robert arndt wrote in message . ..
Britain won the BoB because Churchill bombed Berlin and spoofed Adolf
into diverting the the airfield assaults onto London. EOS.

Let me add that it was a lone German bomber that ditched its bombs
over London

"After dark on the 24th the attacks were stepped up, and
some 170 German aircraft ranged over England from the
borderland to Kent. Largely due to bad navigation bombers
directed to Rochester and the Thameshaven oil-tanks
dropped their loads on the City of London. For the first time
since the Gothas of 1918, Central London was damaged in
an air raid. Fires burned at London Wall, and boroughs like
Islington, Tottenham, Finsbury, Millwall, Stepney, East Ham,
Leyton, Coulsdon and Bethnel Green all received their share."

The Narrow Margin, Wood and Dempster.

The Peoples War by Angus Calder, notes "considerable fires".

Lot of damage by one bomber.

that caused the British reprisal raid on Berlin and change
of tactics that: relieved Fighter Command, enabled the airfields and
manufacturing plants to be repaired, and assured the Brits that the
German battle for air supremacy would fail now that civilian targets
were being hit instead of military ones. EOS indeed!


The major attacks on London did achieve what the Luftwaffe
was after, a major effort by Fighter Command, the trouble was
the Luftwaffe then lost the air battles. The afternoon raid on
15th September was 114 bombers escorted by 360 fighters
(20 Bf110), the RAF put round 275 fighters up.

As for aircraft factory raids,

An effective strike on the Shorts works making Stirling bombers
on 15th August.

14 Bf110s against a Vickers factory making Wellingtons on
4th September, plus a small formation to the Shorts works.

Hawkers were hit by a lone bomber on 21st September.

The Supermarine works were hit on 24th (fighter bombers)
and 26th September (major damage).

The switch away from the airfields seems to have been more
important for the control system (since it was co-located on the
airfields) than the ability to fly aircraft from those fields.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.