The Battle Of Britain: The Man Who Saved A Nation | Fighting The Blue | War Stories

[Music] in 1940 the people of the british isles stood isolated bracing themselves for the aerial onslaught that would pave the way for the nazi invasion arya fighter command was ready to be the sword and shield against this airborne onslaught thanks to the leadership determination and foresight of its commander sir dowding a man who was never given the recognition he deserved for laying the foundations for victory in the battle of britain [Music] so in the spring of 1940 europe was collapsing under the weight of hitler's armed forces the vast german war machine had overpowered poland and czechoslovakia now they swept into france the commander-in-chief of fighter command for the royal air force was air chief marshal hugh dowding dowding's fighting force was in france attempting to stop the germans overrunning the country it was a losing battle [Music] nearly 500 fighters were destroyed and 300 pilots killed this was a severe drain on the resources of fighter command we were hopelessly ill-equipped we didn't have a prep we didn't all have maps only some of us had maps there weren't enough to go around and we'd no ground crew with us so we had to do it all ourselves pump fuel in pour it in from two gallon tins the army who were on the beaches at the time trying to get out were slating the raf fight command somewhat because they said they never saw any fighters overhead what they didn't realize of course that if we intercepted their bombers over there would be too late they'd be dropping their bombs on them so we had to intercept them way and land france was desperate for reinforcements and churchill was about to give in to their requests but dowding had other ideas and would clash with his superiors something he was well known for sirs in my view fighter command will be pushed to the limit in protecting 11 and 12 groups i would remind you that your estimate of the number of squadrons required for home defense was 52 i have at present 34 for the task during his time as an officer pilot in the first world war he would often question the orders of his commander-in-chief lord trenchard he had a very big row with trenchard about his pilots one of the squadrons they'd taken quite a beating and he asked for them to be taken out of the line to rest these boys could only win so many dogfights before they were caught out they needed a break i put my case but received orders stating that we were to continue our offensive flights other roles in the royal flying corps were rested after a while if they could do it in other areas i felt strongly that the rule should apply to pilots as well i put my case to trencher trenchard eventually gave in but he then decided that downing was too soft to be a you know front line commander and shipped him back to england the protection of his men had effectively cost him promotion but this protection was something that followed him into world war ii and throughout his life it shows i think that he really was concerned as though they were his children almost and he fought battles and battles for them and the pilots were aware of this and that's why they held him in such great affection in fact his men affectionately nicknamed him stuffy in the royal air force you could have a nickname for any reason at all that could be the opposite of what you were but i think as a loner and a very reserved person he would be unlikely to join in parties and people would say oh he's a bit stuffy you know so the name stayed nicknames don't go away i'm afraid in order to get on in the army you need good capacity to drink well i drink as little as possible i have only been drunk twice in my life and i remember the feeling afterwards well that is why i do not drink like the others but between the wars dowding was continually promoted and was instrumental in forming the royal air force in 1936 he was appointed commander-in-chief of fighter command he was 53 years old and had reached the rank of air marshall he was determined to build his baby into a premier fighting force whose objective was to defend the country at all costs he was a pragmatist and a realist he realized that fighter command was best employed protecting the country as a defensive force and with the advent of war his dream would be put to the test as churchill was about to send more precious hurricanes to france dowding strongly opposed this plan i was desperately concerned with convincing the pm how urgent the situation was i laid the data on the table in front of him and said if the present rate of wastage continues for another fortnight we shall not have another hurricane left in france or britain that did the trick [Music] it was decided to fall back from france and prepare for the defense of britain but some of dowding's experienced pilots were left stranded it was all pretty chaotic of course we were in full retreat we couldn't get any instructions or orders what's new so we'd refuel and just go off do a patrol looking for trouble i made my way back by managing to get a lift on an old lorry which had a load of potatoes in the back i was going towards sherbet and the roads were absolutely jammed up with refugees they had horses towing their cars and they had their cars loaded to the gills with all