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

such as these. Almost exactly a year after their country had been invaded,
the Ko ciuszko Squadron entered the battle.
AVM Park’s 11 Group might have now found itself under intense pressure,
but so too were the German Jagdflieger. On 28 August, Siegfried Bethke
and JG 2 moved to the Belgian border, close to Dunkirk, the first and
second Gruppen basing themselves at Mardyck, while III/JG 2 went to
Octeville. Siegfried flew no fewer than three operational sorties on 30
August. The British fighter pilots might not have been the finest shots, but
they earned the respect of the Luftwaffe for their flying prowess. ‘Those
brothers are good,’ noted Siegfried Bethke. ‘Nice tactics.’ The next day, he
flew another three, two more on 1 September and another two the following
day. They were shooting down Spitfires and Hurricanes but they were
losing aircraft and pilots too, the latter at a greater rate than Fighter
Command. By the end of August, Fighter Command had around 1,100
pilots; the Luftwaffe had just 735 operational fighter pilots.
On 2 September, Siegfried was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, but
was envious of Wick’s Knight’s Cross. ‘I will never get that far,’ he
complained to his diary. ‘At least not against the English fighters. We can
almost never surprise them. They are always inferior in number because we
never fly in a force less than a Gruppe. However, a Gruppe should be fifty
planes. I only have five planes here; the other Staffeln only have six to
seven machines at the moment.’
Other fighter units were suffering the same problem. British fighter
squadrons were losing experienced men, but so far there was never a
shortage of aircraft. The Luftwaffe fighter units, however, were losing
experienced pilots and suffering a shortage of aircraft. On 1 September,
Hans-Ekkehard Bob’s 9th Staffel had just five aircraft fit for duty, and only
six the next day. ‘There were definitely not enough machines,’ says Hans,
‘and as the battle progressed there were even fewer.’
Twenty-year-old Gefreiter Rudi Miese had joined 4/JG 2 on 24 August
along with two other pilots. Rudi had assumed they would be flying against
the Tommies right away, but he was much mistaken. Despite the everlowering
number of fighter pilots, there were still not enough aircraft to go
round, and in II/JG 2 the new boys were not going to be given mounts
ahead of one of the combat-tested and experienced pilots. Nonetheless, it
was a severe blow to Rudi, made worse when the rest of the Gruppe were