The True Start Date of the Battle of Britain? ...and Convoy Peewit

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The 8 August 1940 saw the first large scale sustained clashes between the RAF and the Luftwaffe and as such was initially considered to be the official start date of the Battle of Britain by the Air Ministry.

In 1941 Dowding rejected the 8 August to be the start date and proposed it to be the 10 July 1940, which, in Britain, is the date accepted by most nowadays. In Germany, the start of the Battle of Britain was when they launched their Eagle Attack, their plan for the destruction of RAF Fighter Command.

The action in the period from 10 July to 7 August was in many ways indistinguishable from post-Dunkirk harassing raids. For this reason, some still consider the 8 August to be the true start date of the Battle of Britain.

On the days leading up to the 8 August 1940, Luftwaffe activity was fairly light. This was mainly due to the fact that there was little in the way of British shipping movements.

The 8 August 1940 saw are a large convoy (with the RAF codename of Peewit) of more than twenty merchant ships attempting to go through the Straits of Dover and heading westwards.

The 8 August 1940 saw the heaviest ever raids against a British convoy. 

Only 4 of original 20+ ships of Peewit convoy reached Swanage undamaged

This was the first time for two weeks that a merchant convoy attempted passage through the English Channel.

The convoy had assembled the previous night at Southend and passed through the Dover Straits during the hours of darkness, heading for Swanage in Dorset.

Sadly the convoy was picked up by the German Freya radar. German torpedo boats were sent to attack at the convoy at dawn and afterwards some 300 Ju87s and 150 Bf109s were also sent to attack the convoy.

41 Squadron (Spitfires), 64 Squadron from Kenley (Spitfires), 65 Squadron from Hornchurch (Spitfires) and 610 Squadron from Biggin Hill (Spitfires) were sent to the Channel to intercept.

The torpedo boats had sunk three ships and damaged another three before light.

The British fighters reached the enemy aircraft before they had engaged the convoy. During the air combat that followed, four Spitfires were shot down with three pilots killed, one bailed out. Two more Spitfires were damaged and forced to return to base and another crash-landed on the Kent coast.

A Bf109 was shot down and the pilot killed, four others tried to make it back to base but crash-landed in Northern France. Another was severely damaged but made it back to base.

Only one ship received damage from a single Ju87 that managed to get through.

With the benefit of low cloud, the protection of the Royal Navy and RAF fighters, Convoy Peewit continued its journey westwards.

Further down the coast the convoy ran into better weather and the convoy was attacked by 89 Ju87s and 70 Bf109s just off the Isle of Wight. The Ju87s caused severe damage to the convoy.

Fighter Command scrambled 145 Squadron from Westhampnett/Tangmere (Hurricanes), 257 Squadron from Northolt (Hurricanes) and 609 Squadron from Middle Wallop (Hurricanes) to meet the attackers.

By the time the RAF arrived the Ju87s were returning to their bases but intense combat ensued between the British fighters and the Bf109s.

The Spitfires and Hurricanes were forced to fight the Bf109s, leaving Ju87s to attack the convoy unhindered.

Damaged and burning ships bellowing black smoke were scattered over the Channel for miles.

The RAF had lost 13 Hurricanes in defending Peewit, five others were damaged and one Spitfire was destroyed. 13 pilots were killed and 3 seriously wounded.

Len Deighton in his book Fighter (1977) commented:

The British sailors who died this day were the victims of two aspects of stupidity. Firstly, the coastal convoys, carrying domestic cargoes, were still being sent through the dangerous waters of the Channel (instead of the goods going by railway, as they did later). Secondly, the Admiralty, in spite of endless evidence, refused to allow for the fact that the Germans might have excellent radar.

Whatever the shortcomings of the Admiralty, this was indeed a portent of the intense air fighting to come when massive formations of Luftwaffe and RAF aircraft would clash in the skies over the next few weeks.

To some, it was the intense aerial combat over Convoy Peewit which heralded the start of the Battle of Britain proper,  on 8 August 1940

by Steve Dunster

Who Had The Best Guns?

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British .303" (7.7mm) Browning guns:

8 machine guns mounted in wings (outside the propeller disk)
20 rounds per second per gun (160 rounds per second overall)
11.3 gram bullets fired at 740 m/s (2,430 fps)
16 seconds worth of ammunition

Bf109s MG 17s (7.9mm) machine guns:

2 machine guns mounted in the engine cowling (synchronised to shoot through the propeller disk)
17 rounds per second per gun (slower because of sync with propeller)
Slightly more destructive than the .303s (bullet mass and muzzle velocity varied)
1 minutes worth of ammunition

Bf109E-4 20mm MG-FFM cannon:

2 mounted in wings
9 rounds per second per cannon (18 rounds per second overall)
92 gram explosive projectiles fired at 700 m/s
Less than 7 seconds worth of ammunition

Comparison

Spitfires and Hurricanes had 8x .303" Browning machine guns mounted in the wings where as the Bf109 had 2x machine guns mounted in the engine cowling shooting through the propeller disk.

