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

his staff viewed the Zerstörers meant far too many potentially highly skilled
pilots who might have been far better used in single-engine fighters were
lost to the Luftwaffe.
Yet despite this, numbers of German Me 109s still roughly matched
those of their British counterparts. It was true that Fighter Command pilots
held some home advantages. They had their early-warning system and if
they survived being shot down, they could return to fly again. Nonetheless,
it was the British fighters who had the harder task. First and foremost, they
had to shoot down German bombers, but at the same time they had to try to
avoid being shot down themselves by German fighters. But although a
bomber presented a bigger target, it was harder to destroy than a fighter, not
least because most bombers had plenty of armour plating. A Heinkel 111,
for example, had some 600 lb of armour plating; a Ju 88 was even better
protected. With just fifteen seconds of bullets rather than fifty-five and no
high-explosive cannon, British pilots often found they were short on
firepower. It meant the pilots often had to keep their fingers on the firing
button for long periods of time to achieve any results. This required keeping
the aircraft fairly steady, which in turn made it more vulnerable to enemy
fire. Also, every bullet fired at a bomber was a bullet that could not then be
used against an attacking Me 109 or 110.
Nor did it help that so little time had been spent on gunnery. Both sides
had neglected this aspect of training, but at least the Germans had begun the
summer understanding that the best results were achieved by taking the
enemy by surprise and hitting him from close range. In May, Fighter
Command was setting the harmonization range at 400 yards. By July, 250
yards had become the prescribed distance. Pete Brothers had his guns
harmonized even closer than that, even though, strictly speaking, it was
against RAF rules. He was not alone; many of the more experienced pilots
did the same. ‘You needed to get up jolly close,’ he says. ‘Fifty yards if you
could; as close as possible and then you really did hammer it.’ Tom Neil
soon reset his guns at 150 yards.
Getting in close had now filtered down to the training of new pilots
coming through, who were now told to get in behind the enemy and shoot
them from dead astern. In early August, Sergeant Jimmy Corbin had been
sent to the fighter OTU at Hawarden. A 23-year-old metalwork and maths
teacher from Tonbridge in Kent, Jimmy had been hooked on flying ever
since seeing Sir Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus as a boy. Refused entry into