their belongings that they could take away but of course it made our journey extremely hazardous because the roads were so blocked up we landed at southampton and we went by train from uh there to waterloo going up in the train i was watching people playing cricket in their whites and i could hardly believe it after what we've been through [Music] the german high command agreed that britain must also be invaded in order to stop any further resistance to the nazi onslaught at the start of the battle of britain the luftwaffe had over 2500 aircraft in its fighting fleet by contrast fighter command had barely 550 in flying condition dowding knew that his pilots lacked air combat experience whereas the germans were supremely confident the luftwaffe had bloodied their pilots and planes in support of franco's troops during the spanish civil war in 1936 by the beginning of the second world war the luftwaffe had perfected tactics and formations against none of us really knew how to fight aeroplanes and the germans had had the experience of the spanish civil war this experience an actual battle was put to devastating effect against the polish air force at the outset of the wall we were bombed on the on the planes the people were killed we were hiding in the fields we didn't give up we did we tried to do our best all the time but our best wasn't good enough by by far they managed to overrun us of course they have a lot of technical equipment especially tanks and aircrafts and it was really catastrophe i mean it was so unpleasant not only did the germans have the experience they also had the hardware starting via the earthly the odds were stacked against hugh dowding's fighter command i had traveled germany many years before the war had a lot of german friends and they're a very very formidable fighting power there's no doubt about that as the small british fighting force braced itself for the nazi onslaught many pilots feared the worst they intended to really decimate this country and just use us as slave labor i suppose really doubting and fighter command were all that stood between us and a fascist dictatorship if it was put to me bluntly are we going to win this war i think we just said we should be lucky if we do june 1940 the leader of fighter command hugh dowding was tasked with defending britain against the onslaught of nazi germany his forces were short of planes and pilots but were prepared to take on the battle-hardened pilots and their aircraft from the mighty luftwaffe it was a vital battle after all the germans wanted to invade us and they couldn't have invaded us unless they'd got their superiority there was much at stake waiting across the channel were thousands of troop carrying barges ready for the invasion if fighter command lost control of the skies the german invasion would have been unstoppable quite simply dowding had to win but there was much in his favor since becoming commander-in-chief he had tirelessly worked to establish a structure where communication was vital to every aspect of his control dowding had divided the country into four separate groups 13 group in the north 12 group guarding the east coast and the midlands 10 group covering the west and 11 group responsible for defending london and the southeast of england each group had its own operations center in direct communication with hq fighter command at bentley priory on the outskirts of london from here dowding would oversee the defense of britain hq fighting command monitored the whole of the united kingdom doubting had responsibility for the air defense of the united kingdom his job uh was to ensure that uh the country was defended so technically at hq fighting command it was a monitoring situation information being received passed out to the groups and received back so he could keep a tally on what was actually happening but good communication alone would never defeat the nazis fortunately doubting had a secret weapon while working for the air ministry he pioneered the development of a long-range early warning system called radio direction finding rdf or as it would become known radar by the outbreak of war the system was up and running the whole world of radar was totally and completely secret and nobody was allowed to know about it and nobody ever did i cannot give you much information about this system because its existence is very secret suffice it to say that we are able to detect the approach of aircraft over the sea to a distance of 60 miles or more and to plot their courses with fair accuracy we had fall warning of the german formations their size their height their direction we had a lot of advanced information so it was very important a series of masts known as chain home high and low covered south and eastern coasts at varying intervals they were linked to filter stations which passed the information onto sector stations and operations rooms [Music] i was trading on what was called ch radar which was entirely in the business of defense in other words picking up bombers for a 90 miles range before they ever started crossing the channel and heading in our direction they were seen on the screen the moment they got up in here now this was fed back to hq fighter command at bentley prior into their filter room where it was checked filtered by filter officers then passed