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00:00This is Trent Park in North London, today part of Middlesex University.
00:18In the Battle of Britain, every single German pilot shot down over this country was brought here.
00:30They were allowed to live here in some comfort, completely unaware that every word they said was secretly bugged by British intelligence.
00:44Throughout the battle, these overheard conversations were a direct line into what the Germans were thinking.
00:51The transcript survived.
00:54And what these men said has completely changed my mind about what really happened in the Battle of Britain.
01:08The English certainly have many more aircraft than is assumed by us.
01:11If we are not in a position to force England to make peace, it might develop into a kind of 30 years war.
01:20That is what I am afraid of.
01:27Reading through these transcripts, you realise that there were two sides to the story,
01:31and one that has never been properly investigated.
01:34Could it be that after all these years, there are still new things to be said about the Battle of Britain?
01:40The story is a famous one.
01:41Just a handful of pilots, all that lay between Britain and Britain.
01:42The story is a famous one.
01:43Just a handful of pilots, all that lay between Britain and Britain.
01:44The story is a famous one.
01:48The story is a famous one.
02:06The story is a famous one.
02:07Just a half of people.
02:08The story is a famous one.
02:09The story is a famous one.
02:10The story is a famous one.
02:11It's a famous one.
02:12And the story is a famous one.
02:13Just a handful of pilots, all that lay between Britain and annihilation.
02:15It's part of our national legend.
02:17I want to show that it is more complex, that the real story is richer and even more extraordinary.
02:31extraordinary. I absolutely love places like this, crammed full of jackets and guns and bits of old
02:40aircraft, and of course the machines themselves. Even now, standing next to this real spitfire
02:45still gives me quite a thrill. And I think it's that image of spitfires and hurricanes, of the
02:50few and of those huge battles over southern England in 1940, that encapsulates the Battle
02:55of Britain that I grew up with. But it's only one part of the story.
03:01This is the familiar story. Nazi Germany, a military colossus crushing all before it.
03:11Amateurish Britain, on her knees, her army defeated.
03:16Hitler's forces, superbly trained, highly efficient.
03:23I don't want to debunk the Battle of Britain, or dismiss the rousing words
03:30of Churchill. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty. So bear ourselves, that if the British Empire
03:41and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour.
03:51It may have been our finest hour, but it extends beyond the few.
04:01The problem is that the myth misses so much of the detail, detail that reveals a quite different story.
04:08The familiar picture is that by June 1940, Britain was isolated, with Nazi and fascist powers in
04:18control from the Arctic all the way to West Africa. But was Britain really alone?
04:24Even from the White Cliffs above Dover, the channel was a formidable obstacle.
04:34If you're a German and you're standing on the clifftops over there, looking at the United Kingdom,
04:38then you forget that it's not just Britain that you're up against. It's the British Empire and all their friends.
04:44And you haven't got all the time in the world. You certainly don't have all the resources in the world to continue this fight.
04:51Peter Caddick-Adams is a historian from the Defence Academy at Shrivenham.
04:55He's always believed that Britain's position in 1940 was not nearly so hopeless as is generally thought.
05:02One of the criticisms we can make of Hitler is that in the First World War he served as a corporal.
05:08And he's a land man. He only thinks in terms of a land campaign and even then only at the tactical level.
05:16So his view of fighting a world war is purely in his own mind in terms of the land battle at the tactical level.
05:24He knows and understands nothing about maritime warfare and he understands very little about aerial warfare.
05:30He has advisers who will tell him, Goering, Raider, whoever the top generals are,
05:36they will tell him what he should be doing.
05:39And so when you come up against a campaign, the invasion of England, that requires a large maritime element,
05:45that requires an aerial battle, he's way out of his comfort zone.
05:50And often people who are uncomfortable with a decision that they have to make,
05:55that they have no personal expertise or experience of, they delay, they fritter while they sum up the options.
06:02And that's exactly what's happening in the summer of 1930.
06:06Saturday, July the 6th.
06:16After completing his stunning victory over France, Hitler paraded in triumph through Berlin.
06:21The soldiers were marching through the Brandenburg Gate and everyone was cheering.
06:34That was really something.
06:36There was this victorious mood and everybody got swept up in it.
06:43And when we turned on England, well, we thought, we can do this.
06:57Hitler had most of Europe at his feet.
07:02His power had never been greater.
07:06Surely, he told himself, Britain would now do the sensible thing and sue for peace.
07:12They came home victorious and we young girls could finally go dancing again.
07:20When the war started, dancing was prohibited and I live for dancing.
07:30And while Britain anxiously feared an invasion, Germany had relaxed.
07:36Amidst jubilant scenes, total victory seemed just a formality.
07:43If anything, it's the German nation that needs to be keeping an eye on the clock
07:47because sooner or later they will run out of time with all the other grand ideas they've got.
07:53And they're in danger of a fleeting opportunity to cross the channel and go and defeat England.
07:59And then it will be gone.
08:01This wasn't the Germany fame for its efficiency.
08:03In fact, uncertainty was already compromising its effectiveness.
08:07Over here, the army may have been defeated.
08:10Europe may have fallen, but Britain still had crucial strengths.
08:14The Royal Navy was the biggest in the world, far eclipsing the size of the Kriegsmarine.
08:24Britain also controlled a third of the world's merchant shipping.
08:28And the contribution of the little ships did not stop at Dunkirk.
08:32In the summer of 1940, far from being weak and isolated, Britain was a marine superpower.
08:48For me, the Battle of Britain has always been about so much more than just RF Fighter Command against the Luftwaffe.