The Bf109 machine guns could not fire as quickly as the Browning machine guns because they had to synchronise with the propeller.

The British fighters had to have their guns adjusted so they harmonised at a single point at a predetermined distance from the aircraft (360m at the start of the Battle and reduced to 225m due to battle experience). This meant they were only at their most destructive at this single distance. The Bf109 machine guns were effective over a much broader ranger because they were so close to the centre-line of the aircraft.

The Bf109 machine guns were slightly more destructive than the British Brownings but could carry nearly a minute's worth of ammunition rather than the 16 seconds carried by a Spitfire.

The Bf109E-4 cannon, with its explosive projectile, was much more destructive than the Brownings but had a much slower firing rate (9 rounds per second instead of the Brownings' 20 rounds per second) and only had 7 seconds worth of ammunition on board.

The Bf109E-4 cannon had a long flight time and curved trajectory (due to its low muzzle velocity) which made it difficult to hit targets at distance. It was quite a challenge for the German pilots because the flight times and trajectory curves of the cannon and machine guns were different requiring different mental calculations during combat.

How Did This Play Out In Combat?

It was much easier for a Spitfire or Hurricane to hit something with its eight fast firing Brownings than it was for a Bf109 with its slow, difficult to aim cannon with only 7 seconds of ammunition. 

but...

if a Bf109E-4 hit its target could cause an immense amount of damage.

Many a German aircraft would be riddled with .303 bullet holes but still return to base.

The RAF committed to fitting its Spitfires and Hurricanes with .303 machine guns well before WW2 when aircraft were slower and less well armoured. By the time of the Battle of Britain the RAF knew they needed much more powerful armaments. They tried to hurry in the fitting of 20mm Hispano cannons but they weren't reliable until after the Battle had ended.

So Which Guns Were Best?

Lesser pilots would find it easier to hit their target flying a British fighter than a Bf109

Better pilots would find it easier to bring down their target flying a Bf109

Whilst the guns would seem to have been better in the German aircraft, perhaps fortune favoured the British solution in a battle of attrition where, as time went on, experienced pilots were shot down and replaced with less experienced pilots.

by Steve Dunster

The New Tactics that Devastated Convoy CW.8 on 25 July 1940

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On 25 July 1940 the Luftwaffe took advantage of improved weather to attack a twenty-one ship convoy as it made its way through the Straits of Dover but they did so with devastatingly effective new tactics.

Of the 21 ships in the convoy only 10 reached their destination of Portland, 11 ships were sunk or seriously disabled during the attack. Two Royal Naval destroyers sent to help were also put out of action and had to be towed back to Dover.

This was the first time that Germany attacked a convoy from land, sea and air. They fired on the convoy with its big guns around Cap Gris Nez, they attacked it using high-speed German naval S-boats and bombed it from the air using wave after wave of Ju87 Stuka dive-bombers. The effect was devastating and the attack lasted from 11:30am to 7:30pm.

In the morning Convoy CW.8 (Convoy Westward) was attacked by a wave of Ju87s, 50 Bf109s, fast S-boats and was fired upon from the French shore.

The escorting Bf109s came in at sea level to be met by Spitfires of 65 Squadron (Hornchurch) while the Ju87s came out of the sky to dive bomb the convoy.

No 32 Squadron Hurricanes (Biggin Hill) and 615 Squadron Hurricanes (Kenley) came to assist the sea level dogfight with the fifty Bf109s.

No 54 Squadron Spitfires (Rochford) answered the call for assistance from the escorting naval vessels and engaged Bf109s that had arrived to assist the Ju87s. No 54 Squadron was to suffer badly but with one Spitfire to every five Bf109s it was a wonder that they only lost three aircraft.

Further waves of attacking aircraft continued through out the afternoon.

The Royal Naval destroyers Boreas and Brilliant were sent out from Dover to repulse the German motor torpedo boats attacking the convoy. Pursuing the S-boats away from the convoy and towards Calais, the destroyers were attacked themselves by German bombers.

Ju87s badly damaged Boreas with two hits on her bridge, 17 crew were killed and 5 died of their wounds.

