Battle of Britain losses

[Kyt]

Having just watched the Battle of Britain film on TV this evening (again ), I dug out two books that have day by day losses listed.

The first is "Flight to Victory" by Ronald Walker published December 1940 / March 1941

The second is "The Battle of Britain of Britain: The Jubilee History" by Houghs & Richards published 1990

What I found interesting were the discrepancies between the loses reported in 1940 and 1990 (the 1990 use figures given in the Official History,1957; and with additional information gathered by the After the Battle magazine).

I thought people might find it interesting (I'm hoping I'm not the only anorak around )

[adrian roberts]

It goes to show that however interesting contemporary accounts are, you have to wait for someone to do the scholarship - in this case to check the German records. The RAF pilots may not have been deliberately lying (one hopes) but there must have been many instances where it was impossible to be sure about the destruction of an enemy aircraft. Perhaps some of the overclaiming was due to two or more pilots claiming the same kill.

A bit more difficult to explain the under-reporting of British losses though - except as deliberate propaganda.

[raf]

can any one tell me or explain.

During the battle of france the RAF lost 1/2 there fighters leaving them with just around 350.

If the RAF were using the spitfire and Huricane and experianced pilots why did the Luftwaffe beet us. Werent these better aircraft.

This continued in the early part of the BOB when the Luftwaffe were targeting the airfields we were struggling..

if the decision for Germany to start bombing london changed this ...then why surelly the fighting over the airfields and france is the same as fighting over london

if the Luftwaffe had kept on bombing the airfields and our losses were increasing what would have been the outcome.

i have also read that most of the French air force was shot on the ground.

From the end of Dunkirk to the start of the BOB our fighters went from 350 to 650 ish (thats good production).

any thoughts cheers

[Kyt]

Originally Posted by raf

If the RAF were using the spitfire and Huricane and experianced pilots why did the Luftwaffe beet us. Werent these better aircraft.

This continued in the early part of the BOB when the Luftwaffe were targeting the airfields we were struggling..

if the decision for Germany to start bombing london changed this ...then why surelly the fighting over the airfields and france is the same as fighting over london

if the Luftwaffe had kept on bombing the airfields and our losses were increasing what would have been the outcome.

i have also read that most of the French air force was shot on the ground.

From the end of Dunkirk to the start of the BOB our fighters went from 350 to 650 ish (thats good production).

any thoughts cheers

raf, the simple answer to your question is that during the Battle for France, the RAF were at a distinct disadvantage due to:

1) poor organisation (they were operating on foreign soil with a confused command structure split between the British and French)

2) bad aerial tactics (the British system still relied on relied on pre-war fighter training that had placed extreme emphesis on formation flying to aid in discipline, navigation and as the basis of attack and self defence. The "three plane inverted V - vic", with the attack made in a row, was cumbersome and time consuming). The Germans had learnt from their Spanish civil war to arrange their planes in a much freer formation, which also allowed for all around vision (so as not to be jumped from behind)

3) unfortunately, the the vast majority of he RAF pilots were not experienced combat pilots, whereas the Luftwaffe had learnt their lessons over Spain and Warsaw.

4) with the swiftness that the German ground forces swept through Belgium, Holland and France, the RAF and French airforce were constantly under threat on the ground, and their forward airfields were constantly being over run. This meant that not only did the planes have to be pulled back all the time (to "safer" fields), but with each move some of the valuable ground staff were being left behind.

5) the increase in planes after Dunkirk were due to both increased production, AND because Dowding had had the gumption to stand up to Churchill (who had wanted to commit more fighter squadrons to France) and refuse to lose any more planes to a battle that he knew was lost.

[Gibbo]

I think that RAF victory claims were calculated by aggregating claims by pilots & AA gunners. These would be too high because more than one man would claim the same enemy aircraft & some that were only damaged would be credited as destroyed. Discrepancies between the number of enemy aircraft claimed & the number of wrecks in the UK were explained away by claiming that the excess number had crashed into the sea.

I'm less sure how to explain the differences between the 1941 & 1990 figures for RAF losses. The discrepancy doesn't seem to me to be big enough to be a propaganda lie. Is it going to effect anything if you claim to have lost 15 aircraft when you actually lost 16, as happend on 3 August? If I've read Kyt's spreadsheet properly, then there are a couple of days (27 & 30 August) where the 1990 figure is greater than the 1941 one. My guess is that the figures were honest but hastily compiled & thus including mistakes.

