The Battle of Britain is a strange one. As a country we romanticise the idea of a few Spitfires holding back an entire invasion. We perpetuate the tale of us good-guy underdog British beating the evil Germans on our own turf, and whilst it was the British that won it, the true reasons for why we won are not always revealed.
Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means belittling the role of the airmen and ground-crew responsible for defending Britain during WWII. Nor am I however prepared to call the Germans evil for their role in the war either, it is what it is at the end of the day, but the Allied war-time propaganda needs to be dispelled, and the mentality of our leadership (Churchill included) at the time of war needs to be exposed. I have no doubt in my mind that if modern day international law is applied, we could quite easily have put the RAF Bomber Command and many of the War Cabinet on charge for crimes against humanity for reasons which will be explained.
This is a difficult one for me to write about. I love aviation, and like for most English people, the image of a Spitfire or Hurricane has a huge emotive response for me. They're much less a flying machine, and more like Nationalistic art-pieces. It's Britain's version of what the Longboat must have been like to a Norse peoples, it's almost in our blood. When you start reading into WWII though, and the intricate details of why certain things happened, the sound of Rolls Royce Merlin engines becomes more of a swan song for the hundreds of thousands that needlessly lost their lives, rather than a National Anthem I once knew it as.
So what is 'the truth' regarding this air war? Well here is where it becomes fairly difficult to pin point exactly where to start writing from. Do I write from the fall of France? Or do I write about the circumstances that led to the invasion of Poland? Or perhaps international finance's outrage at Germany's economic miracle as Hitler led the country out of crippling debt? You could in theory even go back a hundred years ago previous to give a truer detailing of why certain events were happening. In order to keep this post short enough to read in one sitting though, I think we must take the Battle of Britain at face value.
It's fairly prudent to point out though that before the Battle of Britain Hitler had twice offered peace to Churchill which obviously wasn't taken up on. So the entire war by 1940 was totally needless.
So why was the Battle of Britain won by the British? What was the cost of that victory? If you know any of your history you'll understand that the first stage of the battle was Germany's plan to attack the merchant fleet supplying food, fuel and munitions from America and Canada.
The second stage involved the Luftwaffe bombing airfields and factories relevant to the on-going British war effort. It's often stated that had Germany not stopped its tactical bombing of genuine military targets, then the RAF would have been neutralized and Britain would have had to have launched fresh peace-talks with Germany. Arguably it would have been the best outcome that would have saved the lives of millions on both sides of the conflict.
The third stage of the Battle of Britain though is now so ingrained in the psyche of the English, that it makes impartiality rather difficult. Especially for those English who's family lived in London like mine. People tell the tale about the Luftwaffe suddenly stopping its bombing of airfields and aircraft factories, and instead begun the now infamous Blitz of London. The suffering of the British civilians therefore became a turning point for the war because it did two things. First, it took the strain off of the battle-weary Fighter Command and secondly, it silenced the anti-war lobby in Britain and gave Churchill and the War Cabinet justification for perpetuating a war which the politicians were so keen to wage.
So why did the Germans start bombing English cities then?
At the start of the campaign against Britain, Hitler had at first wanted to prevent as much destruction to civilian property as was feasibly possible. His original orders were:
The war against England is to be restricted to destructive attacks against industry and air force targets which have weak defensive forces ... The most thorough study of the target concerned, that is vital points of the target, is a pre-requisite for success. It is also stressed that every effort should be made to avoid unnecessary loss of life amongst the civilian population.
Officially, the British had also had the same rules of engagement initially, but the the disastrous day-time bombing results early in the war with out of date aircraft like the Bristol Blenheim had meant that indiscriminate night bombing raids were the only option left to Bomber command. It is clear that British propaganda at the time tried its utmost to justify all future operations against Germany's civilian population by manufacturing outrage in the British public.