Brilliant was also bombed, receiving two hits in the stern. Her tiller flat was flooded and boiler room fan support cracked but there were no casualties.

Both destroyers were towed back into Dover by tugs. Brilliant's repairs wouldn't be completed until September 1940 and Boreas wasn't repaired until January 1941.

25 July 1940 was undoubtedly a bad day for the RAF, the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy.

The losses were so great that it was decided to only move convoys through the English Channel after darkness and the Admiralty moved their RN ships out of Dover and put them in the relative safety of Portsmouth. Merchant ships would take on gunners in order to offer some defence and escorts would be provided in the future.

The day undoubtedly belonged to Germany and its effective new tactics but Britain was learning and adapting - a pattern that would repeat itself many times throughout the Summer.

by Steve Dunster

We Found my Dad's old Hurricane - in the Science Museum

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My Dad, Edgar Dunster, was ground crew for 615 Squadron at RAF Kenley during the Battle of Britain. 

During the mid to late 1970s we were on a family holiday and visited Torbary Aircraft Museum. My Dad froze and became very emotional, pointing at a Hawker Hurricane and said, "That's my aircraft!"

He was insistent! Apparently

"You never forget your aircraft's registration number!" 

...presumably because you're always writing it down on some form or other after you've worked on it.

All I can remember is that the Hurricane was in Battle of Britain colours, had the 615 Squadron "KW" markings and that Dad was insistent it was his. I did take a photo of it for him but I've no idea where that photo is now.

The guy in charge of the museum pricked Dad's bubble when he pointed out the Hurricane was a replica built for the 1966 film Battle of Britain, and was merely painted to look like Dad's aircraft.

You can imagine that Dad was feeling a little deflated but then he perked up when the guy said that the real one was in the Imperial War Museum.

As the years went by, remembering how emotional Dad had got at seeing his old aircraft, I kept suggesting we go to London to find it. My parents had a bit of a phobia about going to London and we never did but I never let go of the idea.

When I was old enough, I travelled to London on my own and visited the Imperial War Museum to try and find his aircraft. Sadly my trip was fruitless.

Years later I discovered that a new aircraft museum was being put together in Duxford near Cambridge and that it was part of the Imperial War Museum. So I figured that maybe his aircraft was there - but sadly not.

The trail had gone cold and Dad died in 1981 never having seen his aircraft.

After he died I got married and had two wonderful children and thought nothing more of Dad's old aircraft.

In 2014 I started a Battle of Britain Twitter account called @BofB1940 as a summer project with my eldest son (Kit) to teach him something of the workings of social media.

Using Battle of Britain records and history books I'd collected over the years, Kit and myself put together a real time Twitter feed for the Battle of Britain as if it was happening now.

Spurred on by the unexpected success of @BofB1940, Kit started avidly consuming Battle of Britain reading material. His eye was drawn to one article that I'd never read, about the Hurricane in the Science Museum.

Kit asked me to confirm that Dad's old squadron was 615 which I did.

Apparently when we had visited the Science museum as a family for the first time only months before, the Hurricane we'd seen was actually from Dad's old squadron.

Sadly I had no recollection of the registration number of Dad's old aircraft but I was lucky enough to find information from a Torbay Museum Guide that somebody had put on the Internet: it said

Hawker Hurricane KW-Z (replica for the Battle of Britain film)

This was progress, it told me that what Dad thought his old aircraft had the ident letter Z.

The article that Kit found said that the Science Museum Hurricane had the following markings during its time with 615 Squadron:

L1592   KW-Z

This gave me more information and Google was now able to tell me:

Replica BAPC.63: initially marked L1592 KW-Z; currently marked SD-T located at the Hawkinge Museum, Kent

Looking up the BAPC register, I was able to confirm that BAPC.63 was:

P3208/SD-T Hawker Hurricane (full scale model), Kent Battle of Britain Musuem, Hawkinge - built for the film "Battle of Britain" ex L1592

And for me this was conclusive proof:

• I had Torbay museum records from the Internet telling me what Dad saw was KW-Z. 
• I had aviation forums telling me the replica at Torbay was BAPC.63
• I had the BAPC register saying BAPC.63 was originally marked as L1592 KW-Z
• I had an article saying that L1592 was in the Science Museum and used to be marked KW-Z

So I am guessing when the guy at at Torbay Aircraft Museum said the original was in the Imperial War Museum, maybe he meant the Science Museum - or maybe there was a transfer from one to the other or maybe we weren't listening properly.

We had found Dad's aircraft and it was in the Science Museum and we had all seen it (without realising it was his) only months before.

