All language subtitles for Wings.Of.War.S01E04.The.Battle.Of.Britain.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track4_[eng]

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NARRATOR: For over a hundred years,

battles have raged in the air
for command of the skies.

If you don't have air supremacy,
you're in trouble.

Since its earliest beginnings
in World War I,

the aeroplane is the supreme weapon
of the armed forces.

This was a real battle
for civilisation, for humanity.

It revolutionised battle and changed
the ways war was fought and won.

The F-117 has obviously changed how
we design aircraft and air
campaigns.

War drove innovation in the skies.

What we hear from the air force is,
when the F-35 wasn't there,
a lot of others died.

When F-35 was there,
they reigned supreme.

Aircraft bred a new kind of hero.

The fate of entire nations depended
on the bravery of a handful of men.

An appreciation
of the extent to which young men

were willing to put
their lives on the line for an ideal

is something we need to remember
more often than we do.

In this episode: by 1940
Germany had conquered most of Europe.

Hitler's next target was a small
island across the English Channel -
Britain.

In the summer of that year,
Britain prepared for
an all-out air attack

to defend the country
from Nazi Germany.

I think it is important to recognise
that the Battle of Britain
was really designed

to prevent the German invasion of
the United Kingdom.
That's what it was about.

Britain's Royal Air Force was
in the frontline

to defend against a German invasion.

The Battle of Britain was the
first huge air battle ever fought.

This would be an air battle
that would decide the fate of Britain

and the course of World War II.

It was the first time that one
nation had tried to defeat another

primarily by defeating its air
force. The stakes were incredibly
high.

I think the feeling
of the German air force was,

"There's no enemy in the world
we cannot fight against."

All that stood
in the way of Nazi Germany

were the fighter pilots
of Britain's Royal Air Force.

In air combat, pilots lived and died
by the golden rule.

The element of surprise
was absolutely vital.

Pilots of the Royal Air Force
faced overwhelming odds

against the German Luftwaffe,
which outnumbered British planes.

PATRICK: You've got men who can only
fly so many times a day,

even though they did fly
from dawn to dusk.

They were facing exhaustion.
They were taking losses.

The fight for freedom
was about to begin.

It was one of the great decisive
battles of the Second World War.

(ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING)

July 1940.

Britain was about
to fight an air war against
the German Luftwaffe air force.

It would be one of the
most decisive battles
of World War II.

Britain faced the might
of the Third Reich alone.

After the evacuation of British
troops at Dunkirk in May 1940

and the fall of France
to Nazi Germany,

Hitler's continued conquest of Europe
and Britain seemed unstoppable.

Britain is in a terrible state
in the summer of 1940.

It's fought a battle in Europe
against the Germans.

It's been very badly beaten,
as have the French.

France is about to fall.
There's been this
ignominious Dunkirk episode,

where the entire British army
is evacuated,

leaving all its equipment behind.

Hitler drew up plans
to invade Britain,

codenamed Operation Sea Lion.

But standing in his way were
the pilots of the Royal Air Force.

The other thing was,
it was recognised very early on

that if they were
to have any chance of success,

they would have to defeat
Britain in the air,

or at least wear down
its air defences.

German Reichsmarschall
Hermann Goering

was determined to strike immediately,

when the Royal Air Force
was at its weakest.

I think we ought to remember
that the RAF have been in action
throughout the Battle of France.

They've been fighting very hard
there.

They then had to
defend the British troops

as they were being evacuated
off the beaches of Dunkirk.

So they've been
fighting very, very hard.
They had taken a lot of losses.

We had less fighter pilots
than they had.

So their numbering
outnumbered us completely.

Germany's Hermann Goering
thought he could win

the battle for the skies
in just four weeks.

His first targets were
British shipping and ports.

Britain imported 100% of its oil,
50% of its food

and 60% of its raw materials.

By targeting shipping convoys,

he believed he could quickly
bring Britain to its knees.

There's no disguising the fact that
two-thirds of these essential goods
came from overseas.