the group affected it would give the controller time to get his aircraft airborne okay time to scramble [Music] fighter command's control with radar was first class from an interception point of view the controllers were able to assess which quadrants should intercept that particular formation and how many aircraft would be or how many aircraft they estimated would be required to deal with that situation it meant that your squadrons could be kept on the ground until the very last minute uh and the alternative would be to put them up on patrol and of course this this would have been quite hopeless you can't run a standing patrol system oh by our 24 hours a day at night sort of thing not with the resources we had but even this new early warning system had its limitations dowding still needed eyes from the ground relaying the numbers of enemy aircraft to the stations now once the aircraft had crossed over the coastline radar stopped it only pointed seaward and then of course it became the observer corps whose priority was to track the aircraft and report that back simultaneously to hq fighter command somebody would tell you that there were 200 plus 100 plus 50 plus coming over this was when we got warning from the coastal people that the raid was building up and coming over and a raid did build up like a thunderstorm it was very exciting to watch a raid beginning to build up 90 miles 80 miles away a few little echoes would appear on the screen to begin with and then slowly it would get a bigger and bigger mass and all these echoes are kind of trembling so you would pass a plot to fight a command headquarters at bentley prairie and there was old stuffy doubting sitting up in his balcony watching it all happen [Music] [Music] [Music] were determined not to give away the fact that we had effective radar or something in our night fighter that allowed us to close in on other aircraft at night the air ministry were pressed by newspapers as to why i had had success at night the air ministry decided quite deliberately that they would say that i had exceptional night vision and they told the commander-in-chief and fighter command that he was to make sure that i realized that's what they were saying i was then given the name by the papers as cat's eyes cunningham but the germans were not so easily fooled into the germans quickly identified the large aerials along the coastline as doubting secret weapon and soon found a way to penetrate our defenses and attack them there was only one drawback to ch radar it could not look low enough jerry used to come in probably two or three planes at a time under the radar and they're used to what we say strut shoot us up you'd suddenly hear the machine guns going they think oh my goodness there's an enemy overhead so everything would go chaotic because the guns would open up and the noise was horrific [Music] the germans were gaining the upper hand dowding desperately needed another fighting advantage the workhorse of fighter command was the hurricane which although effective had its limitations we couldn't chase anything with hurricane all the german aircraft were much faster than we were there really was a war on and our backs were to the wall and by god we needed aircraft but dowding was already one step ahead he was instrumental in the increased production of a new and iconic aircraft the spitfire one day there was a totally different noise in the sky and i went out and their high up in the blue were two beautiful monoplanes wheeling and diving and circling around it's the most wonderful noise you can imagine it's sort of rich and powerful and reassuring [Music] the spitfire was a real match for the messerschmitt 109s it gave the pilots a fighter command a much needed advantage spitfire excelled under extreme conditions it responded whatever the conditions of flight whatever the conditions have load whatever the speed or angle it would give you fair warning that it was being abused and you could do things with a spitfire that certainly i've never been able to do with any other aircraft [Music] one day a spitfire landed on the airfield and texted over to our hangar and we were told it was a house and we sat in this thing we walked around it we stroked it i fell a bit in love with this airframe the most beautiful thing i had ever seen next day 15 more turned up and we were a fuzz from him anyway i described buying a spitfire is you don't fly a spitfire you just strap it on and fly although the spitfire was faster and more maneuverable it didn't supersede the hurricane in fact the two planes complemented each other there's a split section between those that favor the hurricane more than the spitfire but the fact of the matter is the battle of britain could have been won by the spitfire but had we not had the spitfire hurricane could not have won it on its own but even with these two awesome fighting machines fighter command was suffering the loss of five pilots per day a fact that would play heavily on dowding's mind for many fighting for the first time was an awakening this was reality kill or be killed it was a rite of passage for many who were still teenagers as they made their transition from boy to man throughout his time as commander-in-chief of fighter command hugh dowding was concerned for the welfare of his pilots