Battle of Britain - 80yrs Ago This Summer - Discussion Thread

pbehn said:

*SNIP*

However by 1941 Leigh Mallory was in charge so it would probably be over in a week.

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Yeah, what was up with that guy? How did he stay in power and have so much influence for so long? Politics? Someone please enlighten the dull guy on the forum.

Peter Gunn said:

Yeah, what was up with that guy? How did he stay in power and have so much influence for so long? Politics? Someone please enlighten the dull guy on the forum.

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Where do you start? He wanted to fight the war that Kesselring wanted. Spending his time forming up big wings that were always too late too low and too close together, they would be bounced 9 times out of 10 and someone else would be to blame but on the tenth day he would claim 250 enemy aircraft shot down and vindicate his strategy. He was a heady combination of ambition, incompetence, recklessness and self regard, his demise was almost poetic justice , just a pity he took others with him.

pbehn said:

his demise was almost poetic justice , just a pity he took others with him.

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Rather remarkable that he and his brother, the mountain climber George Mallory ended their lives at their own means on snowy mountains - George dying on the side of Everest in 1924. An interesting wee tidbit of information, Trafford and his brother had their father Herbert's middle name Leigh, which in 1914 their father hyphenated with his surname, to become Leigh-Mallory. George however preferred to be known as George Mallory, rather than adopt the hyphen, as his younger brother Trafford did, which suited his temperament.

By 1941, The British army will have recovered, too, meaning an invading force would have to be several times stronger in land forces, meaning in turn a singificantly larger amount of naval transport would be needed.

The other problem with Germany re-enacting the BoB, with Sealion as its driver a year later was Barbarossa. With the Blitz against British cities having eased a month earlier, Hitler had the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe turn east by June 1941.

Dowding had an opportunity to replace Leigh_Mallory in October 1938, and he failed to do so. He had another in August 1939, and again failed to act. Finally, he never intervened effectively in The 'Big Wing' debate allowing Leigh-Mallory and his clique of disloyal RAF officers (Bader, MacDonald, Kingston-McCloughry) and ill informed or hostile officers at the Air ministry (Sholto-Douglas, Sinclair, Salmond et alter), politicians (Balfour, Ward) and even Trenchard himself, to engineer his own removal in November. Dowding has to accept some of the blame.

Dowding should have gone in late 1940 or early 1941 at the latest, but not in the way he did historically.

deleted

pbehn said:

did you mean Leigh Mallory?

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Yep, I'll edit my post....thanks

nuuumannn said:

Rather remarkable that he and his brother, the mountain climber George Mallory ended their lives at their own means on snowy mountains - George dying on the side of Everest in 1924. An interesting wee tidbit of information, Trafford and his brother had their father Herbert's middle name Leigh, which in 1914 their father hyphenated with his surname, to become Leigh-Mallory. George however preferred to be known as George Mallory, rather than adopt the hyphen, as his younger brother Trafford did, which suited his temperament.

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Hi

I am not quite sure what is meant by "ended their lives at their own means", L-M was a passenger in the Avro York that crashed in the Alps.
However, the problem when trying to get at the question of what people were like we always find different views, for example the air ace Johnnie Johnson said [reference 1943, but from a longer quote] that:

"L-M was very much a "fatherly" figure and at his best when he held conferences with his young "wing leaders", because he did not pretend to know about fighter tactics and relied on us to keep him up to date."

Maybe this was the problem, that he 'listened' to the 'young practitioners of air combat', in this case Johnson but during the BoB, Bader and others of 12 Group squadrons? Interestingly people would normally be criticised for not listening.

We should also be aware that he was unlikely to have been 'stupid' after all he was the man who literally 'wrote the book' on air/tank co-operation during WW1 and appears to have been quite 'forward thinking' and also commanded the RAF 'School of Army Co-operation in the late 1920s. I suspect, that like many of us, he was rather more complex than being 'liked' or 'disliked'.

