With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain by Korda Michael

Author:Korda, Michael [Korda, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2009-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

What the Germans had in mind was a vast aerial equivalent of the pincer movement beloved of the German general staff, using, for the first time, the full strength of all three of the Luftflotten simultaneously, including General Stumpff’s Luftflotte 5, which was based in Denmark and Norway. The idea was for Luftflotte 5 to attack targets in northern Britain, while the two larger air fleets in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium made an all-out assault on Fighter Command’s airfields in the south, thus preventing No. 13 and No. 12 Groups from reinforcing No. 11 Group. There were flaws in this strategy, however, some of which the Germans could hardly be expected to perceive.

Contrary to what was supposed in Berlin, No. 12 Group had not so far been supporting No. 11 Group (No. 13 Group was too far north to do so effectively) to any significant degree; in fact, there was already bad blood between Air Vice-Marshal Park and Air Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory on that subject. Park, who had always disliked Leigh-Mallory, felt that the latter had been slow and unwilling to respond to calls for support from No. 11 Group—that Leigh-Mallory was, in effect, deliberately ignoring Dowding’s orders, given at Fighter Command before the battle at the meeting on July 3. He also felt that when No. 12 Group fighters did manage to come to his aid, they ignored the instructions of No. 11 Group’s ground controllers and wandered around in the air over Kent, getting in the way and confusing the controllers. In his own quiet way, Park fumed at Leigh-Mallory’s lack of support, while Leigh-Mallory was nothing like as anxious to send his squadrons into No. 11 Group’s area as the Germans supposed him to be.

Leigh-Mallory, for his part, resented the fact that the action and most of the glamour and awards were going to No. 11 Group, and he had come to the conclusion that Dowding’s tactics (and Park’s strict adherence to them) were in any case completely wrong. He had particularly disliked Dowding’s suggestion—which would have been better presented to him as a firm, written order—that No. 12 Group should come south to protect No. 11 Group’s airfields while No. 11 was engaged in attacking the Germans. This struck him, and his pilots, as a passive, secondary role. He also felt strongly that it would be better to attack the Germans in strength over the Channel with large numbers of aircraft—a “big wing,” as it soon became known, consisting of three to five squadrons under a single commander—rather than to chivy them over land in squadron strength. He did not keep his opinion to himself—indeed, it was quickly passed on (and even more quickly embellished) by Dowding’s numerous enemies at the Air Ministry.

Leigh-Mallory’s theory (which was the exact opposite of what Dowding was so carefully doing) would soon become known throughout Fighter Command as the “big wing controversy,” and Leigh-Mallory’s part in it was a reflection of the anger felt by his own pilots, who saw themselves as being pushed out of the limelight by No.

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