WAR AND SOLDIERS
ROYAL AIR FORCE
In summer 1940 in southern England in the sky
took place in one of the most important World War II battles.
If England had lost, it would have been exposed to the rise of countries.
It would have had to surrender to the terms of Hitler
and Europe would have remained a Nazi slavery.
But the Brits won largely RAF fighters, thanks.
Never before have so many been so much debt
so few.
The RAF's ancestors were reconnaissance pilots and naval air forces
who fought in the First World War on the Western Front.
These two departments were combined in a number of 1.4. 1918
Of the Royal Air Force.
The Air Force was separated for the first time as an independent puolustushaaraksi.
But it was intercepted by the post-war decline.
England defended in 1922, only three fighter squadrons.
Defence Forces was intended to establish 52 lentokonelaivuetta
of which one-third was supposed to be fighters.
Intentions was postponed until 1936 due to the general disarmament.
The situation changed in January 1933 when Adolf Hitler rose to power.
He revealed in March 1935 its own air force, the Luftwaffe
which was already the case as strong as the RAF.
The British government began an urgent need to strengthen the RAF: a.
Air defense was set up a year later four branches:
The fighters, bombers, Coastal Air Command and the Air Force Academy.
The fighter of the Air Force's first commander was Sir Hugh Dowding.
Prestigious but firm leadership was nicknamed "Stuffy".
Dowding was a command 16 pieces of the machine 12 squadrons
and only a little more than 200 pilots.
The equipment consists of two levels, such as the Hawker Furyja and Hawker Demons.
They were too slow to catch the combat bombers in time.
But Dowding focused on two important invention
which changed the nature of the group of the department.
Radar detected approaching enemy aircraft
the reflection of radio waves.
England's south coast rose rapidly to the line of radar stations.
The metal monoplane machine
was significantly faster than the old two levels.
The first of them was Sidney Cammin drawn by the Hawker Hurricane.
The second was RJ Mitchell's Supermarine Spitfire.
When war broke out in 1939,
Dowding was mostly a Spitfire and a Hurricane
and the number of fighters had doubled.
Graduated from the Air Force School of officers were the RAF's backbone.
In addition to them were recruits pilots
who served for 4 years and then fell to 10 years in the reserve.
One of them was a New Zealander Al Deere, which became famous ace.
Eteläafrikkalainen "Sailor" Malan sai lempinimensä
as he had before the pilot's career was a sailor.
A quarter of each squadron pilots were NCO's.
In addition to permanent squadrons at RAF had a voluntary pool ...
... And consisted of viikonloppulentäjistä Royal Air Force base.
Aviation romance blossomed, and the records were broken continuously.
But most of Sunday pilots salailivat enthusiasm:
We joined the University of Oxford to the squadron.
We did not want so much to hone our skills, but to enjoy the fun.
But they knew they were World War II pilot aces heirs.
They were very confident.
We had a great machine. It was armor and a big engine.
We had a parachute and eight machine guns.
We were the modern knights and ready to face anyone.
James Sanders came to England ace air battles
but in the summer of 1939 was not yet known
how the young fighter pilots suoriutuisivat struggles.
Ordeal was waiting just around the corner.
Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939.
Great Britain and France declared war against Germany
and British troops began to move over the Channel to France.
They were joined by four RAF Hurricane squadrons.
Dowding was the British defense 33 squadrons.
Three squadrons flew a Bristol Blenheim bombers
which do not fared yksitasohävittäjille.
Three other flotilla were old Gloster Gladiator
but the rest of the Hurricanes and Spitfire.
After the Polish surrender
destroyers protected the East Coast shipping
as well as naval ports of Scapa Flow and Rosyth.
When the Germans invaded Rosyth 16. 10. 1939
fighters received their first victory of the war.
Hurricanes dropped two Heinkel He 111 bombers.
Located in France jet fighters dropped the German reconnaissance aircraft.
Unusually harsh winter curdles on both sides of the air operations.
The military campaign accelerated in the spring.
Germany invaded Norway and Denmark in April 1940.
Norway sent the Gladiator fighters.
The Germans destroyed them within a few days
a field used in a frozen lake.
Dowding was forced to send France a further six squadrons.
The German invasion of France took another four squadrons of Hurricanes.
