"With Wings Like Eagles" - Michael Korda

Above: With Wings Like Eagles - Michael Korda - 322 pages. I completed reading this book today, 03 November 2022.

Winston Churchill memorably said about the Battle of Britain, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Context.

The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of WWII in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) was the key element in defending the United Kingdom against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. The battle lasted from 10 July 1940 to 31 October 1940. The period overlaps the large-scale night attacks by the Luftwaffe on Britain known as the Blitz, that lasted from 07 September 1940 to 11 May 1941. The reason for the 31 October date being used for the end of the Battle of Britain is that at that point the possibility for Hitler to launch a sea invasion of Britain had ended due to winter weather impediments.

Chronology

After Germany's defeat of France in June 1940, Hitler expected the UK to sue for peace, but Britain was determined to fight on. Hitler responded by preparing for invasion of the UK, Operation Sea Lion. For an invasion to succeed, Germany needed control of the skies over southern England. A sustained air assault by the Luftwaffe would achieve the decisive victory needed to make Sealion a possibility, or so the Germans thought.
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The RAF had become an independent branch of the British armed forces in 1918. Although it developed slowly in the years following the First World War, it went through a period of rapid expansion in the latter half of the 1930s – largely in response to the growing threat from Nazi Germany. In July 1936, RAF Fighter Command was established under the leadership of Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding.

The British developed an air defense network that would give them a critical advantage in the Battle of Britain. The Dowding System named for Fighter Command’s Commander-in-Chief Sir Hugh Dowding – brought together technology such as radar, ground defenses and fighter aircraft into a unified system of defense. The RAF organized the defense of Britain into four geographical areas, called ‘Groups’, which were further divided into sectors. The main fighter airfield in each sector – the ‘Sector Station’ – was equipped with an operations room from which the fighters were directed into combat.

The Germans began by attacking coastal targets and British shipping operating in the English Channel. They launched their main offensive on 13 August. Attacks moved inland, concentrating on airfields and communications centers. Fighter Command offered stiff resistance, despite coming under enormous pressure. During the last week of August and the first week of September, in what would be the critical phase of the battle, the Germans intensified their efforts to destroy Fighter Command. Airfields, particularly those in the south-east, were significantly damaged but most remained operational. On 31 August, Fighter Command suffered its worst day of the battle. But the Luftwaffe was overestimating the damage it was inflicting and wrongly came to the conclusion that the RAF was on its last legs. Fighter Command was bruised but not broken.

Nearly 3,000 men of the RAF took part in the Battle of Britain – those who Winston Churchill called ‘The Few’. While most of the pilots were British, Fighter Command was an International Force. Men came from all over the Commonwealth and occupied Europe – from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Belgium, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia. There were some pilots from the neutral United States and Ireland.

Many people in addition to Churchill’s ‘Few’ worked to defend Britain. Ground crew – including riggers, fitters, armorers, and repair and maintenance engineers – looked after the aircraft. Factory workers helped keep aircraft production up. The Observer Corps tracked incoming raids – its tens of thousands of volunteers ensured that the 1,000 observation posts were continuously manned. Anti-aircraft gunners, searchlight operators and barrage balloon crews all played vital roles in Britain’s defense. Members of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) served as radar operators and worked as plotters, tracking raids in the group and sector operations rooms. The Local Defense Volunteers (later the Home Guard) had been set up in May 1940 as a ‘last line of defense’ against German invasion. By July, nearly 1.5 million men had enrolled.

During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe was dealt an almost lethal blow from which it never fully recovered. Although Fighter Command suffered heavy losses and was often outnumbered during actual engagements, the British outproduced the Germans and maintained a level of aircraft production that helped them withstand their losses. The Luftwaffe, with its lack of heavy bombers and failure to fully identify critically important targets, never inflicted strategically significant damage. It suffered from constant supply problems, largely as a result of underachievement in aircraft production. Germany’s failure to defeat the RAF and secure control of the skies over southern England made invasion all but impossible. British victory in the Battle of Britain was decisive, but ultimately defensive in nature – in avoiding defeat, Britain secured one of its most significant victories of the Second World War. It was able to stay in the war and lived to fight another day.

Selected Takeaways and Anecdotes

Dowding "stepped out of line" in early June 1940 when he questioned, publicly, Churchill's eagerness to send more and more RAF squadrons to France to stall the Nazi's. RAF squadrons which were sent to France did not fare well. The controversy raised the question of how to deploy finite resources when a country is under threat. In the end, Churchill held back sufficient planes to address the initial assaults by Goering and the Luftwaffe on Britain. Lord Beaverbrook, who headed Spitfire and Hurricane production, kept the plane production line running to enable the squadrons up to strength. Churchill praised Dowding as a hero when he wrote his memoirs eight years after the war, but Churchill and Dowding relations during the war were always chilly.

Dowding's relationship with his peers was unfriendly. Dowding was a spiritualist. He was not always perceived as an officer who went with the cultural and RAF institutional flow of his fellow officers.

Early chapters of the book describe the development and technology of the planes, both German and British, used to fight the war. There were trade-offs. Machine guns or cannon? Four cannon or two cannon? Weapons configurations have important implications for speed and maneuverability of the planes.

The British, notwithstanding many civilians and military injured and killed under the onslaught of the Germans, remained upbeat and optimistic during the war. There was a high level of citizen mutual cooperation when the population was under duress.

One hundred women fliers transported the Spitfires and Hurricanes from the factory to the airfields.

There were three US pilots. All were killed in combat.

Dowding's four fighter groups were headed by air force generals who did not always get along. Dowding was taxed with a challenging managerial problem of getting planes where they were needed notwithstanding subordinate resistance. And Dowding needed to be perceptive enough to understand when peers and subordinates were trying to undermine him. He was not always successful at using this sixth sense. The book is good... comprehensive on such managerial dynamics.

Korda's Contribution

Korda expertly and readably recreates the intensity of combat in the sky above southern England and traces the complex web of political, diplomatic, scientific, industrial, and human decisions that led inexorably to the world’s first, greatest, and most decisive air battle. Winston Churchill memorably said about the Battle of Britain, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Bishop Observation

The Battle of Britain can be seen as one of the most important battles of WWII. Had the battle been lost, and Operation Sealion been authorized by Hitler, likely Hitler's invasion of the USSR would not have been attempted. This would have affected the outcome of WWII. Britain would have been under Hitler's thumb and the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact might have been sustained to, at least for a while, keep the German peace with Russia.