08:54It's a giant clash of Great Britain against Germany, which involves a war on land, in the air and on sea.
09:01That's why I've come here to Portsmouth to see Steve Prince, head of the Royal Navy's historical branch.
09:09You've got great national determination, particularly after Dunkirk.
09:14But that's also buttressed by the wider maritime connected world that the Germans of the land power have great difficulty in understanding.
09:21So you have all the Commonwealth forces who are here, both in the RAF, obviously in the Battle of Britain,
09:26budding Canadian, Australian, New Zealand forces who are available for anti-invasion work.
09:32We think of the small ships as being involved at Dunkirk, but many of the ships, often many of the same vessels,
09:37are involved in this auxiliary patrol service, which is along the coast of the UK.
09:41And while Fighter Command are operating very largely by day, this patrol service are operating very largely by night.
09:48Yeah, and I love the idea of these fishing crews in converted trawlers turned into minesweepers, given a kind of a very small gun and a couple of machine guns,
09:56and off you go. It's amazing kind of ingenuity, isn't it, and kind of just making it up on the spot a bit.
10:01Yes, it's an improvisation that relies on Britain's very large, at the time, seafaring community that's available,
10:07and their willingness to serve.
10:15And there was more to the RAF than fighters.
10:18There were coastal and bomber commands.
10:21The traditional view is that the early efforts of bomber command were ineffective.
10:26The truth is that from as early as mid-May, they were already making daily strikes against Germany,
10:33hitting its navy, industry and airfields.
10:41My hometown, Kiel, was bombed in June 1940,
10:47and there were 40 or 60 people death as civilians.
10:54So we were prepared to do the same.
10:58The material impact of bomber command's efforts may have been slight,
11:02but the psychological impact, particularly on those in the Nazi high command, was considerable.
11:08Despite this, Hitler resisted calls to strike back at Britain's cities.
11:14For the time being, his principal aim was to cut off Britain's lifelines and starve her into submission.
11:23This was a period known as Canal Kampf, the fighting over the Channel.
11:30By the middle of July, Luftwaffe attacks on British shipping were having an alarming effect.
11:36500,000 tons of vital supplies had been sunk.
11:41Hitler needed Britain out of the war, one way or the other.
11:45If his victories in Europe weren't enough to persuade Britain to the peace table,
11:51maybe the threat of starvation would.
11:53Hitler had retreated to the Berkhof, his house in Bavaria.
12:05He was already eyeing the invasion of Russia, but needed Britain out of the way first.
12:13And here he was receiving conflicting advice.
12:17Hermann Göring, the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, was optimistic.
12:21He promised Hitler that RAF could be destroyed in just four clear days, paving the way to invasion.
12:27But the Kriegsmarine, the German Navy, was not so sure.
12:33It maintained the best way to win the war was by choking off the supply lines.
12:37And for this, the U-boat was ideally suited.
12:41Before the war, Germany had planned to build a vast navy to include over 230 U-boats.
12:47But this had been fantasy.
12:49In the summer of 1940, no more than 14 were ever operational.
12:58These alone were destroying vast amounts of shipping.
13:01Had they had 100 or even 50, Hitler might well have prevailed.
13:07There was a gulf between German plans and what could be realistically achieved.
13:19The German Navy had another terrifying weapon causing havoc in 1940.
13:36Great to see you. I've got some to show you.
13:38Fantastic.
13:39Like the U-boats, S-boats had enormous potential,
13:43which is why I've come to Cornwall to see one for myself.
13:46OK, James.
13:48Oh, wow, look at that.
13:50Welcome to S-130, the last surviving German Schnell boat of the Second World War.
13:56And as you can see, we're dealing with something here,
13:58which is a monumental piece of engineering.
14:02She can go at over 40 knots. That's over 50 miles an hour.
14:05In fact, so fast could this vessel go,
14:07she actually has to slow down in order to fire a torpedo.
14:10And because they've got a wooden hull,
14:11they can go over any magnetic minefield they choose?
14:14Yeah.
14:15This thing is a kind of bespoke Rolls-Royce.
14:18This is a Savile Row suit in ship form.
14:22And yet what's clear is that the Hitler and the Kriegsmarine
14:24are missing a trick here, aren't they?
14:26Because what have we got?
14:27Three flotillas, a couple of dozen at max, aren't we?
14:30Of course, the problem for the Germans is they're insisting on such high quality
14:33when it comes to the Schnell boat.
14:35They don't have the capacity to put 50 boats in the water.
14:39It takes a long time to build an S-boat.
14:41They just don't have the infrastructure.
14:43Too much emphasis on quality, not enough on quantity, perhaps.
14:50This was the strange paradox about the Germans in 1940.
14:53They had the know-how, the science.
14:56What they lacked was the application of that science.
15:03In contrast, Churchill knew exactly where Britain's priorities lay.
15:06In May 1940, the Prime Minister put his good friend,
15:11the Canadian press baron, Lord Beaverbrook, in charge of aircraft production.
15:18Beaverbrook ensured repaired and new aircraft were arriving at a rate never seen before.
15:23His impact was immediate.
15:25Beaverbrook's masterstroke was to concentrate production on just five types of aircraft.
15:35Three bombers and two fighters.
15:38The Hurricane and the Spitfire.
15:48The whole country was gripped by this sense of urgency.
15:51And with the men in uniform,
15:53more and more it was the women who were doing the work.
16:0016-year-old Joyce Reeves was working six days a week
16:03in an ammunition factory in Gosport.
16:06You started on cordai.
16:08And you had... It was like spaghetti, only orange.