I'd very much like to take my family back to the Science Museum soon, this time knowing that it was Dad's aircraft...and strangely I'd also like to visit the Hawkinge Battle of Britain Museum to see the exact replica that I stood in front of with my Dad...thinking it was his old aircraft.

Then a further realisation dawned. If L1592 was definitely Dad's aircraft then presumably Dad would have known its pilot.

Dad was at Kenley on 18 August when the aerodrome was bombed and Mum was in married quarters only a few miles away in Whyteleafe.

On that same day, Dad's old aircraft and pilot were up flying in combat. Len Deighton has documented what happened in his book Fighter - The True Story Of The Battle Of Britain:

18 August 1940

Pilot Officer D. J. Looker in KW-Z was at an even greater disadvantage than the rest of 615 Squadron, for his usual aircraft was damaged, forcing him to fly in a Hurricane I, from reserve. It had fabric-covered wings and its fuel tanks were not self-sealing. Worse, from a handling point of view, it had a de Havilland variable-pitch (two-pitch) airscrew instead of a Rotol constant-speed propeller. This meant inferior performance and more work for the pilot.

No. 615 Squadron were still using the old formation (four vees) and were flying tightly together in the pre-war style. Undoubtedly this made them easier to spot. They were bounced out of the sun by the Bf 109s they were looking for, and the tail of KW-Z was hit by cannon shells. The Hurricane went into a spin, but Looker was experienced enough to regain control of it. He was reluctant to bail out, having just spent a month in hospital with leg injuries after a dog-fight during the battles in France. He dodged through the balloon barrage cables that were there expressly to inhibit such flying, and then put the Hurricane down at the first landing field he saw. It was the pre-war London airport at Croydon. As he came in, he ran the gauntlet of the anti-aircraft guns who thought he was a German bomber.

Pilot Officer Looker survived, but incredibly one of the airport officials at Croydon made a written complaint about his airport being used as an emergency landing field. Looker's Hurricane also survived, to become an exhibit at London's Science Museum.

I am of course pleased that Dad's old aircraft still exists but I am absolutely delighted that it was only my son's involvement, the Grandson he never met, that was the key to the whole mystery:

Kit had finally found his Grandad's old aircraft. Something that easily brings a tear to my eye.

by Steve Dunster

Boulton-Paul Defiant: Stupid Idea or Dreadful Leadership?

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The Boulton-Paul Defiant has been the subject of much discussion on the @BofB1940 twitter feed. Most have the view that the aircraft is a flawed concept, an idea that couldn't possibly have worked, an idea that needlessly cost lives.

A small minority on the @BofB1940 feed have defended the aircraft saying that it was Fighter Command's mis-use of the aircraft that was flawed, not the design concept. 

Slaughter of the Innocents

On the 19th July 1940, No 141 Squadron (Defiants) sent up nine aircraft (together with a Spitfire squadron and a Hurricane squadron) to intercept Bf110s that were reportedly dive bombing shipping off Dover. 

Whilst they were still climbing, a group of Bf109s were sweeping high above the English Channel with perfect visibility. Undetected by the climbing Defiants, the Bf109s performed the perfect bounce and attacked from the sun.

The brief but brutal combat resulted in the loss of six out of the nine Defiants and signalled the end of the RAF using them as daytime front-line fighters. No 141 Squadron was withdrawn to 13 Group and the Defiant was eventually relegated to that of a night fighter role.

Stupid Idea?

Many people (like me) think that a fighter the size of a Spitfire with a less powerful engine, with the extra weight of a second crew member and a one ton turret is a really stupid idea.

If you then take that stupid idea and make sure that the pilot has no forward firing armaments and that the turret can only fire upwards and that the gunner has to constantly tell the pilot what he's trying to shoot at - then this must surely be the most monumentally stupid idea of all human conflict?

Such people (like me) can't understand why on earth the Boulton-Paul Defiant could possibly have been deployed into 11 Group as a day time front line fighter in Hell Fire Corner. We assumed that this "stupid idea" must have seemed a "good idea" a long time before the War, like the Blenheim, but by the time war broke out, it was out-dated. If that's true, what was it doing in Hell Fire Corner?

The Defiant at its Best

It turns out that the Boulton-Paul Defiant was actually the newest fighter in the RAF which would explain why it was used in front-line day time duties in Fighter Command.

Sadly the Defiant wasn't designed as a fighter to take on single seat fighters, it was designed as a Bomber Destroyer to kill unescorted bombers.

During the Winter of 1940, No 264 Squadron was equipped with the first ever Defiants. They developed new tactics for the new type. 

