Article

2007-10-30 Britain

Battle of Britain pilots 'could not shoot straight'

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Posted by Steve White 2007-10-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 We should honor their bravery, I think, but also remember the absolute waste and folly in sending untrained youths into the sky. Bravery is a fine quality, but it doesn't win wars.

I'd recommend Fighter by Len Deighton. I think it still stands as the finest history of the 1940 battle, decades later.

Posted by Rory B. Bellows 2007-10-30 02:28|| 2007-10-30 02:28|| Front Page Top

#2 In July 40 Churchill visited a unit and was presnted arms... with a stick. The British had left all their weapons at Dunkirk. That is whay saying the Getrùman would not invade baecause they had no ships is ridiculous. The Germans only needed to land a few thousand men: givenn the state of the British Army those would have been more than enough to take a harbour and land the rfemainder in this harbour with conventional ships... provided the Luftwaffe had free hands to deal with the Navy.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-10-30 05:00|| 2007-10-30 05:00|| Front Page Top

#3 Speaking of Len Deighton, he wrote an "alternative history" book about Britain after a successful German invasion called "SS-GB" - very good read.

Actually, JFM, British defenses were better than you suggest, and taking a working port would have been difficult - harbor defenses were pretty strong. Most of the transport the Germans had were river barges, etc., not sea-going landing craft. Still, if the RAF and home fleet could have been neutralized, who knows what could have happened.

Posted by Spot">Spot 2007-10-30 08:11|| 2007-10-30 08:11|| Front Page Top

#4 This article typifies why people don't respect academics. While most British pilots never rose to the level of Luftwaffe aces like Hartmann or Galland, they stood between their country and devastation. They flew every day with the knowledge that many of them would die. Enough of them lived to turn the tide and give England a chance to survive. They deserve better than cheap shots after the fact from lesser men.

Posted by RWV 2007-10-30 08:18|| 2007-10-30 08:18|| Front Page Top

#5 Torpedo 8, too. Yeah, they didn't sink anything either. And those guys on Wake. And Bataan. Them too. Sorry, there is nothing more courageous than doing one's duty when one knows all the odds are stacked against you.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: `This was their finest hour.'

Somehow this is more likely to happen than that this wahoo's research will be remembered in a thousand hours.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-10-30 08:34|| 2007-10-30 08:34|| Front Page Top

#6 Part of the ongoing program to devalue valor, patriotsm, and duty.

I agree that Goering changed the Luftwaffe's goals, a colosal mistake, but it wasn't a matter of stopping the Luftwaffe, it was a matter of undisputed air superiority. The barges would have been enough without resistance from the air. The Few, Indeed.

Posted by SR-71">SR-71 2007-10-30 08:48|| 2007-10-30 08:48|| Front Page Top

#7 I did a radio interview with a Battle of Britian veteran, sometime in the mid-1980s, at Zaragoza AB. He was there to be a guest-speaker for the NCOA, I believe - and I claimed the honor. Retired Group-Captain, was the CO of RAF Gatow after the war for a while. We were all kind of wondering beforehand what would happen when Brit reticence met fighter-jock flamboyance, but we needn't have worried - he told us all to call him Bobby and talked an arm off. His most amusing story was of the day that he thought his squadron was on half-hour standby, so he was getting some sleep... but they were scrambled anyway. All the time he was airborne he was pleading with God that he wouldn't have to bail out, because he would never hear the end of having to make a parachute descent in his pajamas. Bright orange silk pajamas.
That was the atvantage to fighting over England - pilots who bailed out could be back in it within hours, like the guy who had bailed out nine times, and was known ever afterwards as "Nine Lives" Deere.

Not only were they few, they were also very, very young; eighteen and nineteen on average. Many of them had been rushed through training, due to the shortage of pilots, and had only ten hours flight experience in a combat aircraft.

Thinking on the battle itself, I've always thought McCauley put it very aptly; "... how can man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods?"

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2007-10-30 09:24|| www.celiahayes.com]">[www.celiahayes.com] 2007-10-30 09:24|| Front Page Top

#8 I am named after a cousin who fought and died as a fighter pilot. He lived through the Battle of Britain and was murdered by the Germans over Holland. I cannot say I am interested in any criticism of what he accomplished for me and mine.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-10-30 09:50|| 2007-10-30 09:50|| Front Page Top

#9 The Germans would have to keep the entire Royal Navy out of the Channel to pull it off. Not likely. The RN's favored tactic for dealing with the river barges would have been a formation run by destroyers at 30 knots, swamping the barges.