16:11And if you... You turned yellow with the stuff.
16:15You turned yellow.
16:17And you had to weigh so much till you had enough to fill a 4.5 shell.
16:22And then it was put in the shell with an igniter.
16:27Igniter at the bottom and a fuse at the top.
16:29And then it was sent off to the guns.
16:35In Germany, production was stalling.
16:37Herman Goering was in charge of both the Luftwaffe and the German economy.
16:46Just as Churchill had put Beaverbrook in charge of airplane production,
16:50so Goering turned to his friend,
16:52the former ace and famous stunt pilot, Ernst Udet.
16:56Udet poured all his resources into the development of new dive bombers,
17:01which had already revealed fatal shortcomings over Dunkirk.
17:06Meanwhile, other areas of aircraft production were neglected.
17:13July 1940 was the most productive month all year for single seater fighters.
17:18Just 237 were built.
17:21The German effort contrasted with the 496 British fighters
17:26produced in the same period, more than double.
17:29It was a ratio that would not improve for the Luftwaffe.
17:33This failure to deploy their technological genius in a coherent plan
17:43would have even more dramatic results in a crucial scientific development.
17:49Radar.
17:53Today, not much remains of the coast-long radar chain
17:56that once protected Britain.
17:58Just two out of six towers here at Dover.
18:01Despite the legend, it's not true that radar was a British invention.
18:13German radar technology was years ahead.
18:17When the Germans examined a captured mobile British set,
18:20they laughed at its primitive simplicity.
18:24Yet radar was vital to Britain's defence.
18:28Astonishingly, there was no radar whatsoever.
18:31Helping the Luftwaffe as they prepared to attack.
18:36When the Germans compared these huge static towers
18:39with their own smaller 360-degree rotating radars,
18:43they felt convinced they could only be of limited effectiveness.
18:45What the Germans completely failed to understand
18:48was that not only were these towers Britain's eyes out across the channel,
18:51they were also just one part of Dowding's air defence system.
18:55Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding,
18:58Commander-in-Chief of RAF Fighter Command,
19:00had worked tirelessly,
19:02not only to build up his early warning and deployment system,
19:05but had also fought hard to preserve and strengthen his fighter forces.
19:13British technology may not have been the best in the world,
19:15but unlike the Germans,
19:17but unlike the Germans,
19:18Dowding managed to harness
19:19the best of the resources available to him.
19:28Hostile raid, sir.
19:29The net result was that his fighter force
19:33was able to intercept enemy aircraft
19:35with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
19:50Dowding's system can still be best understood
19:52by looking at the surviving operations room at RAF Axbridge.
19:57In 1940,
19:58the headquarters of Fighter Command's 11 Group.
20:13The system had a number of different cogs.
20:15The radar chain,
20:17the 30,000-strong observer core,
20:19the GPO's telephone and teleprinter service,
20:21and, of course, the pilots themselves.
20:24Its genius lay in its ability
20:26to quickly bring all this information together
20:28at Fighter Command headquarters,
20:30then equally rapidly feed it back out again
20:32to the various operations rooms,
20:34which, like this one at Uxbridge,
20:35were almost exactly the same
20:37at every level of the chain.
20:42Throughout July,
20:43as German raids built up across the Channel,
20:45Dowding was able to iron out glitches in the system.
20:49The size and direction of Luftwaffe formation
20:51were carefully monitored with detail being added
20:53as more information poured in.
20:55What we have here is a graphic representation
20:58of a rapidly unfolding situation
21:00which enabled any of the controllers
21:02to see with a single sweep of the eye
21:04exactly what was going on.
21:05In other words,
21:06coordination and standardisation were the key.
21:09What Dowding had created
21:12was the world's first ever fully coordinated air defence system
21:16and the Germans had nothing like it,
21:18nothing like it at all.
21:22The Channel, mid-July.
21:24Despite continued attacks on shipping and coastal targets,
21:28the air fighting had been comparatively light.
21:31In the whole month,
21:35both sides would lose fewer aircraft
21:37than they had over Dunkirk.
21:42The real battle was yet to begin.
21:44On the 16th of July,
21:51from the Berghof,
21:52Hitler issued FĂŒhrer Directive Number 16,
21:55preparations for a landing against England.
21:58Codename, Sea Lion.
22:01Three days later,
22:05he made a final peace offer which he hoped Britain could not refuse.
22:10Churchill refused.
22:15The stage was set for the biggest air battle in history.
22:21It would be a battle of modern combat aircraft
22:24and the young men who flew them.
22:28In Germany and Britain,
22:30these men and machines were the source of intense pride.
22:36On both sides,
22:37the airmen were seen as young, handsome and brave.
22:40A romantic expression of the national ideal.
22:45For some of those still alive,
22:47the memories remain vividly clear.
22:52Hans Eckhart Bobb is one of the last survivors.
22:56In 1940, he was a pilot with the fighter group JG54,
23:00based at Gein, near Calais.
23:02Today, he is 93,
23:10and incredibly still flying.
23:18The plane he's strapping himself into is a Messerschmitt 108,
23:20a contemporary of the one he flew in the Battle of Britain.
23:23Last time he was flying over this airfield at North Weald
23:32was at the Battle's height.
23:34My mother told me once that when I was five, I said,
23:48I want to be a pilot.
24:02With my right hand, I will fly the plane.
24:05And with my left hand, I will catch eagles.
24:07In 1940, the situation was still very positive for the Germans.
24:20We were certain of victory.
24:22Spirits were high.
24:24It's clear that because we already had experience
24:31from previous missions,
24:33we probably had an advantage over the British at the time,
24:36because we already had Poland and France under our belts.
