The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

production problems had been resolved. Subcontracting issues had been
ironed out, while the Woolston plant was now operating to its full capacity,
with engineers there working an average of sixty-three hours a week. By the
summer of 1939, 240 of the original order for 310 had been delivered. It
was a start.
The reason why Dowding had not placed the first order for Spitfires and
Hurricanes himself was that at the beginning of April 1936 he had been
appointed the first Commander-in-Chief of the newly created RAF Fighter
Command. With his now vast experience at the Air Ministry and his
primary responsibility for research and development, he had been the
obvious person for the post. Yet his was a massively daunting task if Britain
was to be in any kind of position to withstand an all-out attack by a
resurgent German air force.
He had been intimately involved with the development of radar – or
RDF – but training personnel, pilots and aircrew to use it whilst bringing
the chain of RDF stations to a sufficient level of operational efficiency had
been yet another race against the clock. And radar was not sufficient on its
own. The development of the Observer Corps, a tiny volunteer force, had
needed to be hastened and expanded in conjunction with the chain of RDF
stations. Finally, a system by which all this information could be filtered
and passed on to the relevant stations and squadrons of Fighter Command
had had to be developed, trialled and honed.
Also falling under his control were the anti-aircraft artillery and
searchlight formations, although still part of the army. When Dowding had
taken over as C-in-C Fighter Command, there had been only sixty usable
but mostly obsolescent ack-ack guns and 120 searchlights. These numbers
also needed to be dramatically increased. So too did the number of barrage
balloons, which floated on wires above urban areas, key factories, ports, rail
heads and other potential bombing targets. A further handicap was the lack
of all-weather metalled runways, which had prevented pilots from carrying
out much flying or training during winter months. The Air Ministry had
argued that concrete airstrips made airfields more conspicuous from the air.
Dowding persisted, however, and eventually got his runways.
The struggle to prepare Britain’s home defences had been a constant
battle against time. His doggedness and the not infrequent sharp rejoinders
he used in his correspondence with the Air Ministry won him enemies –