Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain. Len Deighton

May was as important as any in the nation’s history. Dowding, alarmed by the numbers of his precious Hurricane fighters being sent to fight in France, had asked for permission to talk to the Cabinet. To his surprise he was invited along.

      It is important to record the nature of Dowding’s objection. His upbringing, training, and his character would forbid his commenting upon the strategic advisability of moving fighter aircraft to France. Such a decision would, rightly, be that of the War Cabinet, advised by the Air Ministry. Dowding argued that, since the Air Ministry had long since decided that 52 squadrons would be needed for the defence of Britain, fighters sent to France must be written off as an overseas force, and separated from home defence. The force remaining in Britain must then be expanded to 52 squadrons.

      Technically Dowding never argued his case before the Cabinet, and for entirely new information throwing light on this mysterious incident I am indebted to Professor A. J. P. Taylor who has most generously passed his research to me.

      Dowding argued his case to Churchill, Archibald Sinclair (the new Air Minister), Beaverbrook (newly appointed Minister of Aircraft Production) and Sir Cyril Newall (Chief of Air Staff). He told them his 52 squadrons were already reduced to 36 and that at the present rate that Hurricanes were being shot down in France, there would be none left anywhere within two weeks. He produced a graph to support this contention and placed it in front of Churchill.

      Dowding stayed on for the subsequent Cabinet meeting (it was not unusual for the room to be crowded with people in spite of its small permanent complement). However, Dowding didn’t speak before the Cabinet, neither did anyone else refer to Dowding’s plea. After the Cabinet meeting, Newall insisted that Sinclair should have raised the matter but by then it was too late. Orders were given that four more fighter squadrons should be sent to France.

      Dowding went back to Fighter Command HQ and described the situation – just as he had put it to Churchill – in an official letter to the Under Secretary of State for Air. It proved a sound precaution, as we shall see.

      The next day, 16 May, Churchill flew to Paris to hear Paul Reynaud, the French Premier, plead for still more RAF fighters to stem the German flood. Churchill phoned London (using two officers speaking Hindustani to preserve secrecy) and asked the Cabinet to agree that another six squadrons should be sent to France (additional to the four taken from Dowding on the previous day). The Cabinet met late that evening to consider it. Without Churchill’s commanding presence they wavered. The ineffectual Sinclair was emboldened enough to tell them about Dowding’s argument. Newall added that lack of suitable French airfields was another factor. (For it must be remembered that the Hurricanes would need a complex retinue of men and a considerable amount of equipment and spares to operate from France – and France was now in chaos.) Newall referred to ‘the figures laid before us by Air Chief Marshal Dowding yesterday,’ meaning not the Cabinet but the meeting beforehand. The Cabinet did not dare to defy Churchill but they compromised. They agreed that six more Hurricane squadrons could operate from French airfields, providing they returned to bases in England each night.

      In two days Dowding had lost another ten fighter squadrons, and was now down to about half of the strength that was considered a dangerous minimum. It is in the context of these events that the bitter accusations of French High Commanders (that Churchill betrayed the alliance by denying France RAF fighters) must be considered.

      Undoubtedly Churchill was extremely moved by the pleas of the French politicians and by the great and sudden tragedy that France was suffering. To what extent he wanted to reassert his command of the War Cabinet, and whether he took an instant dislike to Dowding – as he had to certain other military commanders – or what other motives he had, remains unknown. Churchill’s memoirs only add to the mystery. He does not refer to Dowding’s attendance at No. 10, and did not acknowledge any urgent warning. On the contrary, Churchill wrote, ‘Air Chief Marshal Dowding, at the head of metropolitan Fighter Command, had declared to me that with twenty-five squadrons of fighters he could defend the island against the whole of the German Air Force, but that with less he would be overpowered.’

      This was nonsense. There were witnesses, there was the graph of Hurricane losses, and there was the letter that Dowding – ever distrustful of politicians – wrote immediately after the meeting. Without these, history might have recorded another instance of a politician being badly advised by his experts.

      Dowding’s fears about fighters sent to France proved well founded. When the final figures came in, the losses caused to the 261 Hurricanes sent to support the British army were grave. Only 66 of these got back to England.

      With German bases facing the British coast from north-western France to southern Norway, Dowding arranged his fighter squadrons to meet the inevitable attack.

      Military experts were still incredulous that Panzerkorps Reinhardt had moved tanks through France forty miles in one day. Now began a battle in which units would move at 300 mph.

      To fight such battles Dowding had quartered Britain into Fighter Groups. Each Group had a commander and a staff who worked at a large operations table, over which girls, using croupier’s rakes, moved coloured counters.

      Depending on the generalship of these commanders, and their Operations Room staff, the battles would be lost or won. They would have only minutes – seconds sometimes – in which to decide which coloured counters might be a feint attack. Ordering fighters into the air too late made them easy prey for the Germans above them. Scrambling too few squadrons might lose a battle, scrambling too many meant undefended towns or, worse still, fighters refuelling so that a second wave of bombers destroyed them on the ground.