24:40The British, rather, were just getting started.
24:44That's the way it was.
24:46In the beginning, you have to see it.
24:54Now I want to see a British ace, one of the few.
25:10Well, this is where Billy Drake lives.
25:12Group Captain Drake, as I should call him,
25:14is one of the toughest fighter leaders we ever produced.
25:18He had an extraordinary career,
25:21one that began with clock-covered biplanes before the war
25:24and ended on fast jets.
25:26Imagine having a career like that.
25:34Billy remembers when the RAF was still flying
25:36the feebly armed Hawker Fury biplanes
25:38and attending a top-secret briefing
25:40about the latest German fighter, the Messerschmitt 109.
25:44It was a very frightening lecture
25:47because we were told all about the 109s
25:51and there we were with the Furies
25:53and we said,
25:54well, if we can't shoot them down, what do we do?
25:57He said, you'll have to ram them, old boy.
25:59And that was his statement.
26:02That's extraordinary.
26:03Luckily, we got the Hurricanes in time.
26:05Fewer than 100 RAF pilots from the Battle of Britain
26:12are still alive.
26:16Those from the Luftwaffe can be counted on two hands.
26:19But one of the best sources for how pilots were thinking at the time
26:24are the diaries some of them kept.
26:28There's one in particular that I want to see,
26:30here at the German Diary Archive in Emmendingen.
26:37Seyfried Betke, a Staffel Commander in JG2
26:41throughout the whole of the Battle of France
26:43and all of the Battle of Britain.
26:45And, um, good-looking chap, really.
26:48I think there's sometimes a tendency still in England
26:51for us to view Germans very much as sort of,
26:55uh, commando comic book villains,
26:57sort of Aryan automatons or something like that.
26:59But what's so wonderful about these diaries
27:01is the real human person,
27:03a real person, emerges very, very clearly.
27:06And this is really fantastic
27:08because, um, there's a dedication at the front of this diary
27:11from his girlfriend.
27:12So his girlfriend, who later becomes his wife, um, Heidi.
27:15And she says,
27:16My dear Seyfried, in these great times one must keep a diary.
27:20Uh, what will all be written here?
27:22Well, I can tell her quite a lot
27:24because this is one of the best personal testimonies, um,
27:27I've ever come across about the Battle of Britain.
27:30And it's from a Luftwaffe fighter pilot.
27:35Becker's diary gives us a vivid picture
27:37of what was happening at the new airfields
27:39being built along the Channel Coast in northern France.
27:42These entries are unfamiliar territory
27:50because they show just how much time
27:52the Germans spent protecting their bases
27:54from British bombers rather than attacking England.
27:58Here he says cockpit readiness.
28:00Uh, one day off, quiet.
28:02The next day cockpit readiness.
28:04And here he's saying that, um, this is why get up at 4.15am,
28:085 o'clock to 22.30, 10.30 in the evening,
28:11um, in his cockpit and finally gets to bed at 23.30,
28:1611.30 at night.
28:17And that's a long day to be sitting in your cockpit.
28:20The reason he's sitting in his cockpit
28:22is because he's got, he's guarding the airfield
28:25against, uh, enemy raiders, British raiders,
28:27bombers coming in and attacking the airfield.
28:30Um, and what is startling about this diary
28:33is just how many references there are
28:36to bombers, Blenheim bombers coming over
28:38and bombing them or being attacked by them,
28:40but not over England, but over the continental coast.
28:47On Wednesday, 31st of July,
28:49Hitler finally authorised an all-out attack on Britain.
28:57In the days that followed,
29:00the Luftwaffe made its final preparations.
29:05Goering now had his air forces ready,
29:08some two and a half thousand aircraft,
29:11flying against the 650 fighters
29:14and few hundred bombers of the RAF.
29:20In the front line were 11 Group,
29:22commanded by Dowding's right-hand man
29:24and tactical innovator,
29:25Air Vice Marshal Keefe Park.
29:29By the beginning of August,
29:30Britain had had two months in which to recover
29:32from the humiliation at Dunkirk.
29:34Over there, across the water,
29:36the French coast was now full of newly completed airfields,
29:39all crammed with aircraft.
29:41The mood amongst the Luftwaffe was buoyant.
29:43Confidence was high.
29:45While Britain waited for the inevitable onslaught,
29:47all Goering believed he needed
29:49was just four good days of clear weather.
29:55According to the weather forecasts,
30:04a ridge of high pressure was moving in from the 12th of August.
30:07the British radar chain
30:21and attack ports along the south coast.
30:2510 o'clock,
30:36we heard this noise
30:38and my brother said,
30:39what is that?
30:40So we went out
30:42and it was covered with planes upstairs
30:45in the sky, black.
30:47And I thought,
30:48oh dear, something wrong here.
30:50So we went into the shelter.
30:52We heard all the bombing
30:53and all the machine guns.
30:55I saw the parachutists coming down in flames
31:10because they were hit.
31:12And then it eased off.
31:14So when we came out of the house
31:16to see what had happened midday,
31:19all along Multima Road where we lived
31:22was bullets
31:23and the cartridge cases
31:25and the shrapnel.
31:27So we run down the road
31:29and they came back.
31:31So, of course, we ran like mad back to the shelter,
31:34terrified.
31:35I thought it was our last day on Earth.
31:37The all-out attack on Britain had begun.
31:48Tom Neill had just celebrated his 20th birthday
31:51and was a fighter pilot throughout the battle.
31:54From control, you will learn
31:56there are 30 enemy forming up over France.
