Tuesday, July 10, 2007
On this day in 1940, the air battle over England, called the Battle of Britain, began and lasted for about 3 and 1/2 months. Although the Brits had far fewer fighters (around 600 in July) they were pretty good ones, Spitfires (Mark I and IIs) and Hurricanes, which had a better turning radius than the primary German fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 109, although they lacked the 20mm cannon the 109 had. The German fighters had to come over the channel and had about 30 minutes of flight time over England before they had to book back to France. The Brits also had radar, which made a surprise attack very unlikely. Still, by attacking the radar sites with the hopelessly slow Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and then bombing the airfields, along with the attrition of fighter on fighter, the Luftwaffe hurt the RAF, at no small cost. Indeed, a decision to move the British fighter airfields back to Scotland was about one week from being implemented before the Germans stopped the successful tactic and switched in early September to the ineffective bombing of cities, particularly London.
Labels: WWII history; European theater
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:19 PM 
