The Spitfire, My Journey

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Lighthunmust said:
If I am not mistaken Churchill was directly involved in correcting another attempt to manipulate documents that presented an unfair analysis of Harris, and I think he may have done the same with Dowding.
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I think Churchill objected to Dowding's successors effectively writing him out of the official history of the BoB.
I think Leigh Mallory was out for himself,Bader backed the right horse.
Steve
 

I agree completely. The problem with the big wing is it didnt work very well but appeared to. Having lots of AC in one place leads to overclaiming. The RAF didnt do well at all over France but thought they did.
 
Its interesting to compare Goering to Dowding too.
Goering was a flamboyant drink and drug fuelled larger than life character whereas Dowding was quietly spoken, upright, teetotal, devoutly Christian.a widower and withdrawn. He was horrified at the though of civilian casualties in time of war, and was taken back by Baldwin's view that the only defence was offence, which means you have to kill more children women more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourself.
It is,perhaps, easy to imagine Trenchard, no fan of Dowding, licking his lips at the former Tory PM's sentiments. For Dowding, however, the best defence of the country is the fear of the fighter.He was proved right.
His spirit resembles that of the English army and its Welsh archers under the inspired leadership of Henry V as it faced what appeared to be the crushing might of the French cavalry at Agincourt in 1415. The French,in all their armoured finery, preening and pouting,were confident that they were masters of the moment. The English, hungry and racked with dysentery, were dug in behind a wall of pointed staves, as if creating an island shore between themselves and the enemy.
When the heavily armoured horsemen charged Henry's archers let loose with the 15th century equivalent of Browning machine guns - arrows from their powerful . longbows.
These archers were the Spitfire pilots of their day and Henry's aggressive tactics paid off.
Now in 1940, it was Dowding's turn to face the might of the Luftwaffe, which seen through the distorting mirror of Nazi propaganda, appeared invincible.
The German propagandists had done a convincing job. Cunning use of photography and newsreels gave the impression that the LW was many times stronger than it actually was.Nazi enthusiasts like Lindberg and J Kennedy were thrilled with what they saw and gleefully reported to Roosevelt that the RAF was outnumbered at least 5 to 1 and that Britain would fall in a matter of weeks if Goering's finest were unleashed again the white cliff of Dover.
How wrong they were.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUx3MU9iM6c
Cheers
John
 
Ah yes, Agincourt. Another example of terrain favoring the defender. Modern studies of the behavior of crowds show that the narrowing terrain at Agincourt resulted in the equivalent of left and right flanking attacks on the French, crowding them together, disrupting their formation, making deployment of their weapons difficult, and easy targets for projectile weaponry. Much like the hard to see small formations of defending Spitfires and Hurricanes that resulted in Goering ordering the escorting ME-109s with limit fuel for maneuvering to crowd close to the bombers and making difficult deployment of ME-109 weaponry.
 
I am rereading The Spitfire Story by Alfred Price and I came across an interesting statistic I had never noticed before. On 17th August 1940 Fighter Command had 675 hurricanes and 348 Spitfires in squadron service. 276 Spitfires (79%) were serviceable, 546 Hurricanes (81%) were serviceable. Does anyone have comparable figures for the middle of September it would be interesting to see how the Spitfire and Hurricane stood up to the rigours of battle.
 
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stona said:
I think Churchill objected to Dowding's successors effectively writing him out of the official history of the BoB.
I think Leigh Mallory was out for himself,Bader backed the right horse.
Steve
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Dowding wasn't pouplar in the higher eschelons of the RAF mostly because of his manner apparently, he had little time for the pomp and self important "I know best" attitude of the air marshals!

Interestingly Park used similar tactics to those he used in BOB in Malta, and again prevailed despite appaling odds, sick crews, lack od spares and airfields almost unusable, and dint the LW also revert to pretty much the exact same tactics at the end of the war against the bombers?
 

As others have pointed out Dowding wasnt popular for his personality or his approach to the BoB. Dowding and Park had to ensure the RAF continued to exist against an enemy whos size was unknown. Dowding and Parks conduct of the BoB was a tour de force in air defence. Mallory and Bader and the Big wing did little to swing the battle and several times endangered 11 groups airfields. People started using hindsight very quickly to undermine Dowding suggesting more aggressive use of large formations would have given a better result. In fact the use of the big wing could possibly have lost us the battle. Certainly the big wing didnt achieve much over france.
 
Milosh said:
It says a lot about the tactics and types of missions flown.
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I agree but it also says a lot about the Spitfire . The LW used to wait until the Spits started home due to fuel shortages .Most pilots thought the missions were a waste of time . Can you imagine 200 Spits escorting 18 Blenheims and coming out on the short end.
 


Churchill stopped the Rhubarb raids after heavy losses. 200 in one month.
Such was the cost of taking the fight to the Germans after the BoB.
The Spitfire's abilities were never in question, nor where the RAF pilots.
We had to hit back and the Spitfire could hit as hard or harder as any fighter.
Cheers
John
 
Readie said:
never[/U] in question, nor where the RAF pilots.
We had to hit back and the Spitfire could hit as hard or harder as any fighter.
Cheers
John
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they should have questioned the lack of range which put those airmen at risk against superior aircraft
 
your quoting a period where the RAF was expanding after the BOB and many green pilots were sent on operations they or the RAF had no experience of, where the Luftwaffe was fielding the FW190 which at that time had a peformance advantage over the Spit V and where the German flak belts caused considerable losses!

what your ignoring is this was also the period of the siege of Malta, where the Spitfire held it's own against the Luftwaffe and Regina Aeronautics, despite being grossly outnumbered, lacking spares ,fuel, ammunition, spare aircraft, having pilots suffering poor health and malnutrition, airfields bombed to bits which caused losses landing and taking off, where you had a good chance of completing a sortie only to be shot up by marauding 109's on landing, where your cannons jammed regularly due to faulty ammo and with little option but to use it as thats all you have!

It says a lot about the Spit and other British aircraft and more importantly the men who flew and serviced them that they won a great victory against ludicrous odds and were instrumental in the defeat of the Afrika Corps!
 
What it boils down is the Spit was not an offensive weapon but excelled as a point interceptor, and even then the 109 was close to 1-1 losses which is certainly better the 4-1.
 
again you try to boil it down to this plane is better than that plane, which is nonsense, you cannot isolate one piece of the puzzle without considering the whole!
the circumastances of losses are influenced vastly more by the tactical and strategic situation than the make and model of plane!
or does loss ratios mean the losses of tip and run 190 and 109's to typhoons in 42 mean the Typhoon was "superior".
war is not a jousting competition!
 
The use of spitfires on rhubarb missions was a miss use of resources. There was nothing in France germans would risk themselves defending, to avoid french casualties they had to try to be precise. Escorting medium bombers puts a spitfire at the same disadvantages as the Bf109 in the BoB. Attacking ground targets with a spitfire gives the losses you would expect from a water cooled fighter. Targets of opportunity sometimes included horses and carts the risk wasnt worth the reward.

Any single engined plane is defensive it only has MGs or cannon which didnt worry the germans until D Day the offense is done by the bombers which the fighters defend.
 
The Typhoon was considered but was not competitive above 20000ft where most of the action was , furthermore the Typhoon as a single engine fighter was an offensive weapon . The LW single engine fighters had a lower loss rate in fighter vs fighter in the BoB then the Spit did in its Rodeos, Balboas, Rhubarbs etc . When you have 200 fighters escorting 18 Blenheims and you walk out on the short end of the stick it does not speak well of your efforts
 
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