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

they wanted a warm jacket, then they had a sheepskin Irvin. Apart from
flying boots and gloves, that was it.
There was ambition in the RAF too, but striving to improve personal
scores was deeply frowned upon. ‘We weren’t interested in scores,’ says
Bee Beamont. ‘What you were doing was knocking up a record for the
squadron. We were a team.’ Any kind of boasting was deplored, and anyone
who did was immediately accused of ‘shooting a line’. Unofficially, a pilot
became an ‘ace’ when he had five confirmed kills. It was an important
marker and usually earned a pilot the Distinguished Flying Cross, but a
DFC could be earned without a pilot having reached five kills. Certainly
there was no cult of the individual. A few were known to the wider public –
Douglas Bader, the legless pilot, for example – but rather than focusing on
individuals, fighter pilots as a whole were considered rather special. It was
customary for them not to do up the top button of their tunics – a touch of
dash that set them apart – and because of the need to constantly turn their
heads, a relaxed view to uniform was taken. Most pilots did away with their
neckties and opted for soft, silk scarves instead or roll-neck sweaters. Pete
Brothers, for example, had a dark blue polka-dot scarf given to him by his
wife, which doubled up as something of a mascot. But although scarves and
the like were adopted for practical purposes, it added to the glamorous
image, as most pilots were well aware. Tony Bartley, for one, enjoyed this
special status very much. ‘We were heroes to the people,’ he says, ‘and we
were greeted as such and treated as such and bought drinks.’
The 10 Group pilots did not know it, but the big raid on Warmwell on 25
August was the last of its kind over Dorset. The two principal Luftflotten
did not have enough aircraft to attack with sufficient numbers in south-east
England and the south-west at the same time, especially now that Göring
was insisting that each bomber Gruppe should be escorted by an entire
fighter Geschwader. Consequently, most of Jafü 3’s fighters were
transferred to the Pas de Calais, while von Richthofen’s VIII Fliegerkorps,
which contained most of the Stukas, was withdrawn from the battle, to be
kept back until the invasion. Still, concentration of force is just as valid a
principle in offensive air operations as it is on the ground. Bringing to bear
most of their forces against 11 Group was undoubtedly a sensible policy.
General Loerzer, in II Fliegerkorps, also came up with a cunning plan to
confuse the British early-warning system, by sending over numerous