Maybe we could have a look a German pilot claims for the period to guage just how active the RAF was in this period 26 May - June 3rd......The subject will come up when I eventually resume my day by day look at German pilot claims.....I'm only 17 days into WW2 at the moment!
Hi All, When I researched my book, "Down to Earth", Kenneth McGlashan was all too well aware of the perception of the RAF being absent. As he waited to embark upon a vessel back across the Channel after being shot down and again the next day he was challenged on this very point by Allied ground troops. Norman Franks' book is very detailed and demonstrates how active the RAF actually was over this period. Cheers, Owen
i remember reading alan deers autobiography,i believe he too touched upon this subject while in 54sqn.yours,4thwilts.
Wasn't it Deere who claimed after being shot down that he had to thump a naval officer before he was allowed to get on boat (ship) home?
i would not be suprised,although i do not recall this incident,mind you i have the book in my garage,i will try and find out.yours,4th wilts.
Didnt need to get my copy out of the garage as I finished reading Al Deere's Nine Lives only last week! He did have an exchange of words with an Army Major while waiting to board a ship back from Dunkirk. The Major told him 'for all the good you chaps seem to be doing over here you might just as well stay on the ground.' Not surprising he was upset by this reaction which many in the Army seem to have held about Dunkirk and the RAF at the time. He goes on to explain what Fighter Command and 54 Squadron had been doing - 'For two weeks non-stop I had flown my guts out and this was all the thanks I got. What was the use of trying to explain that the RAF had patrolled further inland, often above cloud, with the insuperable task of covering adequately a patrol line from Ostend to Boulogne? Why explain that pilots of Fighter Command had no idea that the position was so serious and only knew and believed what they had read in the newspapers, that the british army was retreating according to plan.' NINE LIVES - ALAN C DEERE DSO OBE DFC & BAR published by Crecy Publishing Ltd. Cant recommend this book enough. Definately one of the best by a fighter pilot in Battle of Britain. ED
Just been directed here by Owen (thank you)... Worth shaking the dust off it again I think!!! Anyone know a tv/film producer who can do something to put this impression right! Dee
I must confess apart from the odd specific ref to a RAF headstone I haven't read much on the Air War over France even though I have had ATB's Battle of France for nearly a year ! What I do know is that it seems that a considerable amount of the RAF's activities were further inland out of the BEF's sight.
Here is a passage from the RAF website about the 14th May and the attempt to bomb the Bridges over the Meuse at Sedan, which was a disaster. 14 May - 6 other Blenheims bombed a road junction at Breda without loss. Ten Battles were detailed to pontoon bridges erected by then Germans across the Meuse River north of Sedan. All the aircraft returned safely. The remainder of the morning's bombing operations were flown by the few surviving bombers (29 in all) of the French Air Force in attempt to halt the German breakthrough at Sedan. The AASF faired little better with just 62 Battles and 8 Blenheims available for operations. The afternoon saw Air Vice-Marshal Playfair, the Commander of the AASF, gamble everything with all available aircraft being ordered into the air to bomb the Germans at Sedan. It was a massacre; No 12 Squadron lost 4 out of 5 aircraft; No 142 Squadron 4 out of 8; No 226 Squadron 3 out of 6; No 105 Squadron 6 out of 11; No 150 Squadron 4 out of 4; No 88 Squadron 1 out of 10; No 103 Squadron 3 out of 8 and No 218 Squadron 10 out of 11 aircraft. Total Battle losses were 35 out of 63 aircraft. Eight Blenheims were also involved (all flown by No 114 Squadron) and only three returned. A total of 102 crew members either lost their lives or were taken prisoner - a terrible price to pay as the pontoon bridges remained intact. In one last raid on the bridges, 6 Blenheims of No 2 Group were lost during an attack by 28 aircraft. This series of losses effectively finished the AASF as a fighting force and all attacks over France were subsequently carried out by home-based bomber units. In the days that followed the squadrons of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and AASF moved from base to base in an attempt to stay ahead of the German advance. RAF History - Bomber Command 60th Anniversary
I was reading this today at work and came across some air war statistics from Operation Dynamo that I thought were well worth posting: The RAF flew 3,561 sorties, 2,739 of them by fighters. Fifty five pilots were killed and eleven wounded. The Luftwaffe lost 132 aircraft including those lost to gunfire from ships.
This poem, written by a member of the Irish Guards who was captured in France in 1940 is taken from a P.O.W.'s Redcross "Wartime Log." The poem shows how the feelings of the Army P.O.W.s towards the R.A.F. changed as the war progressed.
From a German Pilot captured at Dunkirk after being shot down: Your pilots are not men, they are fanatics. They are some new kind of devil. They came at us like the furies of hell. It did not matter how strong we were, they went for us as if we were sheep and they fought us at any odds. Our orders were to reach Dunkirk and bomb the British Army and Navy out of existance, but your mad pilots turned the skies into a mad house. Dunkirk-A Miracle of Deliverance.
From RAF 39-45 Vol.1 The fight at odds. If anyone says anything to you in the future about the inefficiency of the RAF-I believe the BEF troops were booing the RAF in Dover the other day-tell them from me we only wish we could do more. But without aircraft we can do no more than we have done-that is, our best, and that's fifty times better than the Germans best, though they are fighting under the most advantageous conditions. I know of no RAF pilot who has refuse combat yet-and that sometimes means combat with odds more than fifty to one.
Wow that The Cavalry of the Clouds over Dunkirk piece is extemely enlightening and moving to me and makes me feel even more proud of the RAF (my Dad was an aero engine fitter and my uncle a radio op/gunner in Bomber Cmd during the war). It's understandable the feelings the army had for the RAF, as they were the ones reacting to a mobile enemy forcing them back to an uncertain evacuation. Is this a case of when a tree is cut down in the amazon does it still make a noise. Well, yes it does, you just can't hear it. The RAF did a magnificent job, with unswerving courage and at great sacrifice; just cos you don't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. Still when your'e being continuosly shot and shelled, ouflanked and made to march and fight with no rest, you can understand why the army thought it was on it's own. Even when it wasn't. An' a bit of aircaft recognition wouldn't have gone amiss either!
I considered this question very carefully during preparation of The Battle of France Then & Now (2007) and would refer anyone interested to my conclusions on pp368-9 of that volume. No.11 Group mounted 101 patrols during the nine days of Operation 'Dynamo' which equates to 11 patrols each day - less than one flight per day by every squadron available. While such figures are over-simplistic, and do not accurately reflect individual squadrons' efforts, it remains the case that only two-thirds of all available fighters were employed, a level many considered inadequate.
I have been asked why the RAF or the Navy didn't evacuate the heavy water and diamonds that were carried from Bordeaux by the s.s Broompark. I know the answer for the Navy - more than half of their destroyers had been lost, or were awaiting repair. I note the very complete figures for RAF fighter losses, that are set out above. Are there any figures for the loss of transport aircraft? Roy