32:0060, 90, 100, 150, 250, 400.
32:05Oh, my God, 400, and there's only 12 of us.
32:09That sort of attitude.
32:11That was the time
32:12when you really felt apprehensive.
32:14But once you're airborne, no problem.
32:21The operation against the RAF
32:23was codenamed Adler-Angrif,
32:25the attack of the Eagles.
32:29In the five days following its launch,
32:31Fighter Command lost 118 aircraft.
32:35But the Luftwaffe lost more.
32:38251.
32:41Sunday, the 18th of August,
32:51became known as the hardest day
32:53as both sides threw all they had
32:55into an increasingly ferocious air battle.
32:57According to Goering's pre-battle plan,
33:00he should have already cleared the skies of British planes.
33:04And yet the RAF was still meeting every single raid
33:06the Luftwaffe sent over.
33:08Both nations have placed great faith
33:10in their fighter aircraft.
33:12But which was the best?
33:14The German pilots who survived being shot down
33:20were hastily taken into custody.
33:25Before being taken to prison camp,
33:27they were sent to Trent Park in North London,
33:30where their conversations were secretly bugged
33:32by Dennis Felkin and his team in air intelligence.
33:35It was immediately apparent
33:39that the German airmen felt
33:41their aircraft gave them the upper hand.
33:43The 109 is superior to the Spitfire
33:46if it has a pilot who knows how to fly it well.
33:49It is incomprehensible
33:53how frightened many airmen are of the Spitfire.
33:59I'd always prefer a 109 to the Spitfire.
34:01You have to fly long wide curves
34:03and the Spitfire can't keep up.
34:11Not a surprising judgment from the German pilots,
34:14but there were English airmen
34:17who agreed about the 109.
34:18It was a small aeroplane
34:21with a very weighty engine
34:24and it could dive very quickly
34:26and it would escape very quickly.
34:28So the tactics were largely determined by them.
34:33And time and time again,
34:34we used to watch them coming
34:35but there was nothing we could do about it.
34:37And they would dive away quite freely
34:41without us being able to catch them.
34:43In the Spitfire, I always felt that given 10 seconds
34:47to work up a bit of speed, you could cope with them.
34:50But initially, the 109 was a more effective fighter.
34:57The Messerschmitt 109 was acknowledged to be a trickier machine to handle.
35:00But once mastered, it had a number of key advantages.
35:04Hans Eckhardt Bobb had been flying the 109 since 1938.
35:16Personally, I was always able to outmaneuver the Spitfire.
35:19That means in dogfights,
35:22I was able to get behind the Spitfire
35:24and get into the firing position.
35:33We were, of course, convinced that the ME 109E
35:36was the best plane to be used in missions at the time.
35:40The argument over who had the best aircraft
35:47has been raging ever since the battle.
35:52I want to resolve this once and for all.
35:55Now, this is the real thing.
35:57A Messerschmitt 109E as flown in the Battle of Britain.
36:00There's only two proper Messerschmitts flying in the world today,
36:04and this, when it's finished, will be the third.
36:06All the others, you can see,
36:08are post-war 1950s Spanish-built Bouchons.
36:12Not the same thing at all, but this is the real McCoy.
36:19One key difference lay in the engines.
36:25Our engines had carburettors,
36:28whereas the Germans always had direct injection,
36:31which we have in our cars nowadays.
36:33In a carburettor, it all depends on a little chamber
36:36in the carburettor and a float that goes up and down.
36:39And when the demands of the engine are such,
36:41the float goes up and more fuel is allowed in the engine.
36:45In an aircraft, when you push the nose down,
36:48the float flies to the top of the cylinder.
36:50You get the fuel whether you like it or not,
36:52and the engine stops.
36:53Now, masses of black smoke used to come out of the exhaust,
36:58and the engine would stop for as long as you kept on negative G,
37:02which could be up to two, three, four, five seconds,
37:04by which time, of course, your enemy has escaped.
37:07He was halfway home to France.
37:15And in a dogfight, there was another equally vital factor.
37:18The enormous advantage of the 109 for low-flying attacks
37:24is the terrific power of its armament.
37:26You make one attack, and it does an enormous amount of damage.
37:32The British pilots couldn't feel so confident in their firepower.
37:35In the Spitfire Hurricane, you had 14.7 seconds of fire,
37:44of really piece-shooter ammunition.
37:49And the 109 had 55 seconds of machine-gun fire,
37:53nearly four times as long.
37:55You can argue all you like about manoeuvrability and performance,
38:01but I think it really boils down to this, firepower.
38:04Now, Spitfires and Hurricanes were armed with .303 Browning machine guns,
38:08which fired these.
38:09This is the bit that actually hits the enemy plane.
38:11As you can see, it's pretty small.
38:12And here we've got a bit of German fuselage from a 109
38:15that was hit during the Battle of Britain and repaired.
38:17And as you can see, here's the hole.
38:19Pretty neat and not an awful lot of damage.
38:21So we've got that.
38:23Germans also have machine guns,
38:26but in addition, they've got 20-millimeter cannon shells.
38:29Now, this is a high-explosive cannon shell,
38:31so it hits the aircraft and then explodes.
38:34They also had armor-piercing shells.
38:37Now, if you put this together with a .303,
38:40there's absolutely no comparison at all.
38:43And if I was flying in the Battle of Britain,
38:45I know which I'd rather have, cannons.
38:51For me, there is no doubt that the Messerschmitt 109
38:54was the better plane in 1940.
38:5855 seconds of firepower was a colossal edge,
39:01and that was on top of its other advantages.
39:07Tom Neill faced the 109 in combat.
