I enjoyed this book about the Battle of Britain and the roles the leaders took to ensure, or cost them, victory.
The story is very intriguing about the use of fighters and bombers in World War II. It starts with some of the developments and the rivalries that shaped the development of the fighters and bombers needed on both sides for the war.
The best chapters; however, lie in the Battle of Britain. There was fear that after an air raid the Germans were set to invade England after taking France. This turned out to be true, Hitler’s famous Operation Sea Lion as it was called was set to be green lit. However, the German navy wanted to make sure that German bombers did enough damage so that an invasion would be possible. Also it appeared that the German strategy thought that the bombing would undo the British will and create a push for a change in government that would please Germany, neither happened.
The bombers turned out to be sitting ducks for the Hurricanes and Spitfires, British fighters, that would attack them. The leader of Fighter Command, Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding, correctly thought out that the war would be of attrition and of fighting in smaller numbers. When Fighter Command scrambled their fighters into different, smaller groups, it gave the appearance to the Germans (who did not do enough intelligence work) that the British Fighter Command was small and could be overrun at any time. However this was not the case. Dowding also correctly thought to keep the fight going long enough to stave off a potential invasion season. The invaison season would be between the time of June to September. If the British were losing less planes than the Germans, that would prolong the battle into the fall and stave off Hitler calling on Operation Sea Lion.
In essence his plan worked. The fighters concentrated on destroying the bombers, which were more expensive to make and required more manpower, and as long as the British were losing less fighters than the Germans were bombers then the war of attrition would favor the British. However the Germans failed to realize that and when they finally crippled Fighter Command with bombing raids on strategic air ministry targets, they quickly switch to a bombing of London which quickly raised Fighter Command’s resolve and ability to stave off the enemy.
One of the most important weapons for the British was their new invention, radar. Radar enabled the British to see where the German attacks were coming from and where to protect from Fighter Command. Dowding wanted, and received, cover for most of England’s coast by radar which enabled them to stave off attacks from the east and north.
The book shows that Hitler got the operation ready a few times but would postpone it indefinitely in mid-September. The Germans were did in by poor intelligence and arrogance of their (they felt) inevitable victory. Dowding would fight through political battles in the Royal Air Force and eventually be taken out of his duties by November. There is no mention of him in the first official historic files of the Battle of Britain, to which Churchill thought was a great offense of infighting at the Air Ministry.
There are a lot of great stories in here about people who fought the war, not only British but German and all of the people who came (from New Zeland, America, Canada, and many others) to fight the war on the British side. The first American death in World War II came in the Battle of Britain. If you like war books, specifically World War II, this is a very good and fast read.