Mike

MikeMeech said:

I am not quite sure what is meant by "ended their lives at their own means", L-M was a passenger in the Avro York that crashed in the Alps.

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Supposedly despite inclement weather and against the pilot's wishes, he ordered the scheduled flight to proceed.

EDIT - re: wiki: A court of inquiry found that the accident was a consequence of bad weather and might have been avoided if Leigh-Mallory had not insisted that the flight proceed in such poor conditions against the advice of his aircrew.

MikeMeech said:

Hi

I am not quite sure what is meant by "ended their lives at their own means", L-M was a passenger in the Avro York that crashed in the Alps.
However, the problem when trying to get at the question of what people were like we always find different views, for example the air ace Johnnie Johnson said [reference 1943, but from a longer quote] that:

"L-M was very much a "fatherly" figure and at his best when he held conferences with his young "wing leaders", because he did not pretend to know about fighter tactics and relied on us to keep him up to date."

Maybe this was the problem, that he 'listened' to the 'young practitioners of air combat', in this case Johnson but during the BoB, Bader and others of 12 Group squadrons? Interestingly people would normally be criticised for not listening.

We should also be aware that he was unlikely to have been 'stupid' after all he was the man who literally 'wrote the book' on air/tank co-operation during WW1 and appears to have been quite 'forward thinking' and also commanded the RAF 'School of Army Co-operation in the late 1920s. I suspect, that like many of us, he was rather more complex than being 'liked' or 'disliked'.

Mike

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From wiki "A court of inquiry found that the accident was a consequence of bad weather and might have been avoided if Leigh-Mallory had not insisted that the flight proceed in such poor conditions against the advice of his aircrew."

He listened far too much to Bader who wanted to fight and get at the enemy but in his own way. He may loved being at the head of 5 squadrons touring about looking for the enemy but he frequently took them out of the game completely and left airfields unprotected. When they did engage the enemy they were so concentrated that they all went for the same planes and were in danger of collision. Leigh Mallory should have toured the countryside once or twice looking for the planes his group supposedly shot down. He fatherly approach probably resulted in him keeping people he knew best and transferring the least experienced and vulnerable to 11 group as replacements, the ones with the least chance of survival. L-M and Bader believed their claims and so believed in their strategy.

MikeMeech said:

L-M was a passenger in the Avro York that crashed in the Alps.

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...the pilot of which he instructed to take off despite the pilot expressing a desire not to owing to inclement weather en route. A decision that cost him his life as well as that of his family and the air crew aboard the aircraft.

MikeMeech said:

Hi

We should also be aware that he was unlikely to have been 'stupid' after all he was the man who literally 'wrote the book' on air/tank co-operation during WW1 and appears to have been quite 'forward thinking' and also commanded the RAF 'School of Army Co-operation in the late 1920s. I suspect, that like many of us, he was rather more complex than being 'liked' or 'disliked'.

Mike

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He was a very competent officer, but he did not understand air defence in the 1930s. He simply had not moved with the times, which makes one wonder not how he came to be in command of one of Fighter Command's Groups, but why he remained so.
For example, in October 1938 Leigh-Mallory sent Park a memorandum about the air defence of Britain, north of London. It was essentially his plan for this defence. It was based on the 'startling assumption', as Park told Dowding, that Britain would continue to be defended by slow, lightly armed biplane fighters (this was 1938). It emphasised local defence at the expense of area defence and showed no appreciation of the advantage gained by the recent extension of the searchlight area, or improved wireless communications. To implement his plan for this defence he asked for 29 of the command's squadrons, leaving just 12 for London and none for the rest of Britain.
Dowding's comment that Leigh-Mallory's plan 'shows a misconception of the basic ideas of fighter defence' was true. He should have sought Leigh-Mallory's replacement then and there, because whatever his other abilities, the capability to organise and lead the defence of an important area of Britain's airspace was not one of them

Peter Gunn said:

Yeah, what was up with that guy? How did he stay in power .

