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

BATTLE OF BRITAIN
assault against Fighter Command airfields. At mid-morning No. 11 Group
had four Hurricane squadrons on patrol and one refueling. Seven Hurricane
and Spitfire squadrons were “available,” two were changing station,
and two were released for the morning.
As massive raids began to build up on the plotting tables, controllers
waited to see what direction they would take. Fortunately one of the more
experienced controllers had just scrambled two squadrons that picked up a
dive-bomber attack on their own airfield, only to be attacked by the German
top cover. In the melee that followed, the Germans thought they had
obliterated the airfield, and the RAF thought it had shot down ten dive
bombers, while in fact it had lost four fighters. Damage to the airfield was
minimal, though stray bombs knocked out power to radar elsewhere. The
Germans lost two Stukas. Meanwhile, another raid, using fragmentation
bombs, hit another forward airfield, but again there were no aircraft to
destroy. As soon as these raids cleared the coast outbound, the controllers
brought their fighters down to refuel and rearm as stray bombs had again
knocked out several radar sites, and experience had taught them the necessity
of returning aircraft to readiness as quickly as possible. Luckily, Manston
was not being used, for it was hit at this time by a low-flying hit-andrun
raid by Me-1 10s adapted for bomb-carrying.
While the south now fell quiet over the lunch hour, in the north Luftjlotte
5 from Norway tried a feint and a two-pronged attack, but owing to
poor navigation it had the effect of placing the defending fighters in exactly
the right place at the right time to meet the real attack head-on. Moreover,
the Germans, believing that all of Fighter Command was down south
because of the intensity of the resistance, were unprepared for the fact that
Dowding was doing what he had in the First World War: resting tired
squadrons in the north while they rebuilt themselves. Thus, the incoming
Germans were met by a squadron of Spitfires and two squadrons of Hurricanes
hastily scrambled by the No. 13 Group controller who anticipated a
major raid on Edinburgh. German losses were already approaching twenty
percent when yet another independent, unescorted German raid came
droning in over the coast near Hull only to be met by a hastily scrambled
squadron of Spitfires and two flights of Hurricanes. It proceeded to attack
the Bomber Command station at Driffield, where it did some damage before
heading out to sea again, leaving ten destroyed Whitleys for a loss of ten
Ju-88s.
At the same time, No. 11 Group plots began to thicken again with
bombers taking off from the Low Countries and dog-legging and feinting
while fighters from the Cap Gris-Nez area were rising to escort them. And
while controllers waited to sort them out, a small force of Me-109s and
-1 10s shot in at low level and put Martlesham Heath out of action for fortyeight
hours just after its Hurricanes were airborne for convoy patrols.
Three of the fighters vectored against this intrusion were shot down.
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