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

Feldmarschall Hermann Göring had left Berlin for the front on 15 May,
setting off in Asia with some extra carriages that housed his own personal
general staff. These were mostly over-promoted young adjutants working
personally for Göring and quite separate from the Luftwaffe General Staff
headed by General Hans Jeschonnek. Supervising Göring’s staff was Major
Bernd von Brauchitsch, the son of the Commander-in-Chief of the army. It
was von Brauchitsch’s job to brief Göring on the daily operations.
Asia arrived nearby to Hitler’s HQ and remained on a siding near a
tunnel. A special wooden platform had been erected for Göring’s personal
use, but he rarely clambered down from the train, preferring instead to
remain aboard his luxury carriages, where he ate sumptuously, drank even
better, and commandeered the only properly functioning toilet for his own
private use.
It is doubtful that Göring knew about the huge losses on the first day of
the campaign, or that by 16 May the Luftwaffe had already suffered 621
aircraft wiped from the slate and 1,450 pilots and aircrew dead or captured
– just over a sixth of its strength on 10 May. As far as Göring was
concerned, the Luftwaffe had done everything that had been expected of it,
sweeping all before it, destroying the Dutch and Belgian air forces and
achieving almost total mastery of the sky, whilst at the same time providing
crucial support to the ground forces. Hitler was delighted and, much to
Göring’s delight, lavished him with praise. Göring’s assessment was
correct; but it ignored the price that was being paid. It was a large one.
Working considerably harder than his outsized boss was the man who
really ran the Luftwaffe, Generaloberst Erhard Milch. Officially, Milch was
State Secretary for Aviation and Inspector General. In real terms, this meant
he had operational control over almost every aspect of the Luftwaffe from
training to air defence to the General Staff. With Göring kept busy with his
plethora of other state positions and business interests, much was left to
Milch. In effect, Göring was Chairman to Milch’s CEO.
For several days, Milch had been at the front, beetling about in his
personal Dornier 17 or the small, highly manoeuvrable reconnaissance
aircraft, the Feisler Storch, flying over the front and visiting forward units
to see for himself first-hand what was going on along the front and how his
men were faring. He had insisted that the Luftwaffe maintain high levels of
mobility, so that units could efficiently leapfrog over one another as the
army began cutting swathes through the Low Countries and France.