The pilots fought well, but were greeted by overwhelming superiority.
They got the assistance of a further 32 Hurricanes.
France prayed more German fighters pouring in across the country.
But Dowding feared that British defense would be jeopardized
and prompted the government to stop the transfer of fighters to France.
The Germans surrounded the two weeks the British Army
as well as French and Belgian troops in the city of Dunkirk.
Hermann Goering boasted that the Luftwaffe took care of their own.
The German pilots did their best.
But they were not able to prevent the rescue of 340,000 soldier.
The miracle of Dunkirk was largely due to fighter pilots.
They fought bravely maintaining in the Luftwaffe at bay.
30 years old Douglas Bader received a baptism of fire just in Dunkirk.
He was a graduate of the air war from school 10 years earlier.
He soon lost his leg after a flight accident
and was forced to resign from RAF to.
Persistent Bader kuntoutui and he once again fly in 1940
and Dunkirk dropped the first plane, the Me 109's.
He too had to be a rookie, because he did not even try to dodge.
We did not have superiority, but we had enough.
The Germans turned towards Paris, and it was a bad mistake.
We lost quite a few machines and a damn good pilot.
The machines were lost over 400 and "damn good pilots' 153.
Dowding could not afford such losses.
He knew how to wait for the decisive battle Britain's airspace.
It will inevitably mean a loss of the German invasion.
The Luftwaffe had more than 1,100 medium-heavy bombers ...
... Noin 320 Junkers Ju 87 Stuka syöksypommittajaa ...
... 800 single-engine Me 109 fighter jets ...
... And 250 two-engined Me 110 fighter planes.
In addition, Norway and Denmark had 150 bombers and Me 110's.
The men of the Luftwaffe had been fighting the Spanish Civil War and Poland.
Dowding was able to set against it by about 800 fighters
but only 700 Spitfire and the Hurricane was a real benefit.
The management system had to act to make them all go.
Dowding had organized its air force for four lentodivisioonaksi.
10. The division responded to the Northwest of England.
Its commander Sir Quintin Brand
belonged to the crew, which flew from London to Cape Town in 1920.
Keith Park's 11th Division defended the South East of England
which was the most important.
Dowding was confident staffs serving in the Park.
12. The division confirmed the fronts of East Anglia and the Midlands region.
It was commanded by Trafford Leigh Mallory
with experience in land and air forces of collusion.
13. The division protected the northern England and southern Scotland.
Dowding defense was based coastal radar stations
who warned of the approaching enemy.
Radar Network sent an enemy Information
fighter the Air Force Headquarters Bentley Prioryyn Northwest London.
There was defined as the direction of flight and the entire department.
Information was forwarded to Bentley Priory command center
as well as divisions and the sectors to the headquarters.
Channel exceeding the machines was followed by aerial surveillance troops
which consisted of volunteers from civilians.
The division's headquarters decided which squadrons were alerted.
Sector command centers directed toward the enemy fighters.
The air defense consisted of two other important components:
Placed in the ground anti-aircraft guns
and the RAF belonged to the command of the shut-off balls
which prevented the attackers from getting low.
Spitfire machine is always connected to the battle of England.
Brian Kingcomen view, it was an outright pleasure to fly.
It obeyed the instruction in the same way as a good horse.
Spitfire which rivaled the German Me 109 for
and they are often ushered in attacking these saattokoneiden.
More modest hurricane had good sides.
The pilots knew that the hurricane turned more quickly than others.
If the enemy tried to kaartelemalla get to shoot
After a few reached the turn in themselves to shoot.
Geoffrey Page and his comrades concentrated to destroy the bombers.
Pilots soon realized that the tactic was the British weak point.
The RAF used the three-engine V a
and the attacks were carried out completely by the book.
Luftwaffe, in turn, used a battle experiences
and developed a "four fingers" formation.
It was a more flexible and better protected surprise attacks.
Dowding was not concerned about the production machinery, since it had been added.
But he feared that trained pilots was not enough.
The training was added in July 1940.
Every other week now completed 115 pilots of the previous 39 instead of
but it was of no use for some time yet.
It troubled Dowding continuously increases the losses in particular.
Aviators haalittiin reserve and also from abroad.
