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

AIR SUPERIORITY
light and looked down on the burning capital city, Park knew that Fighter
Command was saved, just as Dowding had earlier known that England was
saved when it was clear in June that France had collapsed and there would
be no more fatal drain of Hurricanes to the Continent. On the other hand,
although the battle strategy had changed, the attrition contest between the
two fatigued air forces had not.
According to statistics worked out by Williamson Murray from the
daily tabulations in Francis K. Mason’s 1969 Battle Over Britain, the RAF
lost 84 pilots in July from all causes, 237 in August, and 264 in September
versus the Luftwaffe’s 124, 168, and 229 respectively, or in terms of totals,
the British lost 585 to the German’s 520 fighter pilots. Over 58 percent of
the casualties were British. So Dowding lost about 64 percent of his elite
force. But like the Spartans at Thermopylae, it was a noble sacrifice with a
very small loss of life, even though the British came off worse than their
enemy.24 How many of those casualties were the result of inexperience and
lack of training cannot be known, but the Air Ministry itself had to accept
the blame for the shortage of aircrew which Dowding endured because of
their failure to start an expanded training scheme early enough to anticipate
the wastage of intensive war operation^.^^
On Saturday the 7th, the members of the Air Council stood on the roof
of the Air Ministry and watched the Germans flying up the Thames, until it
became prudent to seek shelter below. It was quite a sight to watch 300
bombers escorted by 600 fighters.26 Though his bombers set part of the East
End afire, Goering underestimated the size of London. The Reichsmarschall
perhaps never realized that its metropolitan area was already by then
over 40 miles in diameter-the world’s largest target. Nor did he know that
60 percent of the bombs would fall in open spaces.27
A Spitfire being rearmed.
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