39:09The 109s had the supreme ability
39:13to catch us whenever they wanted,
39:15to get away whenever they wanted,
39:17and to knock us down whenever they wanted,
39:19because they had big 20-millimeter cannons.
39:21We had pea shooters, by comparison,
39:23and they could knock us down with three shots.
39:26The ME109E might have been the better aircraft,
39:43but it was being forced to operate at a number of disadvantages.
39:46The first was fuel.
39:48Flying over from France,
39:50they had only around 10 minutes in the combat zone
39:52before they had to head for home.
39:54If they didn't, they risked ending up in the channel.
39:57And whilst it might only look like a narrow river from the air,
40:00the reality of being a lone airman lost adrift
40:03in that vast expanse at sea level
40:05held true terrors for the German pilots.
40:08The second disadvantage was tactical.
40:10Preventing its pilots from fulfilling its basic design function
40:14was unthinkably, unimaginably stupid.
40:21Despite earlier insisting the 109s operate freely
40:24to make the most of their advantages,
40:26Goering then reversed the order,
40:29demanding his fighters escort the dive bombers at all times.
40:32The 109 was designed to fly at speed, not so slowly.
40:46Its pilots were struggling to keep it airborne.
40:52When that order came from Goering,
40:55it caused a huge stir.
40:57We fighter pilots were furious.
41:00We were shocked that a commander-in-chief
41:04could issue such a ridiculous order as that.
41:11We fighters hated flying in direct escort.
41:16No one wanted to do it because you were helpless.
41:20You flew next to the bombers in normal formation.
41:25You couldn't defend yourself or attack or anything.
41:27You could do nothing.
41:32You just stayed still until you were shot down.
41:35That was what it amounted to.
41:37Until you were shot down.
41:51Because the 109s couldn't operate so effectively
41:53at such low speeds,
41:55they were less able to protect the Stukas,
41:57which were now decimated.
41:59On the 25th of August,
42:07the Stukas were withdrawn from the battle for good.
42:14The most lauded part of the German bomber force was gone.
42:19And the channel wasn't getting any smaller.
42:26Flying his 109 on sorties every day
42:28from Normandy to England's south coast
42:31was starting to worry Seyfried Betker.
42:35He's obviously completely pretty nervous.
42:37And why wouldn't you be?
42:38But one of the things that really worried them
42:40was the distance across the channel they had to fly.
42:43This was quite a problem going across the channel
42:46at the Dover Straits from Calais, in the Padre Calais.
42:48But this was quite another going all the way from Cherbourg
42:51all the way to the south coast of England
42:52to sort of Portland and Weymouth and so on.
42:54And here he's admitting to his nerves quite clearly.
42:57And he says,
42:58I have to admit that the thought of the channel
43:00and everything behind it made my stomach churn
43:03during the briefing.
43:04A feeling I did not get
43:06during the...
43:07before the battle against France.
43:09And then he goes on a little bit.
43:11He talks a bit more.
43:12And then he says,
43:13I am a little bit unsure of myself.
43:15I think that's rather a nice human touch.
43:24The war took a sinister turn on the night of Sunday,
43:27the 25th of August,
43:28when, on Churchill's insistence,
43:30around 50 RAF bombers set off to attack Berlin.
43:33The night before,
43:36German bombers had mistakenly dropped bombs on London,
43:39something Hitler had forbidden.
43:41There was a building next to the commuter line in Charlottenburg
43:53and it was destroyed
43:54and everybody came and stared at it
43:56like some sort of miracle.
43:58Everybody went there and looked at it
44:01to see what a destroyed building looks like.
44:04Herman Goering said,
44:06You can call me Meyer
44:07if a plane ever drops bombs on Germany.
44:09Well, his name was Meyer real quick, wasn't it?
44:14The British Omerkoman had already begun to bomb Germany
44:23six times in August 1940.
44:27There was no real cause to do that,
44:31to go to Berlin.
44:34We were very enraged to do the same to London.
44:44Incensed, Hitler ordered retaliatory attacks on London,
44:48as the British government knew he must.
44:55For some, this change of tactics,
44:57from attacking airfields to British cities,
44:59was the decisive moment in the battle.
45:03The best general we ever had was Hitler himself.
45:06He suddenly stopped the destruction of our airfields.
45:14He lost his temper and said to Goering,
45:19Send all the bombers to London and teach them a lesson.
45:23That probably made the Battle of Britain
45:27a success on our part.
45:29If the Luftwaffe's core aim
45:33was to destroy the RAF in advance of an invasion,
45:36it's hard to see how they would achieve it by bombing London.
45:39But I'm not convinced the bombing of airfields
45:43had been that successful anyway.
45:47This is Manston in Kent,
45:49one of Fighter Command's frontline airfields in 1940.
45:52During the Battle of Britain,
45:53it was attacked numerous times,
45:55as were other airfields in southern England.
45:57We've always been told that by the beginning of September,
46:00Fighter Command was on its knees.
46:02It isn't true.
46:03Of all the RAF's airfields,
46:05this was the only one to be knocked out for more than one day.
46:09And this is the point.
46:10To destroy a large grass airfield
46:12took an awful lot more bombs
46:13than the Luftwaffe were dropping on them.
46:16The truth is that,
46:17although the skies were thick with enemy aircraft,
46:19and although the rising number of pilot casualties
46:22was causing concern for Dowdingham Park,
46:24when the Luftwaffe turned on London,
46:27the RAF was still a long way from defeat.
46:36Air Minister, communicate.
46:38The biggest bag yet.
46:40End of message.
