Having just finished watching 'Piece of Cake' again for the first time in years it made me think about the Battle of Britain in a way that I haven't quite done before and I wanted to articulate those thoughts on here to see if it would stir any kind of discussion.
There have been many BoB debates over the years, and just to establish my point of view here, I do not believe the outcome saved Britain from invasion, but it certainly prevented our defeat and immediate exit from the war. This led, of course, into the flow of WW2 that we are familiar with, by making the UK available as the springboard for the victory of the Western allies.
But have you ever thought how incredibly lucky this incredibly important first victory was? I don't mean lucky in the sense that Hitler changed tack allowing Fighter Command to recover, or that he gave up as Fighter Command was at breaking point, or any of that old guff. No. I mean in the way the pieces fell into place in order for that victory to be possible at all.
I'm not talking about the obvious stuff, ie that we had enough aircraft. So we bloody well should. And trained pilots, and good tactics (eventually!). There is other stuff though that I look back on and just think "How Bloody Lucky Was That!"
Look at Radar. What incredible good fortune was that that Britain alone developed, invested in and deployed the first such fighter control radar system in the world at that exact time? How fortunate that this new and revolutionary system worked first time? How fortunate were we that when Graf Zeppelin came sniffing for just such a system in 1938 that they listened to the wrong frequency and went back a reported that there was no radar? How much more fortunate does it look when you consider the neglect and running down that our defences suffered from 1919 to 1934, and the string of well intentioned, but cancelled projects that litter our defence history ever since? I think that is worth a pause and a think.
Then we come to the fighters, and one of the most remarkable runs of pure luck in recorded history.
See how the Spitfire is the 'racing thoroughbred', all metal, fast, beautiful, a joy to fly, and deadly. How fortunate that this aircraft was allowed to be built? It did after all come from a company that built its reputation on biplane flying boats and whose only other attempt at a fighter plane, to F.7/30, was an unmitigated disaster! How lucky were we that the Air Ministry recognised the potential of their design, despite Supermarine's total lack of any sort of track record and ran with it?
But of course the Spitfire was very labour intensive, used exotic and barely understood construction methods, and was only dribbling off the production lines in very tiny numbers…..
How incredibly lucky then were we that Hawker lost F/7.30 as well? This meant that instead of being chock-a-block with building their rather feeble 'Fury III' (for want of an official designation) they smarted enough from the smack down to develop an advanced fighter of their own. How lucky were we that they decided not to for fancy all metal stressed skin and monocoques to show how clever they are, but to build it along methods that they knew and were familiar with, which meant that hundreds could be built quickly and also that, although not the quickest, it was incredibly tough and manoeuvrable and could give a good scrap to the best that Germany could offer.
How incredibly lucky (are you getting bored of that line yet?) that, out of all the 8-gun fighter prototypes that were chucking around, it was these two, so perfectly dovetailing with each other, that were selected and produced. In the case of the Spitfire , this extremely high risk plane was selected in preference to aircraft from companies with proven fighter pedigrees such as Bristol and Gloster, who both had operational types in Fighter Commands front line at the time. Of course having seen them both fly you would have to select the Hurricane and Spitfire for service, except that the usual policy was to select one type, and we know with hindsight that the Huirricane alone would have suffered, while there could never have been enough Spitfires for a one-type defence. Neither of these facts would have been apparent at the time, yet, luckily, we broke with policy and ordered both, when an all-Hurricane order was expected.
You might look back and think it was the obvious choice, but it was far from it at the time.
So at exactly the right time we had the two most perfect fighters for the job who's attributes overlapped perfectly for our particular needs and industrial capabilities, and to top it off we had the perfect way to manage them in the battle. Does a country really get that much good luck, or does it just prove that God is British?
There have been many BoB debates over the years, and just to establish my point of view here, I do not believe the outcome saved Britain from invasion, but it certainly prevented our defeat and immediate exit from the war. This led, of course, into the flow of WW2 that we are familiar with, by making the UK available as the springboard for the victory of the Western allies.
But have you ever thought how incredibly lucky this incredibly important first victory was? I don't mean lucky in the sense that Hitler changed tack allowing Fighter Command to recover, or that he gave up as Fighter Command was at breaking point, or any of that old guff. No. I mean in the way the pieces fell into place in order for that victory to be possible at all.
I'm not talking about the obvious stuff, ie that we had enough aircraft. So we bloody well should. And trained pilots, and good tactics (eventually!). There is other stuff though that I look back on and just think "How Bloody Lucky Was That!"
Look at Radar. What incredible good fortune was that that Britain alone developed, invested in and deployed the first such fighter control radar system in the world at that exact time? How fortunate that this new and revolutionary system worked first time? How fortunate were we that when Graf Zeppelin came sniffing for just such a system in 1938 that they listened to the wrong frequency and went back a reported that there was no radar? How much more fortunate does it look when you consider the neglect and running down that our defences suffered from 1919 to 1934, and the string of well intentioned, but cancelled projects that litter our defence history ever since? I think that is worth a pause and a think.
Then we come to the fighters, and one of the most remarkable runs of pure luck in recorded history.
See how the Spitfire is the 'racing thoroughbred', all metal, fast, beautiful, a joy to fly, and deadly. How fortunate that this aircraft was allowed to be built? It did after all come from a company that built its reputation on biplane flying boats and whose only other attempt at a fighter plane, to F.7/30, was an unmitigated disaster! How lucky were we that the Air Ministry recognised the potential of their design, despite Supermarine's total lack of any sort of track record and ran with it?
But of course the Spitfire was very labour intensive, used exotic and barely understood construction methods, and was only dribbling off the production lines in very tiny numbers…..
How incredibly lucky then were we that Hawker lost F/7.30 as well? This meant that instead of being chock-a-block with building their rather feeble 'Fury III' (for want of an official designation) they smarted enough from the smack down to develop an advanced fighter of their own. How lucky were we that they decided not to for fancy all metal stressed skin and monocoques to show how clever they are, but to build it along methods that they knew and were familiar with, which meant that hundreds could be built quickly and also that, although not the quickest, it was incredibly tough and manoeuvrable and could give a good scrap to the best that Germany could offer.
How incredibly lucky (are you getting bored of that line yet?) that, out of all the 8-gun fighter prototypes that were chucking around, it was these two, so perfectly dovetailing with each other, that were selected and produced. In the case of the Spitfire , this extremely high risk plane was selected in preference to aircraft from companies with proven fighter pedigrees such as Bristol and Gloster, who both had operational types in Fighter Commands front line at the time. Of course having seen them both fly you would have to select the Hurricane and Spitfire for service, except that the usual policy was to select one type, and we know with hindsight that the Huirricane alone would have suffered, while there could never have been enough Spitfires for a one-type defence. Neither of these facts would have been apparent at the time, yet, luckily, we broke with policy and ordered both, when an all-Hurricane order was expected.
You might look back and think it was the obvious choice, but it was far from it at the time.
So at exactly the right time we had the two most perfect fighters for the job who's attributes overlapped perfectly for our particular needs and industrial capabilities, and to top it off we had the perfect way to manage them in the battle. Does a country really get that much good luck, or does it just prove that God is British?
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