The 'gloves came off' in regards to Britain's bomber targets when Germany had sought control of the strategic city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, shortly after the fall of much of France. The British war cabinet used the German bombing of Rotterdam and the death of Dutch civilians to justify the deliberate bombing of German cities later on, but the facts about the German assault on the city were totally twisted by the World media.
In reality, Germany had wanted to take Rotterdam without the need of any unnecessary violence, but the Dutch leadership at the time refused to hand the city over or accept surrender, despite having no anti-aircraft capabilities, fighter aircraft or armoured fighting vehicles to defend the city from the German forces. The Dutch were asked a second time on the 14th of May 1940, and given an ultimatum, but due to a communication break-down, a squadron of He.111's bombed the city earlier than what they should have (some of the bombers had received a stand-down message and returned, whilst others didn't.) All in all, 900 dutch civilians and armed forces were killed in the bombing. The World media however deliberately gave false reports on the bombing, claiming that 30,000 civilians had died when in fact most of the civilians had already fled days before any bombs fell anywhere near the city. Whilst 900 deaths is a tragedy, it is a far-cry from the carnage that had been reported in the news.
The Rotterdam raid had given the British War Cabinet the justification needed to launch an offensive bombing campaign against the German mainland. Since daylight bombing operations had proved unsuccessful during initial attacks 1939 and early 1940, Bomber command instead concentrated on night attacks. On the 15th of May 1940, a day after the bombing of Rotterdam, 99 bomber aircraft, most likely a large component of Hampden bombers, started the first of many night-time raids on Germany. This initial raid saw the RAF striking industrial regions in the Ruhr area, but due to the difficulties acquiring targets in the dark, many of the bombs that would have been dropped would have failed to have hit anything of military value. The lack of aiming capabilities would have seen a great deal of civilian collateral damage. The RAF that night were given orders to return home by flying over Rotterdam, presumably to drive home the"30,000 deaths" propaganda to the bomber crews and to avoid the RAF aircrews from feeling guilty about their own hand in killing German civilians. Fires were still visible in many areas of Rotterdam for a few days after the raid, and would have left and impression on those young men.
‘The attack on the Ruhr was therefore an informal invitation to the Luftwaffe to bomb London. The primary purpose of these raids was to goad the Germans into undertaking reprisal raids of a similar character on Britain. Such raids would arouse intense indignation in Britain against Germany and so create a war psychosis without which it would be impossible to carry on a modern war.’
~The Royal Air Force, 1939-1945, The Fight at Odds, p. 122. Dennis Richards, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
As you look at the raiding timeline for both countries throughout the battle of Britain, a pattern emerges.
The RAF dropped bombs in a totally haphazard way in pitch black, often inflicting civilian deaths in Kiel, Wilshelmhaven, Dortmund, Bremen, Gelsenkirchen, Kassel, Dusseldorf, Wismar, Hamm, Soest and Essen. These raids all occurred before the 1st of August 1940, happening before the blitz on civilian targets like those on London and Coventry. The Germans did not start deliberate attacks on civilian targets arguably until 24th of August, and not in earnest until the 7th of September when the Luftwaffe swapped over completely to night-time city raids like it's RAF opponent.
The problem is, whilst it would be easy to say that the British establishment regretted the deaths of German civilians, the truth is actually rather more insidious. Rather than the German civilian deaths being regrettable, it was actually mostly the War Cabinets ultimate goal.
Whilst the Luftwaffe for the most part used day-time raids for accurate attacks on legitimate targets like airfields, shipping and radar towers, the RAF were bombing in the dead of night on highly populated areas, albeit in the pursuit of hitting legitimate targets. As the weeks went on however, the losses the Luftwaffe was suffering with did mean some bombing operations were now taking place at night. In the early hours of the 24th of August, a small number of German bombers dropped their bombs over a London suburb killing a number of civilians. There are still debates about whether or not this attack was accidental or not, but judging by the small number of bombs dropped, it seems unlikely that Londoners were the deliberate target. This situation seems to have been the catalyst that enabled the British war cabinet to unleash attacks on Berlin without any real consideration for, or premise of finding legitimate targets once over Germany. On the 25th of August, the RAF sent around a 100 aircraft to bomb Berlin in retaliation for the handful of He111s which had dropped bombs on London the day before.
