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

darting tracer, four Dorniers were plunging to the ground and a further four
limping back, smoking and riddled with bullet holes.
When Johannes finally touched down again at St Léger, near Cambrai,
he was almost speechless with fury. Up until now, his Kampfgeschwader
had suffered the least number of casualties in the western offensive, a
statistic he was justly proud of, yet on one brief mission he had lost five
aircraft and crew, with more badly damaged and wounded, and all because
the fighter escort had not managed to join them. It was criminal negligence.
Hurrying to the crew room, he demanded to be put through to the ‘Holy
Mountain’, Kesselring’s bunker HQ at Cap Blanc Nez, just to the south of
Calais.
‘Where the hell were those fighters, then?’ he asked angrily, as he heard
the field marshal come on the line.
Calmly, Kesselring tried to explain. The weather had changed
overnight; the high pressure from the Azores had dispersed. News of this
sudden development had been sent to Göring’s headquarters and on that
basis the attacks had been postponed until 2 p.m. The decision had filtered
back in time to stop the fighters but not the first bombers due to go into
action, Johannes’s KG 2. The Zerstörers he had seen had been trying in vain
to warn him. Crazy though it may seem, the only way of getting through to
the bombers once airborne had been to fly manically in front of them – and
even then it did not work. How the Luftwaffe would have benefited from
some form of ground control that morning.
It was not a great start to Eagle Day, but in fact it was going even worse
than anyone realized. Once again, faulty intelligence was to blame. Despite
the losses, KG 2 claimed ten Spitfires destroyed on the ground at
Eastchurch, when in fact the aircraft they hit were Blenheims of Coastal
Command; Eastchurch was not, and never had been, a Fighter Command
airfield. Twelve people had been killed and forty injured in the attack, but
despite the damage and bomb craters the airfield was fully operational again
ten hours later. At Göring’s headquarters, however, Oberst Beppo Schmid
had already crossed it off his list as another airfield they no longer need
concern themselves with. Schmid and his team had pored over aerial
photographs in exacting detail yet, despite Martini’s listening service and
the large number of aerial reconnaissance missions that had been flown, the
picture of where and how Britain’s fighters were disposed remained
sketchy, to say the least.