as the defense of britain began to get underway during july 1940 and because of the deaths of many of his pilots his concern deepened it's very revealing that he referred to the pilots who after all weren't you know fairly tough in their own way and he referred them as his chicks and the safety of his chicks was always at the top of dowding's mind one day at our airfield a group of men arrived with bulletproof windscreens now prior to that all we had in front of us was basically perspex i said that i wanted bulletproof glass for the windscreens i remember the gust of laughter sweeping round the table i said if chicago gangsters can have bulletproof windows to their cars why can't my pilots have bulletproof windscreens i have no idea how many lives were saved by this we've got a two inch thick bulletproof windscreen which we knew dowding had had to fight the ambulance before so that's how we were aware of his presence and we knew that behind the lines he was fighting for us up until 1936 flying was for the affluent pilots private or military came from the wealthy families dowding realized that with the rise of the nazi party and war looming there would be a shortage of trained pilots due to the massive modernization process lads of 18 and above from different backgrounds and all walks of life suddenly had a chance to become a fighter pilot the idea of all being public school boys and uh wearing red jackets and this that and the other not quite true the government introduced a thing called the volunteer reserve and i thought this is my only chance ever to do something so i leapt at it and volunteered for it the great majority were vrs some regulars a lot of vrs who came from all backgrounds in all walks of life just happened to be at the right place at the right time wrong place at the wrong time which way you want to look at it but for many of these young pilots their entire training was done on slow vintage biplanes where the instructor sat in the back with the outbreak of war it was suddenly presented with single-seater war birds in may 1940 i'd never been in the cockpit of either spitfire or a hurricane and those of us who never flown flown low wing monoplanes before had to be introduced as fit for us and uh we just had to learn after i'd been in the squadron about two days the flight commander said well we better get you flying he gave me a copy of the pilot's notes and said go sit quietly somewhere and read them up and after i went back having read them he said right now you better sit in the cockpit for half an hour find out where everything is and which i did there was a book um published of where all the tits and knobs were and you just sat in the cockpit and familiarized yourself with where everything was and when you thought you knew all about it you went to the flight commander and said please will you test me and they would ask a lot of questions and said right off you go and the only advice i give you is don't put the stick forward when you take off otherwise you'll push the propeller into the ground anyway i took off safely thank heavens and flew around for about 45 minutes and fortunately i managed to do a good landing and i taxed it in and when i got out of the cockpit and walked to the flight office for the first time in my life i felt about six feet tall i think a chap with lots of gold that prayed on this cap came down and told us we had fought five weeks to learn how to fly these things and to put ourselves in the position when we could take on the might of the german air force but the might of the german air force took a heavy toll on our young pilots many didn't survive their first flight into battle the reason that the new boys were the jets who bought it was if they were lucky they had done a few hours on the hurricane but not really enough to put it on like a coat if you like and wear it like a suit and know exactly what it could do so it was just lack of it lack of experience first seven days we were decimated i think we lost nine pilots in seven days and two or three uh shot down but got away with it the first three four five flights are always the most dangerous you cannot train people to meet real live bullets you cannot train them to operate at the speed that you need to dowding introduced a system that would counter the lack of experience in his new trainees he would send his battle-hardened pilots to squadrons away from the fighting where they could pass on their hard-earned knowledge of combat to newly qualified flyers another advantage of this was to give his experienced pilots a well-earned rest from the relentless nazi offensive my overriding memory of the battle of britain is tiredness incredible tiredness because we're on readiness from half an hour before dawn morning until half an hour after dusk at night and we slept in our clothes down at dispersal when we were boss come down we actually slept underneath the wings of our airplanes it was more stressful waiting most people seem to appear to try and relax and sleep but you were very much on edge in dispersal arc we had a bunch of camp beds which just threw ourselves on went to sleep as soon as we landed in fact at that stage of my life i went to sleep whenever you stop doing anything i would sleep standing sitting or wherever it was okay okay but despite the