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Also he met Tedder at Cambridge university literary club, they possibly shared an interest in the Pre Raphaelites and claret.

pbehn said:

Also he met Tedder at Cambridge university literary club, they possibly shared an interest in the Pre Raphaelites and claret.

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Leigh-Mallory developed an interest in the supernatural and spiritualism, within which he had an ally in Dowding, who believed in reincarnation and other spiritual concepts - odd, but true.

MikeMeech said:

Maybe this was the problem, that he 'listened' to the 'young practitioners of air combat', in this case Johnson but during the BoB, Bader and others of 12 Group squadrons? Interestingly people would normally be criticised for not listening.

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I don't wish to turn this into a pissing match, but let's not forget that Leigh-Mallory was not the only Group commander that inspired loyalty in his men - Park was enormously popular among his station commanders and squadron leaders alike, visiting 'his' airfields in his own personal Hawker Hurricane while wearing white overalls, a practise he continued once he reached Malta.

A mock-up of Park's first Hurricane, Mk.I P3854 'OK-1' at the entrance to the Sir Keith Park Memorial Airfield at the Museum of Transport and Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.

P3854 iii

stona said:

He was a very competent officer, but he did not understand air defence in the 1930s. He simply had not moved with the times, which makes one wonder not how he came to be in command of one of Fighter Command's Groups, but why he remained so.
For example, in October 1938 Leigh-Mallory sent Park a memorandum about the air defence of Britain, north of London. It was essentially his plan for this defence. It was based on the 'startling assumption', as Park told Dowding, that Britain would continue to be defended by slow, lightly armed biplane fighters (this was 1938). It emphasised local defence at the expense of area defence and showed no appreciation of the advantage gained by the recent extension of the searchlight area, or improved wireless communications. To implement his plan for this defence he asked for 29 of the command's squadrons, leaving just 12 for London and none for the rest of Britain.
Dowding's comment that Leigh-Mallory's plan 'shows a misconception of the basic ideas of fighter defence' was true. He should have sought Leigh-Mallory's replacement then and there, because whatever his other abilities, the capability to organise and lead the defence of an important area of Britain's airspace was not one of them

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Hi

This quote appears in 'Sir Keith Park' by Vincent Orange (p.78) and 'Dowding of Fighter Command' (p.145) by the same author. The first book is is not referenced, the second references VO's Park book and another piece by the same author. The original report would be nice to have, so if anyone has access to it please could they tell us where it is?

Also the actual quote contains some problems, it is supposed to be dated October 1938 and at this time Fighter Command did not have 41 Squadrons it had 30 in September 1938 (19 in 11 Group and 11 in 12 Group)! Three squadrons were fully equipped with Hurricanes (111, 56 and 87) in 11 Group and one in 12 Group (73), No. 85 was re-equipping with Hurricanes from Gladiators in the former Group while No. 19 was changing to Spitfires from Gauntlets in the latter. (data from p.32 of ,RAF Fighter Command' by Norman Franks). Except for some Blenheim 1fs joining 600 Sqn. the rest were equipped with Gladiators, Gauntlets, Fury and Demon fighters. According to 'Fighter Command War Diaries Part 1' by John Foreman (pp. 14-15), Fighter Command did have 41 Squadrons on 3rd September, 1939. Also while the extension of the searchlight area may help in night defence it did not help much in the day and there were still some problems with communication systems which lingered into the Battle of Britain, especially over the change from HF to VHF (this is mentioned in Dowding's 'Battle of Britain Despatch' para. 218). I find the quote 'odd' which is why the original report would be useful to see the whole context of it and not just take VO's word for it!

I am not here to 'defend' L-M but we all need to be aware that what we read from any source may not be fully verified.

