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

he noted, ‘we had no insight into the ramifications of this war, but we
guessed fairly accurately that the battle we were fighting on the Channel
was of decisive importance to the continuance and the final outcome of the
struggle.’ It seemed to him that suddenly the burden of the war’s future now
rested on the few hundred fighter pilots stationed on the Channel coast, and
he felt their efforts were underappreciated. The contrast between the life
and death struggle in the skies over England and the smug serenity of Berlin
had a deeply depressing effect on him.
He had not shaken off this feeling of gloom by the morning of 19
August, when he was driven to Carinhall for the conference. There, in the
luxurious and opulent surroundings of Göring’s palace, and with
Kesselring, Milch, Jeschonnek et al. in attendance, even the supremely selfconfident
Dolfo Galland felt somewhat overawed.
The Reichsmarschall’s frustration with the way the battle was going was
clear, even though all those present maintained they had inflicted large and
crippling losses on the RAF. But they had not destroyed the British fighter
force in three days as planned. Göring was still trying to look to tactical
mistakes for the reasons, and had decided that it was the fighter force that
was largely to blame. He reiterated his decision of four days before that
three Gruppen of fighters should protect one Gruppe of bombers, and
having singled out Dolfo and Werner Mölders (another young fighter leader
and the leading German ace), to be invested with the Pilot Medal with
jewels, announced that the older fighter leaders were going to be sacked and
replaced with younger men – like Galland and Mölders, who, he
announced, were to become fighter Geschwader commodores.
Dolfo’s heart sank – he liked being a Gruppe commander and wanted to
continue flying, but Göring reassured him. The Geschwader commander, he
said, must lead his pilots in the air, not from a desk. His intention was that
these young commanders would lead by example, and inject some youthful
dynamism into the fighter forces.
It was not the fighter force that was the problem, however, but the
bombers. Pulverizing airfields and the aircraft industry required heavy
bombers and lots of them. Göring simply did not have enough aircraft, of
the right kind, for the job. But ever since Wever’s Ural long-range, fourengine
bomber force had been scrapped, Göring and Jeschonnek had put
their faith in the dive-bomber, convinced, as Udet had been, by its exciting
potential.