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

Although Luftwaffe claims remained wildly optimistic, there could be
no denying it was not making the headway it had planned, and that the
Stukas and Göring’s beloved Zerstörers, in which he had placed so much
faith, were getting a pasting. He decided there should be new tactics. From
now on, each Stuka Gruppe would be escorted by an entire fighter
Geschwader, with one Gruppe remaining with the Stukas and diving with
them, the second flying overhead, and the third protecting the whole attack
from above. What he was forgetting was that Me 109s and Me 110s could
not dive with Stukas, because they were not dive-bombers and did not have
air brakes. If they kept up, they would plough on into the ground. Göring
also now insisted the Stukas should also be escorted on the way back. He
berated his commanders as well for using the Me 110s as regular fighters. ‘I
have repeatedly given orders that twin-engine fighters are only to be
employed where the range of other fighters is inadequate,’ he scolded, ‘or
where it is for the purpose of assisting our single-engine aircraft to breakoff
combat.’ He was now talking contradictory nonsense. Me 110s could
not be used to support single-engine fighters if they were only allowed to be
flown on long-range sorties. The real problem was that the Zerstörers were
simply not manoeuvrable enough for fighter operations against Spitfires and
Hurricanes. They were more suited to long-range, low-level ground attack;
Walter Rubensdörffer’s team were proving how effective they could be,
given the right role.
Göring next underlined the priorities for targets. Until further notice, he
told them, all operations were to be directed exclusively against the enemy
air force, including targets in the aircraft industry. Shipping was only to be
attacked when the opportunity was ‘especially propitious’. Night attacks, he
told them, were to continue, but were essentially to be nuisance raids, albeit
also directed against air force targets. In fact, this was what the Luftwaffe
was already doing, as outlined in his previous directive. Then there was the
issue of the British aircraft DeTe chain. ‘It is doubtful whether there is any
point in continuing the attacks on DeTe sites,’ he added as one of his final
thoughts, ‘in view of the fact that not one of those attacked has so far been
put out of action.’ This was an extraordinary decision. Clearly, Martini had
been completely hoodwinked by the dummy pulses being sent out from
Ventnor, which was still out of service. So far, just a handful of the RDF
stations had been attacked. Yet determined and repeated attacks on these
sites could and should have caused the kind of damage that had been