Mike

I found this, its a good read. The "Big Wing" Controversy and Hugh Downing's Fall From Grace - Warfare History Network

And this by a poster called Archimedes on another forum.
You have to remember in all of this that Churchill was deeply concerned in late 1940 that the Germans would come back in the Spring of 1941 - although there were, of course, hints that the USSR was the first target. When the first few weeks of the campaign in the East went as they did, that concern mounted. What if Stalin caved in (or was overthrown and his replacements negotiated a surrender)? What access to resources would Germany have? Would India be threatened on Germany's behalf? Would we see a resumption of operations against the UK?

Opening a second front to keep the Soviets in the war became an issue, but there was only - really - one thing to do, and that was attack from the air. And to worry about what happened next if the Soviets lost.

Churchill refused to allow Spitfires to leave the UK. They were the only aircraft we had, in 1941, that could compete on equal terms with the Me 109E. The Hurricane was recognised as being more suited to fighter operations against lesser opponents (the Italians) and thus those coming off the production lines were sent off to the Middle East (remember, no German forces there to start with) or reserved for fighter operations - or more accurately, fighter bomber operations. The Airacobras from the US turned out to be quite unsuited for operations (at least in Western Europe; the air war in the East played out differently) and only one squadron (601) was equipped with them. They were sent to Russia as part of British aid.

The P-40 (initially the Tomahawk [P-40B/C] and Kittyhawk [P-40D onwards]) were equally unsuited for operations at the sort of altitudes air combat took place at in Western Europe. Those which did make it to squadron service in the UK went to Army Cooperation Command for fighter-recce tasks, but were replaced once the Mustang (pre-Merlin) became available.

The Typhoon was delayed (and turned out to be better at low and medium altitudes because of the thick wing).

And the Buffalo was so unsuited for ops, it went to the Far East where there wasn't, at that point, a war from the start. There is, again, a bit of a myth about Brooke-Popham blithely accepting them because the Japanese were myopic, buck-toothed fools who didn't fly at night, but that's not entirely relevant here.

So the reason you have all those Spitfire squadrons sitting around looking for something to do is that Churchill wants them for Battle of Britain Part 2. He's not going to release them. Douglas, as the AOC, is also going to worry (and does worry - the evidence is there) that the squadrons will start to lose their edge if they're not doing something. That means they're going to have to go to the Germans, as the latter won't come to them.

You also have to remember that Leigh-Mallory was the rising star of the RAF. He was given 12 Group because it was meant to be the Group that bore the brunt of any German attack. Why? Because France wasn't meant to surrender, so the Germans wouldn't be coming from the South/South East. That's why 11 Gp, as constituted, covered all of southern England: to give it depth. When the axis of attack changed, 11 Gp was over-stretched and 10 Gp was formed. It's often forgotten that 10 Gp wasn't in fact extant until early June 1940, when it was clear that the cunning plan was wrong. Park wasn't meant to face the brunt of the German assault - the more senior commander (LM) was meant to.

This was partly why, having thought about how to smash a German attack coming in from over the North Sea, LM thought Big Wings were a decent idea - because they would have had time to form up against the threat coming in from that direction. What he forgot to factor in - partly because Bader was harassing him about getting into the action and because LM was tolerant of his squadron commanders in a way Dowding never would've been, so he pressed the point - was that the time factor was against him, and that taking time to form up in the face of an aggressive OCA campaign wasn't a good idea, as Park kept pointing out to him. The irony is that Park did use wings - he had tried to do so where possible to support DYNAMO, and decent results had been obtained, albeit on a limited basis. Dowding failed to resolve the differences between LM and Park, although these really came to a head as the day Battle was winding down.

At the end of the Battle of Britain, as I've said on here before, Dowding was removed - inelegantly - in no small part because his fellow senior officers thought he was cracking up (when the AOC-in-C tells you he's been talking to dead people and has real, live fairies living at the bottom of his garden, the chances are you'll be of the view that maybe he needs to be moved on), but largely because Sinclair and Beaverbrook, supporters for so long, came to the view that his handling of night air defence was sub-optimal and he had to go. Douglas was put in because of his pushing views on attempting to deal with the Blitz which did not throw out Dowding's, but which recognised that something had to be done to at least say 'we are taking the fight to the Hun at night', which Dowding's approach (wait for AI to arrive, and then Beaufighters) didn't.