discomfort fighter commands three thousand men and women faithfully followed dowding's lead we can never ensure home defense by the operation of fighter command it can never take the initiative that depends on the enemy will he send over single machines or very small formations or will he depend on monstrous hammer blows every 24 hours by every available machine we must be prepared for all possibilities we must be prepared for anything [Music] but dowding wasn't prepared for the conspiracy from within his own ranks the luftwaffe was just one of his enemies many more roamed the corridors of the royal air force itself by september 1940 over 200 fighter pilots had been killed in action the deaths of so many young men dowding's chicks weighed heavily on his mind [Music] he lost his first wife not so long after they'd been married and i'm sure that like so many people he was anxious to find whether there was in fact a life after death his interest in spiritualism following the death of his wife grew to become a large part of his life in fact in later years dowding felt he could see and talk to his fighter pilots his chicks who had been killed he used to go into his lounge apparently and see pilots there and talk to them because he felt very guilty i have made some new friends whom i have never seen on earth and yet who rank between the dearest and most intimate of my acquaintances one would have thought it was way beyond him but of course he was a much deeper person than people might have thought it was strange at first but i have now got quite accustomed to carrying long and intimate conversations with invisible and inaudible presences one thing that impressed me was the humility of the man the gentleness of him any man that would normally occupy such an elevated position in any of our armed services would have been well upright and either exercising authority but not lord doubting i don't mind if half of you think that i ought to have my head examined i don't mind particularly what people think of me personally in the case of young pilots who were inexperienced 19 20 21 years old were thrust into battle and in some cases on their first flight they were literally plunged into the next world some of these young men do not know where they are they do not realize that they're dead these poor lads whose physical lives are suddenly blotted out in the heat of action they feel exactly as they did a moment before they have apparently the same bodies and the same clothing they can generally still see and hear people in the flesh though they cannot make themselves seen and heard i was bulleted out with the family and one day they invited me to sit at the sounds uh by one of the villagers who was a medium and uh she said um i've have somebody with me today who wants to show himself to you and she changed into the physical appearance of my old buddy who had been shot down in 1941 i wasn't expecting anything and this was so powerful that i found it almost unbelievable i am happy when i am allowed to take part in rescue work awakening the lads who have made the ultimate sacrifice for us dowding's belief in spiritualism would provide the ammunition used by those who plotted against him during the closing stages of the battle of britain a staunch believer of doubting and his policies was air vice marshal keith park he was the controller of number 11 group guarding london and the home counties eleven group was the front line of the battle and took most of the glory for the defense of england [Music] park was a new zealander and he had the sort of informality that new zealanders and people from the antipodean countries have he flew the airplanes that we flew he flew hurricanes and he used to plant those hurricanes outside dispersal even joined the battle he used to fly around visit us all and listen to what we said because i do stuff at him one day because i was very angry and i told him what i thought about the organization and it was changed three days later air vice marshal trafford lee mallory was the controller of number 12 group based in the midlands his task was to support park's group in the defense of the southeast lee mallory was a staff officer pure and simple and i'm not saying this unkindly but he was a brain picker he had people around him to advise him and very often he took the wrong advice lee mallory was a very ambitious man he was good he was a good chap he thought sunshine out of my backside but uh but he uh uh he had this idea that uh he could gain fame and fortune with with the big wing during the battle of britain mallory began to promote the big wing idea this was to gather together up to five squadrons around 50 aircraft in midair and attack the incoming german raid on mass mallory put this idea to park at the pilots of his eleven group we said no and uh which both there must have as much of a power count and doubting agreed with park could see that the big wing contained two different types of aircraft hurricanes and spitfires the spitfire was faster than the hurricane and and it would have to wait when you get the big wing okay can make a big impact but it takes time and the one thing that wasn't available during the battle was time i'd say would have been a total failure what a waste of time forming up and all at that time the bombers are coming