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

officer, said, ‘Ah, Herr Oberst, I expect you have heard. The attacks have
been called off because of bad weather.’
‘My dear Rieckhoff,’ Deichmann replied, ‘are you mad? It’s a glorious
day. Come up and take a look.’
Together they clambered up to Kesselring’s look-out post, a parapet dug
out from the cliffs, and saw the sun-drenched Channel. Despite this,
Rieckhoff disagreed with Deichmann’s decision. The operations had been
cancelled; it was not their place to go against the orders of their superior. He
therefore insisted on countermanding Deichmann’s decision. But as he
reached for the telephone, Deichmann grasped his wrist. ‘It would be
madness,’ Deichmann told him, ‘and besides, it’s too late – they’ve already
taken off.’ This was true enough, as they now heard. Suddenly, hundreds of
aircraft appeared overhead, wave after wave, bombers, dive-bombers,
fighters, all heading across the narrow Channel to England.
Fearing for his future, Rieckhoff tried to contact Kesselring at Carinhall,
but was told the Luftflotte commander was not to be disturbed. ‘Orders or
no orders,’ Deichmann told him, ‘they are flying all the same.’
The pilots of JG 26 had already been flying the kind of three-way fighter
escort outlined by Göring that morning, and up above the Stukas now
heading for Hawkinge and Lympne were Dolfo Galland and his III Gruppe.
It was around 11.30 a.m. as they flew over the Kent coast. From their
position, some 5,500 metres high, England looked a tiny island. The entire
shape of the leg of Kent could clearly be seen, as could the winding Thames
estuary and the round bulge of East Anglia. To Dolfo’s left, the south coast
of England stretched away to the Isle of Wight. Towns were dotted across a
balmy, peaceful-looking countryside marked with dark spreads of wood and
forest and seemingly never-ending patchwork of golden and green fields.
Behind, the distance between Britain and France looked so small one could
almost leap across. It was tantalizing; invasion did not seem so very
difficult from 18,000 feet.
Down below, Spitfires from 54 Squadron were in formation preparing
to dive down on to the Stuka formation. Seeing this, Dolfo quickly dived
down on to them, forcing them to quickly abandon their attack on the
Stukas in a desperate fight for survival. With his wingman, Joachim
Müncheberg, somehow managing to stick with him, Dolfo followed a
Spitfire as it took a wide right curving dive. Closing in on the Spitfire’s tail,