On the Battle of France, only a portion of Fighter Command was involved & it was therefore heavily out numbered. The RAF fighters were without the benefits of radar & the sector control system so were fighting away from their normal system. There were no Spitfire squadrons stationed in France although some flew over Dunkirk, when it was the British rather than the Germans who suffered from the short range of their fighters.

[Kyt]

I think, Gibbo, the discrepancies between the two figures can be based not only on propaganda (the figures from 1940/41are the publically declared ones), but also what constitues a loss.

For the German losses, the 1990 figures would include combat losses that declared by the pilots (and we know that confirming who shot how many planes was always difficult, and there were often multiple declarations for the same plane), but also those that crashed out of sight (channel, french soil etc). Again, the British losses depend upon what constitutes a loss.

What I've yet to ascertain is whether the 1990 figures include plane losses that were damaged in combat but managed to land back at their airfields and were then were completely written off. I have to go back to the 1957 Official History at some stage to check this.

[raf]

thanks for the replies.

Kyt..some good interesting points.

but in the early days of the BOB the RAF were in the same situation as France...

They were loosing..did this only change when the Luftwaffe switched.

we had home advantage...Radar...the spitfire...the control centre..AA guns but were still loosing.

when did the changes in operation and taticks come into affect.

do you think if the Germans hadnt switched then that would have been it for the RAF and they would have had to with draw just like France and gone further North.

cheers

[Kyt]

Originally Posted by raf

but in the early days of the BOB the RAF were in the same situation as France...

Actually, at the beginning of the BoB the RAF were in a much better position than in France. Apart from the advantages of radar etc that Gibbo has mentioned, the RAF managed some breathing space between the fall of France (where they had had a mauling, and like the BEF army, theyhad lost a lot of equipment and trained ground staff), and the start of the Luftwaffe's campaign against the airfields and radar stations. During this time, the Luftwaffe was itself recuparatingand re-organising, and most of their own offensive attacks were concentrated against channel shipping. These short weeks allowed the RAF Command to re-equip, transfer exhausted pilots out of the front-line (11 Group) and concentrate their forces.

Originally Posted by raf

They were loosing..did this only change when the Luftwaffe switched......we had home advantage...Radar...the spitfire...the control centre..AA guns but were still loosing.

Losing is a bit of a complicated term. Initial Luftwaffe predictions were that the RAF only had about 600+ fighters, and initial combat reports at the beginning of the BoB indicated to the Luftwaffe that the RAF had lost 300+ in the first few attacks against the airfields etc. However, these predictions were inaccurate, and they did not take into account the production of new aircraft.

On the other hand, the RAF was losing - not because they weren't shooting down German aircraft (which they were doing quite admirably because of the factors that you mentioned) but that the RAF PILOTS were being killed, injured or exhausted at a greater rate than they could be replaced, This battle of attrition would have caused a collapse at some point if the Luftwaffe hadn't changed to city bombing.

Let's just say that the whole situation was on a knife edge, but because the Luftwaffe couldn't fathom out how the RAF kept managing to send up planes, and due to Hitler's intervention, the collapse never came.

Originally Posted by raf

when did the changes in operation and taticks come into affect.

There were two levels of operational tactics.

At the "grand" level - sector control, radar useage, AA control etc, the system was actually in place before the war. That is why, when the BoB started, the sytem coped very well (all things considered).

However, combat tactics in the air, as I have already stated, at the beginning of the Battle of France, were tied to pre-war constraints. However, it was also during this period that the pilots themselves learnt how unworkable these were, and started either learning new ways themselves or learnt them by watching the Germans. They then brought back their experiences to Britain and passed them on to other pilots. However, officially Dowding was against the adoption of the new tactics, but allowed Park to issue formal recommendations that old aerial tactics should be abandoned for the new ones in August 1940 (they weren't formally approved for the whole of the RAF until after Dowding had left much later)

Originally Posted by raf

do you think if the Germans hadnt switched then that would have been it for the RAF and they would have had to with draw just like France and gone further North.

Now that's a "what if", and I'll let others answer that