Park was knackered and his removal, although cast as LM hunting for glory (and I think there was an element of that) and Douglas getting shot of Dowding's loyal lieutenant lest he be awakward (again, some truth), was in fact very wise. He needed a rest and putting him in Training Command to prepare fighter pilots for the anticipated 2nd round of the Battle was not, in fact, a stupid idea. Park later grudgingly admitted that the decision was probably correct and that he'd have been no good after late 1941 had he stayed on.

Once the Battle of Britain was over, though, Leigh-Mallory and Douglas (not Portal exactly as it was a decision for the AOC, although obviously Portal could've countermanded) wondered how to keep their Command's combat edge rather than simply flying around over the UK while the War Office agitated for the Spitfires Churchill wouldn't release...

Going on the offensive fitted in with all the extant doctrine of all the major powers (even the supposed 'handmaid of the army' that was the Luftwaffe) and it appealed to Churchill who thought having fighters seen over France, Belgium and the Netherlands would be good for the morale of the locals. Once the USSR had been attacked, the Ramrods, Circuses, Rodeos and Rhubarbs were part - along with the Bomber Offensive - of Churchill's aerial 2nd front, with the fighter sweeps being intended to keep the Luftwaffe's fighters in the west.

stona said:

For example, in October 1938 Leigh-Mallory sent Park a memorandum about the air defence of Britain, north of London. It was essentially his plan for this defence. It was based on the 'startling assumption', as Park told Dowding, that Britain would continue to be defended by slow, lightly armed biplane fighters (this was 1938). It emphasised local defence at the expense of area defence and showed no appreciation of the advantage gained by the recent extension of the searchlight area, or improved wireless communications. To implement his plan for this defence he asked for 29 of the command's squadrons, leaving just 12 for London and none for the rest of Britain.
Dowding's comment that Leigh-Mallory's plan 'shows a misconception of the basic ideas of fighter defence' was true. He should have sought Leigh-Mallory's replacement then and there, because whatever his other abilities, the capability to organise and lead the defence of an important area of Britain's airspace was not one of them

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Hi
Further to my previous comments the October 1938 'Memorandum' with its 41 squadrons, it also does not match the rearmament schemes details for that year at all. Pre the alleged 'memorandum' Scheme 'L' was in place this called for there to be 38 Fighter squadrons in the 'Metropolitan Air Force' by the Spring of 1940. This was followed in November 1938 by Scheme 'M' which called for 50 fighter squadrons by 1942 ('The Defence of the United Kingdom' by Basil Collier p.68), remember the government was trying to expand the military without bankrupting the nation. I have doubts that this L-M memorandum is genuine in the way it has been stated, it makes no real sense for the time line.

Mike

pbehn said:

The (Bell) Airacobras from the US turned out to be quite unsuited for operations
(at least in Western Europe; the air war in the East played out differently) and only one squadron (601) was equipped with them.


And the Buffalo was so unsuited for ops, it went to the Far East.

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'

It does often make me wonder as to 'how' the Finns def' got "the best" out of the (admittedly) obsolete Buffalo, against the Russians.

BTW ; What happened to 'the one' that got salvaged from the lake, then, dubiuosly, got sent to Pensacola ?

Did they keep it in it's original Finnish-markings/camo'/insignia, like they should ?


Also, as for the RAF P.39's (of 601), I both saw & loaded those 'superb' press-shots (Duxford), that made the 'net, some 10-years ago.

IIRC, the (then) commander of 601 Sqdn had a MAJOR 'downer' on the Bell product & did EVERYTHING he could, do get it 'out of service' w/601


.