Poland were experienced pilots
who had fought against the Luftwaffe in their home country and France.
Aviators were received from France and Czechoslovakia
and the RAF was seen up to the American volunteers.
Even an experienced pilot, was entirely dependent on kenttähenkilöstöstään
such as an ace pilot Bob Stanford Tuck admits:
Once landed after a hot day and rose to his machine
against her became immediately swarm of men.
They opened the shutters, serviced the engine, fill up the machine
and downloaded the weapons as quickly as I could.
Radio technician came to check the radio ...
They hover around like ants.
Field Men boasted of because of how quickly they serviced the machine.
The BBC interviewed after the fight one of them.
The squadron landing on when it rose up in the air
It took the final stages of the Battle of seven minutes.
The first machine from landing the last upswing.
Battle of England officially began 10.7. 1940.
Luftwaffe tried in July to attract the RAF over the Channel
afflicted by convoys.
Dowding did not take the bait
even though the coast and especially the Dover coast fought fiercely.
Next radio commentary gives you an idea of ​​fighting wrath:
British Destroyers approaching.
Equipment plunge very steeply. I see bombs parting.
One machine is in flames, and falls a long savuvana in tow.
Machine guns crackle hears this far.
Smith hit a Messerschmitt! Wonderful! It drops.
It is a thing of the past. A truly magnificent sight !!
Goering launched a major offensive on 12 August.
Radar stations and airports frontline were the main goals.
Dowding, fortunately, to examine not bombarded for a long time
and most remained intact.
After three days, became Goering Adlertag, "Eagle Day".
Size RAF attempted to destroy one of the a huge attack.
Luftwaffe flew nearly 1,500 combat missions.
The fighters were able to fight for the British maintain only a couple of minutes.
Germany began to lose 23 times more machines than the British.
Just Adlertagin losses amounted to 4513.
On August 18, was a critical day.
The Germans struck a multi-sector headquarters.
Message Contacts broke down.
RAF lost 34 aircraft and the Luftwaffe 71.
The Germans were nevertheless confident that the superior would bring victory
as it is clear from the news of the film:
The squadron after another left the field.
This goes on day and night, hour after hour.
Luftwaffe find accounts grace of knowing.
It would take the Air Force to such pressure?
August 1940 on a beautiful summer days
fighting aircraft drew streaks in the South of England in the sky.
RAF crews were constantly in battle ...
... And always outnumbered.
Roland Beamont and Denis David describe his noble struggle:
7 Hurricanes can not break down a 100 machine.
If the attacking guarantee may be able to drop one or two
but if attacking from the front, the shape can degrade when they duck
and then can attack individual machines.
It did not have time to put on airs. We visited only onto full speed.
Anyone got to survive in close combat on their own.
I was sometimes so close that the canopy of the German oil staining.
The country can only watch and hope.
Winston Churchill put on 20.8. all thoughts into words:
Never before have so many been so much debt
so few.
Those few people lived in constant death, and especially burning in fear.
Cabin temperature rises to a comfortable room temperature
about 10 seconds, 3000 ° C.
Water boils at 100 degrees
so unless you get out in 10 seconds, was a goner.
Continuous pressure became pilots forces.
They were always on standby during the day.
They usually waited for changing or outside the machinery nearby.
Everyone was waiting for the phone to ring strung.
Calling could be one of the routine inquiry or alarm.
Pilots were waiting for cabs when the attacks were ankarimmillaan.
The squadron was able to sometimes get 24 hours of your stay
which lasted from noon to noon the next.
Some rushed straight to the London meat dams.
However, for most people was enough for a couple of beers in the nearby pub.
While in the service they flew five or six flights per day.
Adrenaline flowed in the veins
when the air traffic controller directed them toward the approaching enemy.
Attack was monitored with a giant map.
Johnnie Johnson says that the pilots tried to forget what you did.
I never thought that I was trying to kill another pilot.
I just wanted to drop the machine, which was on the side of the black cross.
After each flight, someone had the crowd gone.
At breakfast, sat next to a man could disappear during the day.
It felt so awful
that I do not even trying to make friends with other pilots.
Luftwaffe confirmed 24.8. bombers convoys
and attacked while the fighters airports
especially in fields 11 division.
Squadrons suffered heavy losses, and the pilots became exhausted.
