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

have too few pilots,’ said another. ‘We have nothing but new crews,’ said a
bomber Gruppenkommandeur, who then complained that his Gruppe had
not been given one new aircraft since the beginning of the war. ‘Not a
single one! What a state of affairs!’
Certainly those still flying over to Britain were feeling the aircraft
shortage terribly. On 5 September, Siegfried Bethke’s 2nd Staffel had just
three planes. ‘That is my whole squadron,’ he noted. The entire Gruppe had
just eighteen aircraft, while the second and third Gruppen had only twelve.
They were supposed to have thirty-six. Siegfried had heard that one
Zerstörer Geschwader had only a dozen aircraft left, rather than the
supposed establishment of eighty-one. ‘There is currently a crisis with
planes,’ he recorded starkly. Out to sea, they watched convoys continue to
pass through the Channel in front of their noses.
Ulrich Steinhilper was struggling to keep his flagging spirits up. His
friend Hinnerk Waller had been shot down and then a few days later a lone
Me 109 landed and came to a halt right in the middle of the airfield. Ulrich
hurried over along with some of the groundcrew only to find the lifeless
body of an Oberleutnant in the cockpit. Taking him out, they discovered he
had been badly wounded in the abdomen, and had bled to death, dying the
moment he touched down. ‘It was a shattering reminder,’ noted Ulrich, ‘of
what waited for all of us, every day we flew.’ Neither he nor anyone else in
the Gruppe had had any leave since arriving at Coquelles six weeks before.
Siegfried Bethke had not had any since May. ‘We’ve been away since
January,’ complained one German sergeant pilot, ‘and have had no leave at
all and yet we have these flights every day.’ As a rule of thumb, most
squadrons in 11 Group were there for three weeks before being rotated.
Dowding and Park were also worrying about their squadrons falling below
sixteen pilots, that is, to less than 75 per cent of their strength. Many
German fighter Staffeln, however, were operating at levels of under 50 per
cent.
Nor was there any let-up from Bomber Command, who continued to
carry out harassing raids on German airfields just as lone Ju 88s or Dorniers
were doing to British bases. Blenheims had attacked JG 2 at Mordyck the
same night as the bombing began on London. ‘At St Omer,’ complained
another bomber pilot, ‘these fellows came over our aerodrome every night.
I’ll never forget those bombs! None of us was wounded, but they hit a lot of