Posted by Glerese Turkeyneck8809 2007-10-30 09:56|| 2007-10-30 09:56|| Front Page Top

#10 Many of them had been rushed through training, due to the shortage of pilots, and had only ten hours flight experience in a combat aircraft.

And they knew far too well that they had zero chances even against an average German pilot that their mission was to tempt the Geramsn into shooting them instead of going after the few experienced British pilots.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-10-30 10:11|| 2007-10-30 10:11|| Front Page Top

#11 Ummmmmmm...did they win?
Yes, they did. So I guess they could shot straight enough.
I suggest the good doctor blow it out his ass...

Posted by tu3031 2007-10-30 10:12|| 2007-10-30 10:12|| Front Page Top

#12 Cum again, Dr. Cumming ? Since there is no good reason to write such bilge except to downgrade dead heros, I suggest Dr. Cumming do 50 laps tied behind my pickup.

Posted by wxjames 2007-10-30 11:22|| 2007-10-30 11:22|| Front Page Top

#13 Actually the Brits shot down 2 German planes for every 1 they lost. If they couldn't shoot straight, what about the Germans?

The Luftwaffe needed complete air superiority over the Channel so they could bomb the Royal Navy when they attacked the invasion fleet. The Germans didn't get close to achieving it.

As long as the Fighter Arm was intact there would be no invasion of England.

Al

Posted by Frozen Al 2007-10-30 12:53|| 2007-10-30 12:53|| Front Page Top

#14 The Germans would have to keep the entire Royal Navy out of the Channel to pull it off. Not likely. The RN's favored tactic for dealing with the river barges would have been a formation run by destroyers at 30 knots, swamping the barges

Considering what happenned in Creta where the Luftwaffe had only a tiny fraction of the resources it had during the Battle of Britain the main obstacle for the German barges would have been the time lost salvaging the crews of thoqz destroyers.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-10-30 14:23|| 2007-10-30 14:23|| Front Page Top

#15 Happy to see the comments thread to the article is having none of it either.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2007-10-30 14:47|| 2007-10-30 14:47|| Front Page Top

#16 Stukas, Focke Wulfs, and Messerschmitts some of which were powered by 1000 horse Mercedes-Benz DB 601 made the the German Lufwaffe (airforce) the most powerfull in Europe. They inflicted enough damage to the RAF to make the RAF consider withdrawing from parts of Britain. This was all a part of Operation Sea Lion, an invasion of Britain scheduled for September 20th, 1940. The destruction of the RAF which was required to place first before the landing, was estimated by the RAF to take only 4 weeks, so the attack on the RAF by the German Lufwaffe started early in August, the destruction to the RAF being in the airspace over the channel, with RAF fighters destroyed, German bombers would then work from the British coast line inward preping for Operation Sea Lion.

Hitler ordered the shift to attacking the cities rather than destroying the RAF because the British started striking cities in Germany with bombing missions. German fighters did not have the range and could not escort the bombers into Britain and make it back, so the RAF, the destruction thereof not complete, decimated the Luftwaffe. Operation Sea Lion was postponed.

Posted by Angith Lumplump9480 2007-10-30 16:01|| 2007-10-30 16:01|| Front Page Top

#17 *correction* the destruction of the RAF which was required to place first before the landing, was estimated by the RAF to take only 4 weeks

was estimated by Germany.

It was the bombing missions of German cities by the RAF that collapsed the game plan of the Germans.

Posted by Angith Lumplump9480 2007-10-30 16:05|| 2007-10-30 16:05|| Front Page Top

#18 As is so often the case, Winston Churchill summed it up best:

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-10-30 16:21|| 2007-10-30 16:21|| Front Page Top

#19 The German deadline, as I recall, was October. Since the rather primitive landing craft were not built to withstand the Channel's autumn gales, the RAF only had to outlast the Luftwaffe. This the Air Force did in the finest tradition of British valor.

Posted by mrp 2007-10-30 17:59|| 2007-10-30 17:59|| Front Page Top

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