Keith Park began to fear that the whole division would collapse.
Dowding complemented the Park's squadrons of other divisions pilots.
Lawrence Thorogood says that the level of the supplements showed a steady decline.
I only had 20 hours of flight time in Hurricane.
Firearms training was still in progress when we went fleets
even if the shooting is definitely a fighter pilot in the most important skill.
A friend of mine was attacked twice bombers against
the circlips on the arms. They would therefore not have been able to deploy.
He did not realize that guns did not work
but thought only: "Whether this silent weapons."
It seemed that the RAF was ground slowly to a non-existent
but turned the Luftwaffe on September 7, unexpectedly tactics.
It was two weeks earlier mistakenly bombed London.
On the following night the RAF bombed in retaliation for Berlin.
Disasters were minor, but Hitler ordered to start the blitz.
Keith Park remembered this important turning point in ...
That night, when they bombed London and set fire to it
I flew over Hurricane.
I watched the Thames, which burn gasoline tanks illuminated
and I thanked God.
I knew that when they had started to bomb London
they will also continue the Thames moukarointia
and I would have time to repair the airport.
Hold the promise of change was feared German invasion.
Code Message "Cromwell" started the same evening, 7.9.
The Defence Forces were set up to full readiness.
But Hitler had realized that the Luftwaffe was not winning.
He chose to 10.9. to postpone the invasion by two weeks.
Goering wanted to try to destroy the RAF once again the destroyers.
He launched a 15.9. a major offensive against London
which was supposed to attract the RAF's fighter into the air for destruction.
Men Dowding took up the challenge.
Almost all the fighters were thrown into battle.
Most mind-boggling drop in the day did Ray Holmes
who noticed the low above the city flew the bomber.
This St. Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace,
and she flew straight towards them.
I was not going to let him up there.
I got to the end of her range, about 400 m distance.
I opened fire, but the guns just naksahtivat. There was no cartridges.
I realized that the only way to stop him
was to break the machine stabilizers. It looked so weak.
It was like a scale model, which can not only crush.
I thought that it would violate the stabilizer wings swing easily.
But I switched off the stabilizer but to the entire rear of the machine.
This reflects the falling Dornier.
This has a body which lacks the rear.
Rear comes here.
The whole thing fell to the Victoria Station.
Hit the scene graph saved Holmes loss last moments.
The Luftwaffe lost 60 aircraft and RAF exactly half less.
Goering had obviously failed
and two days after Hitler postponed the invasion until further notice.
Fighting was raging in England until the end of October.
Germany focused on bombing the cities at night.
The bombing continued until May 1941.
Hugh Dowding was transferred after the battle retirement.
Many of the "few", which Dowding had taken care of so well
were of the opinion that he gained the recognition it deserves.
But he was knighted in 1943 "Baron Dowding of Bentley Priory."
During yöpommitusten fighters had to develop new tactics.
They were based on new radar installed on the machine use.
They were installed in Blenheim and Bristol Beaufighter faster.
Beaufighter was designed nightfighters
but it was also used for escorting fighters, and rynnäkkökoneena.
Even faster Mosquito began in 1942 to use nightfighters.
Finding and destruction of the bombers,
requiring the pilot and the use of radar orienteer close cooperation.
At two o'clock. Distance is now 240 meters.
Approaching about 8 km / h.
Try to look at with binoculars. It is the direction of 50 o'clock together.
We are directly below it. I can see it now.
Sholto Douglas, the previous war reconnaissance pilot
Dowding came to replace the RAF's fighter commander.
Douglas felt it was time to go on the offensive.
The fighters carried out in Europe two types of operations:
"Rhubarb" meant attacks by small compartments
and "circus" day bombing fighter planes protected by.
Douglas no secret of its objectives.
He wanted to lure the German fighter planes in the air in northern France
and destroy the air combat.
Operations were to occur rarely in the first half of 1941.
The losses of the parties were equal.
The process accelerated after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941
because the Luftwaffe was to tie the Western Front.
From the East to the West was postponed and experienced men complementing.
But the operations were very costly.
RAF fighters operating in enemy airspace
and limited the amount of fuel now turn their air-combat skills.
In addition, the Germans had access to a brand new machine:
Focke Wulf FW 190.
