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

AIR SUPERIORITY
1,500 in normal operations), first in the assaults on coastal convoys, then in
the attacks on airfields and aircraft factories, and finally in the daylight
raids on London. (See Figure 3-1) The two-month struggle subsided as
quickly as it arose. But it left behind some mysteries and myths, beginning
with the Air Ministry’s successful propaganda efforts after the battle and
continuing for the next forty-odd years with the failure to ask some basic
questions about the victory, including:
1. Was there really a shortage of pilots? If so, why?
2. Was there really a shortage of aircraft? If so, why?
3. What role did salvage, repair, and maintenance play in the battle?
4. Did the Air Staff have a grand strategic plan or was the whole conduct
of the defensive battle left to Dowding?
Why did not the light bombers play much of a role in the battle?
5. What role did luck play?
6. What role did personality play?
7. What part did experience contribute to success?
8. What medical factors were involved?
This chapter approaches the answers to these and other questions by
first looking briefly at the battle itself and then by examining various issues
which its conduct raises.
The Opening Phase
In the first phase of the battle, from July 7 to August 7, the Luftwaffe
concentrated on coastal convoys to draw the RAF into the air. While these
attacks were not serious and were soon abandoned, they hurt Fighter Command.
It became evident that convoy patrols were wearing for aircrews and
consumed too many of the limited hours available to each aircraft before
maintenance work was required. Airmen shot down over the water had a
poor chance of survival because the RAF at first provided neither individual
dinghies nor an air-sea rescue service. (The Germans had both.)
When the battle started, the RAF nominally had fifty-two squadrons in
Fighter Command, or two more than originally planned just before the war.
(See Figure 3-2) Of these, twenty-nine were equipped with Hurricanes and
nineteen with Spitfires, with some considerable variance between aircraft
depending upon whether or not they had yet been fitted with the metal,
three-bladed, constant-speed propellers or still carried the older twobladed
wooden airscrews. Both British fighters were generally the equal of
the Me-I09 except that they could not fly inverted or bunt (nose over suddenly)
into a sharp dive without temporary fuel starvation. The remaining
squadrons were two-seater Defiants and twin-engine Blenheims, which,
120