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

The cloud did begin to clear as the day wore on. Shortly after midday,
twenty-three long-range Zerstörers from Caen arrived over the Dorset coast.
Although Dowding had ordered that his squadrons should not engage
enemy fighters unless they had to, this plot was picked up as a bomber
formation and so three squadrons were scrambled to meet it, just as the
Germans hoped. The idea was that the Zerstörers would keep them busy for
a while then, once the British fighters had headed back to their bases, the
bombers would arrive as they were on the ground refuelling and rearming.
It was a good plan in theory but depended on pinpoint execution. However,
that kind of co-ordination was not really happening for the Luftwaffe that
day, and unfortunately for the Me 110s sent as bait they reached England
only to find the three Hurricane squadrons already high above and waiting.
Zerstörers had serious firepower, but lacking manoeuvrability could
now only form a defensive circle, flying round and round, toe-to-tail,
protecting each other’s backs. Even so, this could not save them from
diving attacks at speed and by the time the battered Me 110s broke off and
made for home, one had plummeted to the ground and six into the sea, and
a further seven had been damaged to varying degrees of seriousness. Thus
of the twenty-three that had set off, just nine made it back unscathed. That
was not good at all.
In any case, the bombers did not arrive back until later that afternoon,
by which time the fighters were fully ready and waiting again. However,
whether there were enough fighters to take on the numbers of German
raiders was another matter. At Fighter Command Headquarters, more and
more plots were being reported: twenty plus, fifty plus, thirty plus and
another thirty plus, all heading towards Portsmouth and Portland. Similarsized
plots were developing across the Straits of Dover, too.
Amongst those now surging towards the southern English coast were
two Gruppen of Stukas headed for Middle Wallop. Major Paul Hozzel had
taken off from Dinard with his first Gruppe from Stuka 1, leading them out
towards Guernsey, over which they had met their fighter escort. The day
before, Paul had flown over to Guernsey to meet with Major Günther
Freiherr von Maltzahn, the commander of II/JG 53, whose pilots were to
escort them over England and were now stationed on the island. Despite
Göring’s very specific orders to the contrary, the fighters were still expected
to stick like glue to the Stukas, although Paul was fully aware of the
fighters’ dislike of close escort. ‘In our talk von Maltzahn made no bones