Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

BATTLE OF BRITAIN
way to the far western end of the English Channel. Suddenly, Dowding and
Fighter Command had to defend against, in effect, both Germany and
France, with an organization that was not even adequate to defend against
one.
In ways, however, these adverse circumstances put the RAF in its
element. At this stage of the war, the RAF was an immobile, World War
I-type air force. The units that it had sent to France possessed little
transport of their own and were thus hopelessly at a disadvantage in a
mobile war. But in the coming Battle of Britain, the RAF operated as in
World War I, from behind an impenetrable barrier, the English Channel
(not unlike the trenches of the Western Front), and from home fields. The
British further had the advantage in their Fighter Command being led by
two men, Air Chief Mar.shal Sir Hugh Dowding as Air Officer
Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C), and Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park as
AOC of the critical No. 11 Group, who were both scientifically inclined
fighter commanders from the previous war.4 It was Dowding who had
nurtured RDF, and it was Park who as chief of staff to Dowding at
Fighter Command had created the sector control system, which enabled
ground controllers by voice radio to vector airborne fighters onto enemy
formations. This innovation eliminated standing patrols and conserved
men and machines.
Given that the Air Staff regarded the RAF as being only about onethird
the strength of the Luftwaffe, and in view of the fact that the scale of
reserves was expected to be sufficient only for about four weeks, perhaps
six, Dowding’s whole concern was to conserve and to buy time. He would
achieve victory-and thus retain air superiority-by keeping his force in
being. That he won the daylight Battle of Britain was because of skill, luck,
and German mistakes.
For the RAF, time was on its side. The longer the Germans delayed
their onslaught, the stronger became the RAF and the closer came the
autumn bad weather, when an invasion could not be launched and sustained.
On the one hand, the Air Staff was still moving at a leisurely rate in
solving its problems. Therefore, when Winston Churchill became Prime
Minister in May, he created the Ministry of Aircraft Production and
installed Lord Beaverbrook as czar. The latter did not so much increase
production as organize the repair services so that by October they were
beginning to return handsome dividend^.^ On the other hand, until March
1941, when an internal British inquiry forced a reappraisal, the Air Ministry
completely overestimated the size of the Luftwaffe and the scale of attacks
that it could launch to such an extent that the odds appeared about double
what they actually were.6
On the German side, the Luftwaffe had to pause after the blitzkrieg
across the Low Countries and France to re-equip. It had not prepared for a
collapse of France occurred, extending the string of enemy bases all the
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