46:42Both sides greatly exaggerated claims of aircraft shot down.
46:46Neither side, however,
46:47had a clear idea of exactly what was happening.
46:51One person uniquely qualified to examine
46:56the intelligence failings on both sides
46:58is Sebastian Cox, the RAF's official historian.
47:02The RAF grossly overestimates
47:05the strength of the Luftwaffe,
47:07but the Luftwaffe,
47:08not only do they overestimate
47:10the number of planes they shoot down,
47:12but they seriously underestimate
47:15the capacity of the RAF
47:17to replace planes that they have lost.
47:20And that has a serious effect
47:21on the way the Germans fight the battle.
47:26Both sides had a problem
47:27because they assumed the basic military unit of planes
47:30was the same in each air force.
47:34But in the RAF,
47:35a fighter squadron was about 20 planes.
47:37In the Luftwaffe,
47:39the Staffel was only roughly 12 planes.
47:42The RAF don't correctly understand
47:49the structure of the German units
47:51and they think that there are more German aeroplanes
47:54in each of these units
47:56than is actually the case.
47:58And so the simple arithmetic
47:59of multiplying the number of units
48:01by the wrong number of aeroplanes
48:03gives them an excessive strength for the Luftwaffe.
48:07Because of this simple mistake alone,
48:11the RAF thought the Luftwaffe
48:13was 50% bigger than it actually was.
48:19At the same time,
48:20the Luftwaffe thought the RAF
48:22was smaller than it really was.
48:25Presumably overestimating
48:27the strength of your enemy
48:28is probably no bad thing,
48:29but it's a serious problem
48:31if you underestimate it, isn't it?
48:33If you are on the defensive
48:35and you overestimate the strength
48:37of the enemy who's going to attack you,
48:39that's not necessarily going to be disastrous.
48:42Whereas if you're on the offensive
48:45and you underestimate
48:47the defensive strength of the enemy,
48:49that can lead you into serious difficulties,
48:51which is exactly what happens
48:53with the Luftwaffe.
48:54By the beginning of September,
48:57Luftwaffe pilots
48:58were showing signs of strain.
49:01Judging from what Becker's saying
49:15in this diary,
49:16the Luftwaffe thinks are pretty bad.
49:18For example,
49:19he talks on the 2nd of September,
49:21he says,
49:22we can almost never surprise them,
49:23and this is why he feels
49:24he's never,
49:25fighting from Normandy,
49:26he's never going to get
49:27the kind of scores
49:28that some of these other pilots
49:29are now amassing on the Luftwaffe.
49:31He says because he can never surprise them,
49:33they're always higher than him.
49:34I mean,
49:36we're always taught that
49:37beware of the Hun in the sun,
49:39but from Becker's diary,
49:40it's clear that you have to beware
49:42the Spitfire in the sun.
49:43If we began in July,
49:54we had losses from 50% or so,
49:57and this was, of course,
50:00a very, very hard job,
50:03and we were not very enthusiastic about it.
50:08I'm afraid that our fighter escorts
50:18are considerably weakened.
50:19You notice that now?
50:20I know a Staffel
50:25which has only two aircraft left.
50:27Once, for a whole week,
50:34we always reported
50:35number of aircraft fit for service, nil.
50:42By the 7th of September,
50:44the Luftwaffe had lost 721 aircraft
50:47since the attack had been launched.
50:49Fighter Command, 405.
50:53But the real difference
50:55was that the RAF
50:56was replacing its losses.
50:59One of the important points
51:01which is very seldom mentioned
51:03is the efficiency of our organisation
51:07which provided aircraft
51:09when we lost them.
51:11And time and time again,
51:12if we flew for three, four times a day,
51:15we'd be down to five aircraft out of 18.
51:19And suddenly, miraculously,
51:21by lunchtime the following day,
51:23we were at full strength again.
51:24Where they came from,
51:25nobody knows, they just appeared.
51:27Billy Drake had been shot down back in May
51:30and after a spell as an instructor
51:32training new pilots,
51:33he returned to the front line.
51:35And when you became operational again,
51:37can you recall there ever being
51:39a shortage of aircraft?
51:40No.
51:43No.
51:44No.
51:49It was replacing pilots
51:50that was more of a worry,
51:51but Keef Park now came up
51:53with a brilliant solution.
51:58Exhausted squadrons
51:59were rotated to regain strength,
52:01while new pilots were allowed
52:03to gain flying experience
52:04away from the front line.
52:06Because of the flexibility
52:08of Dowding's system,
52:09this could be implemented immediately.
52:11It was simple, effective,
52:13saved lives
52:14and gave Britain
52:15an invaluable advantage.
52:17Billy Drake appreciated
52:18the effectiveness
52:19of Park's ideas.
52:21Those responsible
52:25for assessing
52:26the operation capability
52:27said,
52:28these squadrons
52:29are not capable
52:30of being accepted
52:33as operational
52:34and therefore
52:35will send them up north,
52:37away from the main theatre
52:39to recoup.
52:40Once again,
52:45the Germans
52:46had no comparable system.
52:48Experienced pilots
52:50flew on and on.
52:51New ones
52:52were flung straight
52:53into the battle.
52:56By mid-September,
52:57Dowding's defences
52:58were holding firm.
53:00Around Britain's coast,
53:02more than a thousand ships
53:04patrolled her waters
53:05and convoys
53:06were getting through.
53:08Britain was a strong
53:10as strong as ever.
53:13The operations room
53:14here at Uxbridge
53:15has been set up
53:16to represent
53:16the situation
53:17as it was
53:18on the 15th of September, 1940.
