Air Power History by Cox Sebastian;Gray Peter;Overy Richard;

Author:Cox, Sebastian;Gray, Peter;Overy, Richard; [Cox, Sebastian and Gray, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1543039
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

35.See, Sir Edward Spears, Assignment to Catastrophe (Heinemann, London, 1956), p. 183 for a description of the exasperation experienced within the Allied Command Headquarters.

36.The summaries in the AHB Narrative make depressing reading.

37.Relative Air Strength 10 May 1940, German Archive Reference: DS3.

38.See Ursula Powys–Libbe, The Eye of Intelligence (Kimber, London, 1983), pp. 24–5 for the amateur nature of RAF photographic reconnaissance at this stage of the war. The AHB Narrative outlines the strength of 212 Squadron in May 1940 as 1 Ventura, 1 Electra, 1 Spitfire (p. 79).

39.For a more detailed account of the Mechelen Incident, see Philip Warner, The Battle of France 1940 (Cassell, London, 1990), p. 37.

40.The myth was maintained until 1955, when the truth of the Luftwaffe mistake was revealed.

41.See Bekker, Luftwaffe War Diaries, p. 123.

42.For the action on the first day see Horne, To Lose a Battle, Ch. 9 passim.

43.The Battle was armed with a single rearward–facing Lewis gun – the same armament as First World War fighters!

44.Similarly the tactical–level experience gained by Barratt’s crews during the Battle of France was to have a profound effect upon the Battle of Britain. Although not without friction or difficulty, the ‘old sweats’ from France were able to discredit the hallowed peacetime–derived tactical doctrine of Fighter Command – just in time.

45.See Jonathan Bailey, The First World War and the Birth of Modern Warfare (SCSI, Occasional Paper No. 22, Camberley, UK, 1996), for a vivid account of how First World War military planners under–estimated wartime consumption of shells by as much as 10:1.

46.Although accounts vary and give prominence to differing factors, all agree that Goering promised Hitler that the Luftwaffe could ‘finish their job’. At ‘Geschwader’ level, the Luftwaffe was exhausted and the short and internal lines of supply, with which the campaign had commenced, had become long and fractured.

47.See Basil Liddell Hart, The Other Side of the Hill (Pan, London, 1978), p. 174, for an account of the detail of the conference and the ‘vigorous’ discussions between commanders.

48.See Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (Arrow, London, 1990), p. 481, for a description and layout of Corps–level German orders. See Goddard, Skies to Dunkirk, p. 147 for the British equivalent.

49.See Horne, To Lose a Battle, p. 320.

50.Ibid., p. 339.

51.Quoted in Ibid.

52.Ibid.

53.Ibid.

54.AHB Narrative, p. 207.

55.See Richard Holmes, The Fatal Avenue (Pimlico, London, 1996). Holmes’s thesis is that this region of Europe has proved to be a continuous battleground for over 1, 000 years; hence the ‘Fatal Avenue’.

56.Horne, To Lose a Battle, p. 390.

57.Denis Richards, The Royal Air Force 1939–1945, Vol. 1 The Fight at Odds (HMSO, London, 1974), p. 126.

58.See Goddard, Skies to Dunkirk, p. 145 for an account of those desperate days.

59.Sadly, this did not end the misery for the Battle squadrons. The Battle was renowned to be a ‘difficult’ aircraft to fly at night largely because of the sparks and flames emanating from the exhaust of the Merlin engine, which blinded the pilot. This fact combined with desperate and rapid moves to new and unfamiliar airfields, wartime blackout, poor weather and tired

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