No 264 Squadron was Operational in March 1940 and was highly successful in the Battle for France.

A properly trained Defiant squadron, it would seem, can be highly successful at destroying Ju87s, He111s and Ju88s. A valuable asset indeed for the Battle of Britain

No 264 Squadron (Defiants) had 64 enemy aircraft claimed destroyed for a loss of 14 Defiants.

141 Squadron had its Own Ideas

No 141 Squadron was the second squadron to be equipped with Defiants but decided they would take little notice of the tactics developed by the highly successful 264 Squadron before it.

When 141 Squadron was thrown into the heat of battle on 19 July 1940, it had none of the well trained, well thought through, tried and battle-tested tactics of 264 Squadron.

Defiants couldn't Speak to Spitfire or Hurricane Squadrons

One of the shortcomings of the Defiant (as highlighted by 264 Squadron but not fixed by Fighter Command) was that the Defiants were fitted with a different radio system to that of the rest of Fighter Command.

When No 141 Squadron was sent up to engage the enemy on 19 July 1940 with a Spitfire squadron and a Hurricane squadron, they had no method of communicating with them.

The Defiant was an Unescorted Bomber Destroyer

...so why on earth was 141 Squadron ever deployed to 11 Group. It was possibly the only Group in Fighter Command that was likely to have fighter escorted bombers almost all the time because it was so close to enemy airfields in France.

No 141 Squadron would presumably have been far better deployed to 13 Group in Scotland or the East Coast.

Stupid Idea or Dreadful Leadership?

Whilst I have always been of the view that the Boulton-Paul Defiant was a stupid idea, I had been ignorant of the tactics developed for it in 264 Squadron and how amazingly successful they had been in France.

I was also unaware that it's concept was one of the Unescorted Bomber Destroyer, for which (looking at 264's statistics) it would seem to have been remarkably well suited.

This does leave me with these three burning questions:

1. Why was No 141 Squadron leadership allowed to completely ignore battle-proven tactics as developed by No 264 Squadron and to go into battle on 19 July 1940 un-prepared?
2. Why was No 141 Squadron not deployed to a Group in Fighter Command where it was more likely to come across "unescorted bombers", like Scotland or the East Coast?
3. Why was the interoperability issue not addressed regarding the different radio systems used on Defiants?

For me, thanks to No 264 Squadron, I no longer consider the Defiant a stupid idea. 

It doesn't sound like a flawed concept but a niche and specialist role.

I have to say that I'm a convert. I now agree with the small minority on the @BofB1940 feed who say it wasn't the Defiant that was the problem, it was the leadership...the leadership of No 141 Squadron and the leadership of Fighter Command.

Churchill wanted Defiants but Dowding wanted Spitfires & Hurricanes

Churchill supported the concept of the Defiant but Dowding wanted fast single-seater forward-firing fighters.

Dowding only equipped two of his squadrons with Defiants and when one of them suffered heavy losses it gave him the ideal reason to withdraw Defiants from his front line.

Was it Dowding's lack of enthusiasm for the Defiant that created the conditions which led to a series of leadership failures that resulted in No 141 Squadron suffering such heavy losses?

Churchill later felt that he'd been wrong to support the Defiant...but maybe he hadn't been, maybe he'd been ignorant of the leadership failings surrounding No 141...he might even have been ignorant of the incredible successes of No 264 Squadron.

Why was No 264 Squadron Withdrawn from Operations?

By May 1940, the successful No 264 Squadron started to suffer mounting losses as the Luftwaffe discovered the Defiant was vulnerable to frontal attack. 264 was withdrawn from operations as a day fighter and started to train for the night fighter role.

Nevertheless, had Defiant squadrons been restricted to that of Unescorted Bomber Destroyer,  maybe 264 would have faired better.

Maybe it was right that the Defiants were withdrawn but maybe there was also an element of self-fulfillment about Dowding's prophecy.

Should the Defiant have been Withdrawn?

Is it possible that if enough Defiant squadrons had followed the battle-proven tactics and training of 264 

...and if Fighter Command and ensured that all Defiants could have communicated properly with their protecting Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons 

...and if Fighter Command had ensured that Defiants were largely engaging with unescorted bombers by deploying them into Scotland and the East Coast and freeing up single seat fighters for 11 Group,

...is it possible that the RAF's newest fighter, the Defiant, could have come out of the Battle of Britain with high scores and low losses

...and when we said the words Spitfire and Hurricane with patriotic pride, perhaps we might also have said Boulton-Paul Defiant.

by Steve Dunster