Battle of Britain Day: 15 September, 1940 by Price Alfred

Author:Price, Alfred [Price, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2020-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five – The Day’s Other Actions, 2.23 p.m. to Midnight

“War is a rough, violent trade.”

Johann Schiller

Villacoublay near Paris, 2.23 p.m. At the same time as Air Vice-Marshal Park had ordered his last Spitfires and Hurricanes into the air to engage the raiders approaching London, twenty-seven Heinkels of Bomber Geschwader 55 began taking off from bases around Paris. Once airborne the bombers assembled into formation. One turned back with mechanical trouble, the rest headed north-west in a steady climb.

This was the German follow-up attack which Park and the Prime Minister had feared, but it would not be launched in the way they expected. Acting on the premise that the Royal Air Force had concentrated every available fighter for the defence of London, the Heinkels, without fighter escort, were to attack the Royal Navy base at Portland.

For Fighter Command the first indication of the new German thrust came at 3.05 p.m. when the raiders appeared on radar. Plotted just to the north of Cherbourg, the force was designated Raid 50 and assessed at ‘6 plus’ aircraft. The formation was tracked approaching the Dorset coast, but, because of the radar operators’ underestimation of its strength, No. 10 Group’s fighter controllers failed to take the new threat seriously. Thus the bombers were able to reach Portland at 3.30 p.m. and deliver their attack without being intercepted. Considering that the defence at the naval base comprised only a single obsolete 3-in. anti-aircraft gun, and the skies over the target were clear, the raid achieved remarkably little. At the naval base there was minor damage to buildings, two people were killed and fourteen wounded.

Only as the Heinkels were running in to bomb was a flight of six Spitfires of No. 152 Squadron ordered to intercept the raid. The German planes had completed their attack and turned for home before the fighters caught up with them. Pilot Officer Eric Marrs, leading the flight, was over Weymouth when he sighted the German formation. ‘I climbed up to come in behind them from the sun, but they were going faster than I thought. They were in tight formation and they dropped their bombs on Portland Bill from 16,000 feet doing pattern bombing. We then came in on their tails and they turned out to sea. We chased them for about 10 miles, nibbling at the rear end of the formation.’

The Spitfires split into two sections of three, and Pilot Officer O’Brien led his section against a Heinkel straggling some distance behind the formation. The fighters made five separate firing runs on the bomber, inflicting severe damage and setting one of its engines ablaze. The bomber went into a steep dive and crashed into the sea. Only one crew man was rescued.

Marrs led his section in an attack on the Heinkel at the left rear of the formation, then against the bomber on the right rear. Unteroffizier Heinrich Snedel was radio operator and mid-upper gunner in the latter: ‘Three fighters singled us out for attack. Two came in from above and the flight engineer and I engaged them with our machine guns.

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