’s pilots learned fast, and by September matched the skills of their opponents.

      The Royal Air Force, youngest and brashest of the three services, was the only one which thoroughly СКАЧАТЬ