Spitfire

[ozjohn39]

I wonder just how many Spitfires and Hurricanes were produced whilst Chamberlin was grovelling in Munich, in a desperate attempt to buy time?


John

[Harry Ree]

I do not think Chamberlain was buying time.Now we look back in hindsight and take the view that the Munich agreement gave us time to get to think about the worse possible outcome.The fact remains that the RAF expansion programme, inferior as it was, planned for a worthwhile bomber force and the introduction of monoplane fighters as soon as it was recognised that Germany posed a threat.The unveiling of the Luffewaffe in 1935 resulted in the formation of Bomber Command and Fighter Command in 1936 the restructuring of the Royal Air Force whch was to last until 1968. The acceleration in the laying down of new airfields, a number which did not become operational until the Battle of France and the prewar establishment of shadow aircraft manufacturers sites were all part of the decisions made when it became apparent who the enemy would be.It is interesting that immediately after the Great War, those charged with the strategic planning for the Royal Air Force, even as it was being rundown, saw France as the potential enemy on mainland Europe.

Less than 20 years later in the summer of 1940, Churchill thought that only unification beween Great Britain and France would save us from Hitler.

The 1930s was a period where due to the economical difficulties, the investment in the armed forces was not as high as it should have been but by 1938, it was recognised that the civilian population would be at risk. Anyone looking into what was happening in Great Britain would have seen that the Home Office were making plans to protect the civilian population as far as they could."The bomber will always get through" was always at the back of the politician's mind and then there were those who saw that Hitler posed no threat to them and in their mind was the bulkhead against all their fears of the state of a future Great Britain.