"Paul Saccani" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:36:22 -0600, Dan wrote:

Ray O'Hara wrote:
"Alan Dicey" wrote in message
o.uk...
Paul Saccani wrote:
wrote:
British aerial victory claims are vastly exagerated in the BoB.
Indeed, to say the least.
*Were* exaggerated, at the time, because of confusion (even though both
sides were quite rigorous in their verification) and to help morale.

We still won.

The Germans also overclaimed - their intelligence system several times
reported that the RAF was down to its last few aircraft. It's one
reason
why the appearance of the formed-up Big Wing on September 15th was such
a
shock.

"Here they come again, the last 20 Spitfires..."


won? the British bombing German cities causing retaliation against
London
"won" the battle.



Check your history.

He's right. The Luftwaffe acidently bombed London, so the British
carried out a larger strikes against German cities. This enraged a
certain vegetarian nut case into ordering the main effort against
London, instead of Fighter Command and aircraft factories.



The decision to switch the target to London was taken at a meeting
of the Luftwaffe staff in The Hague on Sept 3 1940. Kesselring had
been pressing for a sustained attack on London and since Hitler had
removed the prohibition on bombing the British capital on Aug 30th.

At the meeting Kesselring who was chief of staff repeated his recommendation
for an attack on London. Sperle disagreed arguing that the attacks on
the fighter fields should be continued.

Goering supported Kesselring saying.

Quote
My fellow commanders, we are now on the brink of victory. An assault and an
invasion of England is now more promising than ever before. Our intelligence
has now informed us that the RAF is now down to less than a hundred fighter
aircraft, the airfields protecting London are out of action because of the
superb and accurate bombing of our bomber forces, their communications are
in disarray, and now we are told, their air commanders are arguing with each
other.

Gentlemen, another phase is now almost complete. The RAF is now no longer
the great threat that it used to be, and we can now draw every available
fighter plane that the RAF has into the air, because the next target must be
London itself.......

/Quote

In fact the RAF had more single seater fighters ready for action than had
been the case at the start of the Battle having replaced the Belnheims and
Battles with Hurricanes and Spitfires.

If that had not of happened, Fighter Command was on the verge of
collapse (in their own assessments), the Germans would have achieved
air superiority, perhaps even air dominance, and the UK's production
capability and war fighting potential would have been greatly
effected. Though the Germans would have received a hiding if they
attempted an invasion.



This overstates the case but does nicely point out the differences between
the commanders.

While 11 group was undoubtedly under great pressure fighter command
as a whole was at full establishment with 670 fighters available for combat.
Dowding was concerned because he believed , rightly IMHO, that he
should have 2 pilots for each aircraft and by Sept 1st he only had 1100
pilots available. Even so throughout the BOB the RAF was able to take
pilots out of the line for rest and leave. The worst case scenario for
Dowding
was moving squadrons to airfields north of London.

In the same period Sperle reported that the Luftwaffe was suffering
seriously
from attrition. Squadrons were below strength , typically at 80-90% of
their establishment at the start of the battle.

They were not replacing aircrews or aircraft at the rate they were being
lost and he was worried that the Luftwaffe intelligence reports greatly
underestimated RAF strength.

He was overuled. Goering and Kesselring estimated that the RAF was
down to 20% of its nominal strength.

That gross failure of intelligence explains the decision to switch targets.
Hitler gave the Luftwaffe Staff permission to make the mistake and they
took it.

Keith