It was much better than the RAF's Spitfire 2.
Douglas Bader explains how the FW 190 was won.
Manufactured by putting powerful engine Spitfire
and the model was given the name Spitfire 9.
9 Spitfire was the best war machine, much better than the 190.
Bader, having a foot prostheses, and 22 drops
liked is itself invincible.
But the battle of the flight Lille in northern France 9.8 above. 1941
FW 190 shot him down.
Bader jumped and stayed in German ace Adolf Galland's house
before he was forced to imprisonment for the remainder of the war.
RAF fighters supported the Soviets by increasing attacks.
Losses were again heavy
especially the failed Dieppe landings 1942
when the Canadian troops tried to take over the French port city.
RAF hoped inducing the Germans substantial losses
but the Luftwaffe dropped twice as many machines as lost.
Landing craft rescued part of the pilots.
In the spring of 1943 began to plan a landing in France.
Several fighter squadrons had already invested abroad
and now the whole organization was changed.
2. squadrons attached to tactical air army
which was to provide air support to allied countries rise.
The remaining squadrons named after the British ilmapuolustusarmeijaksi.
Each set of compartments commanded by Sir Trafford Leigh Mallory.
The tactical air army continued its offensive operations in France.
Air Defence Army focused only on defense.
It gathered intelligence machines that spied landing preparations.
It also had to fend off fast bombers bombers.
Its tasks were not the same luster as a fighter in the Air Force
but the men were soon a new battle in England.
The Germans started a new wave of bombings.
In early summer 1944
"Wonder weapons" to help Hitler win the war believed
were ready for service.
One of them was the V1 rocket bomb.
It had a 800-kilo warhead, and it flew almost 650 km / h.
The Allies had known from V1 to for over a year.
Research Center Peenemünde was bombed in August 1943,
and the project was delayed for several months.
Also in northern France built launch pads bombed.
But it was not enough.
13.6. 1944, a week after the Normandy landings
Towards England launched the first V1's.
Air defense had to quickly come up with a way to combat the V1's.
The fighters were sent as soon as you approach the V1's were found
and pilots quickly learn to lose them.
Roland Beamont says, which means other V1 could be stopped.
We came up by chance another way.
V1 was able to pull down the fighter wing tip.
I tried it when I emptied my gun in one V1
and I noticed a second, which I decided to do something about it.
Machine wing tip had to get a V1 under the wing but did not catch it.
The machine is then raised wings
wherein the air flow is changed and V1 gyroskooppiohjaus snapped.
The RAF's first jet was also a powerful weapon V1: the Return key.
Gloster Meteor was the service introduced on 12 July.
Meteor was no faster than V1
but it could rise so quickly that the fight easier.
South Coast were brought in addition to anti-aircraft guns
to destroy the V1's before they reached the hinterland.
V1 attacks in southern England continued until March 1945
but the tip of the sharpest attacks have already bottomed out in September 1944.
But Hitler had another ihmease: V2 missile.
It had a 1000 kilogram warhead, and it reached 5500 km / h speed.
The first of them was hit in England on 9 September 1944.
Air Defence were beyond its control
because of this the first ballistic missile flew too high and hard.
Propagate troops had destroyed the V1 launching pads of GMOs
but the V2 T launched from mobile platforms.
Only attacks on oil transport and communication links with the
made at the end of V2 attacks.
15.9. 1945 marked the five years the RAF's great battle
that spoiled Hitler's invasion plans.
A group of veterans met the RAF's North Wealdin base.
One of them was Douglas Bader.
Hugh Dowding, who commanded the fighters decisive days
also came to visit wards.
Pilots increased their PCs and flew over a war-torn London
At the top of the machine armada: 300 RAF.
It was an appropriate way to celebrate the end of the war and "the few"
which accounted for a decisive "British uljaimpana moment".
Bader summed up many years later, the spirit of a fighter the Air Force:
Togetherness was wonderful.
After considers them now, they are old old men
but they were then young, happy and carefree.
Although the RAF no longer separate fighter air forces
modern jet aircraft pilots try to be as good as its predecessors.
Warriors Hurricane and Spitfire
ensured that the United Kingdom continued to struggle against the Nazis.
Translated by: Kai Laine www.sdi media.com