in and they're probably on the way out dowding and park refused to adopt mallory's big wing philosophy but mallory disobeyed orders and used it anyway as a consequence he was often late in coming to the assistance of parks 11 group i think it was self-glory he was off he's after keith park's job mallory took his big wing philosophy to friends of the air ministry friends who were prepared to undermine doubting there was a group of people that wanted doubting removed he was a loner and he naturally fighting for the pilots he'd be battling with the air ministry all the time but then in september we started the problems of what was called the big wing philosophy which lee mallory brought into being and um shelter douglas who was at the air ministry gave him the fullest support douglas was everything that doubting was not amusing and entertaining he got on well with others and enjoyed partying he knew how to get the best from people at social functions which stood him in good stead together douglas and lee mallory conspired to remove dowding and park from their offices and change their plan for defence the whole thing was set up to humiliate dowding to try to prove that his handling of the battle had been wrong and that lee mallory and the big wings was the way in which the battle should have been fought even dowding's belief in spiritualism was used against him the people who attacked him in the royal air force uh used this uh as a denigration of his character his personality uh even suggesting that perhaps his um brain was getting a little bit muddled unfortunately at the height of the battle of britain this campaign against doubting reached the highest authority behind dowding's back they were building up a case against him until there was a meeting in in october when the whole thing was dealt with and as a result of that doubting was just removed from office churchill told me that i was to be replaced as commander-in-chief of fighter command he told me of his surprise that this recommendation should have been made in the moment of victory but did not indicate any personal opposition it seemed natural enough the air council had been anxious to be rid of me since before the start of the war and this seemed to be an appropriate moment dowding was not alone keith park was forced out as well having won the battle they were removed out of the way with no credit at all two very worthwhile traps and between them they saved the country sholto douglas took over dowding's role as commander-in-chief of fighter command and immediately gave trafford lee mallory the control of number 11 group mallory and douglas set about changing the plans for defence with their big wing philosophy a theory that many pilots felt was completely unsuitable for defence fortunately for britain this change happened just as germany abandoned its plans for invasion had we followed the policies they would have liked to have promoted we would have lost the battle of britain and if we'd lost the battle of britain we would have lost the war by the end of november churchill realized that he could safely tell the nation that um the invasion for 1940 had certainly been sorted and the germans had been beaten back churchill said that he wanted me to go to the united states i said that i did not wish to accept such an appointment churchill replied i have the right to demand that you should accept so i went churchill declared that on christmas day 1940 that every church belly in the country will be wrong to celebrate the fact that we had beaten back the german attempts to invade us doubting was not even in the country when the church bells to celebrate the victory were wrong he eventually retired to a quiet life in the country without receiving official recognition but many who served under him knew where the credit lay i think the politicians didn't give doubting the honours they deserved he was an intensely sincere man intensely patriotic and uh he loved us the chaps who did his fighting for him but as though we were children he is a grand man in many respects fighter command was a remarkably good organization the commander-in-chief stuffy dowding was a brilliant operator and he had conceived the whole layout the whole setup and uh and he ran it perfectly i don't think that the people who really won the battle of britain have ever been given the proper credit and that a lot of fictitious light you did not dubs dead it's as simple as that dowding's foresight pre-planning and organization saved britain from invasion although he never received significant recognition during his lifetime in 1988 a statue to his memory was finally placed outside saint clements danes the royal air force church in london as one of the saviors of britain [Music] you

Channel: War Stories

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Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, battle of britain, battle of britain documentary, battle of britain footage, hugh dowding raf, hugh dowding ww2, hugh dowding youtube, WWII, RAF Fighter Command, churchill ww2, military history channel, history documentary, wwii documentary 2020, wwii documentary for students

Id: BV1ZuJbTlus

Length: 47min 14sec (2834 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/efefia]

Slight correction… the man who saved the free world