53:20And it's absolutely
53:21full of information
53:22about the state
53:23of the squadrons.
53:25Over here,
53:26we have the big
53:26in-hill sector
53:27and there were
53:28three single-engine
53:29fighter squadrons,
53:3092, 72 and 66.
53:33Now, what Park and Dowding
53:34were looking for
53:35was to have 12 operational aircraft
53:37on any one given day
53:38and then roughly
53:39double the amount
53:39of pilots as a cushion.
53:42So what we've got here
53:42is P for pilots
53:43and 92 squadron
53:44and A for aircraft,
53:4519 and 12.
53:47And then in 72 squadron,
53:49we've got 20 pilots
53:50and 11 aircraft,
53:5266 squadron,
53:5319 pilots and 10 aircraft.
53:56They've got plenty of pilots
53:57and only 66 squadron
53:59is really seriously
54:00under strength in any way.
54:02In other words,
54:03the situation
54:03is pretty healthy.
54:04The contrast
54:05with across the channel
54:06with the Luftwaffe's
54:07fighter situation
54:08could not have been greater.
54:10Not that Goering
54:12understood this.
54:13Armed with increasingly
54:15fantastical intelligence reports,
54:16he believed the RAF
54:18was now all but destroyed.
54:20All that was needed,
54:21he reassured Hitler,
54:22was one final push.
54:29On Sunday,
54:30the 15th of September,
54:31a huge air battle took place.
54:33Although much smaller
54:47than originally claimed,
54:48the toll was still high.
54:50The Germans lost 61 aircraft
54:52and 93 men.
54:53For the British,
54:56it was 31 and 16.
54:58But far more important
55:01than the figures
55:02was the fact that Luftwaffe
55:04was as far away
55:05from beating the RAF
55:06as ever.
55:11Yet some German pilots
55:12still thought the invasion
55:13was imminent.
55:14It's quite interesting,
55:15but Seafried Becker
55:16doesn't make an entry
55:17on the 15th of September,
55:191940, the day we've come
55:20to know as the Battle
55:21of Britain Day.
55:22But he does put an entry
55:23in on the 16th,
55:24the next day.
55:25And in which,
55:26funny enough,
55:27he still thinks
55:28the invasion's a goer.
55:29So he talks about
55:30when it might happen,
55:31and he reckons
55:32it's going to happen
55:33in the next few weeks
55:34and certainly within
55:35the next month.
55:36And the reason he thinks
55:37that is because
55:38his squadron,
55:39his staffel,
55:40has just been recently
55:41placed up in the
55:42Pas de Calais
55:43and he's flown over
55:44and seen all the invasion
55:45barges.
55:46of the war.
55:47It's true that by mid-September,
55:50the barges were ready.
55:53Hitler's invasion plans
55:55were complete.
55:57The army was ready,
55:59so too the navy.
56:02But the Germans
56:03still hadn't beaten
56:04the RAF.
56:07From the start,
56:08they knew that
56:09without air superiority,
56:10the plan would be doomed.
56:13Today,
56:14we can piece together
56:15the events
56:16of that world-changing summer
56:17in a way that those
56:18who lived through it
56:19never could.
56:20We now know
56:21that the battle was fought
56:22on a much broader front,
56:23that beyond the few
56:24were the men
56:25of Bomber Command
56:26and the rest of the RAF,
56:27and the full weight
56:28of a great maritime nation.
56:29This,
56:30combined with
56:31Dowding's ingenious
56:32defence system
56:33and plentiful aircraft,
56:34ensured that
56:35Britain was a far
56:36stronger enemy
56:37than Germany
56:38had ever expected.
56:39And it was,
56:40of course,
56:41also a battle
56:42of two sides,
56:43not one.
56:44The result was
56:45as much to do
56:46with German failings
56:47as it was
56:48Britain's achievements.
56:50If anyone
56:51had been amateurish,
56:52it was the Germans.
56:58Hitler knew
56:59that time
57:00was now running out.
57:01The Luftwaffe
57:02had failed.
57:04The captured pilots
57:05at Trent Park
57:06were coming to the same
57:07conclusion.
57:09If they don't come
57:10in three weeks,
57:11then they'll not be
57:12coming across this year.
57:14Either the landing
57:15will come very soon
57:16in this good weather,
57:17or will probably
57:18not come at all.
57:22They simply must
57:23start the attack
57:24this winter,
57:25or we'll have
57:26no fighters left.
57:27We have missed
57:28the best moment
57:29for the invasion.
57:33September moved
57:34into October,
57:35October,
57:36and summer turned
57:37to autumn.
57:40Just a few months
57:41earlier,
57:42victory had seemed
57:43inevitable,
57:44and Hitler had had
57:45the world in his grasp.
57:46Now it was slipping away.
57:48On the 12th of October,
57:50he postponed the invasion
57:51indefinitely,
57:52effectively ending
57:53the battle.
57:54Britain had won.
57:56had won.
58:01When you really look
58:02at the complexity
58:03and detail
58:04of the real story,
58:05it becomes even
58:06more dramatic
58:07and exciting
58:08than the one
58:09we've all grown up with.
58:10Hitler's plans
58:11now lay in tatters.
58:12Britain's victory
58:13ensured the war
58:14would continue.
58:17While there was relief
58:18that her sovereignty
58:19had been saved,
58:20the celebrations
58:21would have to wait.
58:22But the genesis
58:23of victory
58:24that came
58:25five long years
58:26later can be found
58:27in the summer
58:28of 1940,
58:29in the Battle
58:30of Britain.
58:31the Battle of Britain.