Dowding and Churchill: The Dark Side of the Battle of Britain by J.E.G. Dixon

Author:J.E.G. Dixon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781844685783
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2009-04-21T07:00:00+00:00

The author concludes the episode with the laconic note: ‘Churchill,’ she added, ‘seemed satisfied with the reply.’ A politician who had once been Secretary of State for Air and who had a interest in air matters and defence, and furthermore who hoped to play further important roles in government, would not have been satisfied with the reply. He would have pursued the problem with probing questions: how many stations? How many fighters? Where to locate them? How to identify attacking enemy aircraft? Who is the enemy, and from which direction would they come? Do our fighters have a performance superior to the enemy’s bombers?

Yet, two years later, when unveiling a plaque to Lawrence’s memory at the Oxford High School for Boys, Churchill said: ‘He saw as clearly as anyone the vision of Air power and all that it would mean in traffic and war.’iv But even then, Churchill did not take up the study of air power, and did not acquire the vision that could be translated into wise decisions. He remained essentially an Army man, and saw war largely through the optics of Army men.

Another episode is equally telling. In another chapter we recount a scene in which Churchill visits Park’s headquarters and sees for himself how the early warning system works. When all 11 Group’s squadrons are airborne Churchill asks about reserves. This question shows his preoccupations to be those of Army men: that is to say, with back-up forces. A month earlier he had delivered his famous speech about ‘the Few’. Here again is the Army man seeing the action in terms of the individual soldier – or, in this context, the fighter pilot, who glowed in Churchill’s eyes as the epitome of chivalry, the worthy successor of the cavalryman.

Churchill’s appointment of his old Liberal Party friend and Army colleague to the vital portfolio of the Air Ministry was not wise. Sinclair knew less about the air than Churchill, and never mastered his job. Sinclair’s biographer has claimed that Churchill’s appointment of Anthony Eden as Secretary of State for War, and of Sinclair to the Air Ministry, was tantamount to announcing that he intended to make all the strategic decisions affecting the war himself – secure in the conviction that they would not dispute or contest him. And Churchill’s ‘direction’ of the war was far from rational. ‘Churchill’s haphazard leadership was made all the more anarchic by his mercurial nature. Ad hoc advisers like “Prof” Lindemann competed with ministers and civil servants for his attention. “Insiders” clashed violently with “outsiders” [to whom we may add the name of Beaverbrook], clashes which Churchill frequently encouraged … Suspicion, animosity and intrigue were rife, and petty jealousy came to affect grand policy.’v

Sinclair was out of his depth with Dowding, even more than Newall was. The Air Ministry was a hotbed of intrigue and Sinclair did not come to grips with the problems his appointment caused, he may not even have been aware of the problems. He depended entirely on his Air Council colleagues, and some senior officers on the Air Staff, for advice and decisions.

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