Despite the Luftwaffe's attempts to minimise civilian casualties, the RAF bomber command had a totally different strategy up until that point in late August 1940. Granted, civilian deaths had taken place on both sides of the conflict, but you have to consider the fact that it was the German forces that were launching day-light raids throughout most of the Battle of Britain whilst the RAF had launched attacks inefficiently at night-time. You cannot really compare the daylight carpet bombing of an airfield, or a precision strike from a Stuka on a radar base with that of random night-time raid over a populated area.
Although the plan adopted by the Luftwaffe early September had mentioned attacks on the population of large cities, detailed records of the raids made during the autumn and the winter of 1940–41 does not suggest that indiscriminate bombing of the civilians was intended. The points of aim selected were largely factories and docks. Other objectives specifically allotted to bomber-crews included the City of London and the governmental quarter round Whitehall.
~Basil Collier
Churchill and his advisers like Frederick Lindemann became blood thirsty in their vendetta against not the National Socialist state, but the German people themselves. The tactic for Allied bombing was not to directly bomb the enemy factories, but instead to bomb the residential area where the factory worker lived, thus creating not only disruption to the factory but also a psychological element against the local communities, and the disruption caused by the need to dig out and relocate the survivors from such attacks.
‘I am in full agreement [with terror bombing]. I am all for the bombing of working class areas in German cities. I am a Cromwellian – I believe in slaying in the name of the Lord!’
~Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary for Air.
Beliefs like Sinclair's were not uncommon in the War Cabinet and bomber command, and the process of wiping out entire residential areas by Allied bombers only got more prolific and efficient throughout the war.Throughout the Battle of Britain, the British Government went out of their way to create a situation where civilians on both sides of the war paid the price for the ineptitude of their statesmanship. Over the course of three months, they eventually goaded Germany into retaliating with indiscriminate attacks on London and other English cities for two reasons. Firstly, to create a war-frenzy in the British people and in sympathetic countries such as America and secondly, to use British civilians as a form of shield for the RAF and war factories. It it often quipped that had the Luftwaffe continued its campaign against key military targets instead of swapping to 'the blitz', that the Royal Air Force would have been defeated and Operation Sealion a legitimate concern the UK.
‘Hitler only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets reluctantly three months after the RAF had commenced bombing German civilian targets. Hitler would have been willing at any time to stop the slaughter. Hitler was genuinely anxious to reach with Britain an agreement confining the action of aircraft to battle zones... Retaliation was certain if we carried the war into Germany... there was a reasonable possibility that our capital and industrial centres would not have been attacked if we had continued to refrain from attacking those of Germany... We began to bomb objectives on the German mainland before the Germans began to bomb objectives on the British mainland... Because we were doubtful about the psychological effect of propagandist distortion of the truth that it was we who started the strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great decision of May 11th, 1940, the publicity it deserves.’
~J.M. Spaight, CB, CBE, Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry, Bombing Vindicated.
Whilst the war was totally avoidable, the civilian losses incurred by both sides in the war (and it has to be said, the German's losses far exceed our own) were even easier to negate had both sides been capable of restraint and diplomacy. The reasons why our own Bomber campaign during the Battle of Britain is seldom mentioned, and the role Fighter Command romanticised beyond all comprehension is merely to keep up the victim mentality. This victim complex to this day still brainwashes the World into believing'reprisal' attacks like those committed against Dresden and Berlin were justified, when in reality such actions could never in any way be considered morally defensible.
Once again, in writing this it is not my intention to belittle the efforts of those RAF servicemen who gave or risked their lives in defence of their country. Or even those bomber crews who no doubt were tricked into believing that what they were doing was justified. My intention is to put the record straight, to point out that Governments lie and also to point out just how powerful propaganda can be even several decades later.
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