Their Finest Hour by Winston S. Churchill

Author:Winston S. Churchill [Churchill, Winston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Europe, Britain; Battle of; Great Britain; 1940, World War II, Diplomatic history, World War; 1939-1945, World War; 1939-1945 - Diplomatic history, World War; 1939-1945 - Campaigns - France, France - History - 1914-1940, General, Campaigns, Historical, Churchill; Winston, Biography & Autobiography, Military, France, History
ISBN: 9780395410561
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, [1985], c1949.
Published: 1986-04-11T02:22:37.033000+00:00

Their Finest Hour

465

That he’d followed the moans,

And, led by their tones,

Found a Raven a-picking a Drummer-boy’s bones!

When Mr. Jones had finished, there was a general air of incredulity. One high authority asked why the Germans should use a beam, assuming that such a thing was possible, when they had at their disposal all the ordinary facilities of navigation. Above twenty thousand feet the stars were nearly always visible. All our own pilots were laboriously trained in navigation, and it was thought they found their way about and to their targets very well. Others round the table appeared concerned.

I will now explain in the kind of terms which I personally can understand how the German beam worked and how we twisted it. Like the searchlight beam, the radio beam cannot be made very sharp; it tends to spread; but if what is called the “split-beam” method is used, considerable accuracy can be obtained. Let us imagine two searchlight beams parallel one to another, both flickering in such a way that the left-hand beam comes on exactly when the right-hand beam goes out, and vice versa. If an attacking aircraft was exactly in the centre between the two beams, the pilot’s course would be continuously illuminated; but if it got, say, a little bit to the right, nearer the centre of the right-hand beam, this would become the stronger and the pilot would observe the flickering light, which was no guide. By keeping in the position where he avoided the flickerings, he would be flying exactly down the middle, where the light from both beams is equal. And this middle path would guide him to Their Finest Hour

466

the target. Two split beams from two stations could be arranged to cross over any town in the Midlands or Southern England. The German airman had only to fly along one beam until he detected the second, and then to drop his bombs. Q.E.D.!

This was the principle of the split beam and the celebrated

“Knickebein” apparatus, upon which Goering founded his hopes, and the Luftwaffe were taught to believe that the bombing of English cities could be maintained in spite of cloud, fog, and darkness, and with all the immunity, alike from guns and intercepting fighters, which these gave to the attacker. With their logical minds and deliberate large-scale planning, the German High Air Command staked their fortunes in this sphere on a device which, like the magnetic mine, they thought would do us in. Therefore, they did not trouble to train the ordinary bomber pilots, as ours had been trained, in the difficult art of navigation. A far simpler and surer method, lending itself to drill and large numbers, producing results wholesale by irresistible science, attracted alike their minds and their nature. The German pilots followed the beam as the German people followed the Fuehrer. They had nothing else to follow.

But, duly forewarned, and acting on the instant, the simple British had the answer. By erecting the proper stations in good time in our own country we could jam the beam.

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