If you couldn't keep
the sea lanes open,
then you were in real trouble.

Defending shipping convoys
near to Britain's shores

was the job
of Britain's fighter planes.

Leading the charge was the
legendary Supermarine Spitfire.

PATRICK: The Spitfire was a
wonderful machine, but it was also a
wonderful symbol.

People came to see it as a symbol
of Britishness quite early on.

It was small, but it was very
strong, and it was very resolute,

very determined,
and deadly when aroused.

So it became a great British symbol,

as well as being
a fantastic fighting machine.

Armed with eight
7.7 Browning machine guns,

the Spitfire could attack at speeds
of over 360mph at high altitude.

Spitfires were to do what was
called, in military parlance, fly
top cover,

to protect the Hurricanes
from the escorting fighters.

Flying alongside the Spitfire
was the Hawker Hurricane.

The Hurricane was given the role
of attacking the bombers.

The Spitfire was used to
attack the top-cover fighters.

These were the British fighter planes

that would take on
the German Luftwaffe.

Both types of fighters used a combat
air tactic learned from World War I.

The fighter would use the sun
to blind the enemy.

Both of them would, if possible,
try to get up-sun or into the sun,

because we all know, if you're
trying to look into the sun,
you can't see anything at all.

"Beware of the Hun in the sun."
But the Germans would say,

"Beware of the Spitfire
or the Hurricane in the sun."

It gives them a visual advantage
to dive down onto the aircraft.

The opening salvos in the
Battle of Britain began in July 1940,

as the German Luftwaffe
began targeting shipping

with small raids
on Britain's southern shores.

PATRICK: The first, opening phase
was with German aircraft

in considerable,
but not enormous numbers,

coming over the coast,
shooting up convoys,

doing reconnaissance missions
to find out where the bases were.

Germany needed to know how powerful
Britain's defences were.

During this period, to a degree,

the Germans are testing Britain's
defences by attacking soft targets

and testing how the British respond.

But during the 1930s,

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding,
the controller of Fighter Command,

created a network of radar stations
to protect Britain.

By the time the battle opened,
we actually had a pretty good
radar system

which would give us
plenty of warning

of the arrival of
big fleets of aircraft.

And it allowed that information
to be filtered back
to command and control centres

that could then decide
how to react to it.

By 1940, a chain of 20 radar stations
were built on Britain's coast,

ready to give early warning
of enemy planes.

It was, at the time,
the most elaborate defensive network
in existence.

The advanced technology of radar
wasn't the only defence
the British had, though.

All along the coast,
stationed on small piles of sandbags,

binoculars in hand, 30,000 men
and women of the Observer Corps

scanned the skies for enemy planes.

The combination of radar
and manned observation posts

was known as the Dowding System.

NATASHA: What was crucial about it
was that it was

filtering out information
that was being brought

by all of this new information
that we'd be using

with radar, with the Observer Corps.

And that that information
was filtering down
into usable information.

The speed at which that happened
was incredible.

They had, like, four minutes to be
able to turn this information
around.

Eyesight was still an essential part
of Britain's defences.

They were vital.
Without that information,
without men on the ground,

without the radar that came through
that was giving them information,

without the Royal Observer Corps,

we wouldn't be where we are today.

They were the eyes
and ears of Britain.

Information from British
radar stations

began identifying German planes
off its coast.

Bentley Priory was
the home of Fighter Command

during the Second World War.

It is just the most important place
for the Battle of Britain.

It was the absolute action centre
for where everything
came in and went out.

Sir Hugh Dowding created the network

to marshal his air force effectively
against the enemy.

OVERY: You had to
be able to hold it together,
centrally control it,

direct fighters to where
the fighting was actually needed.

And he insisted, pushed that
all through in the late 1930s.

On the morning of July 10th 1940,

a fleet of merchant ships
prepared to set out to sea,

headed for Dorset on the south coast.

That's when big a convoy called
Bread

came out into the Channel
from the Thames estuary

and was attacked in force
by German aircraft.

They themselves were then
attacked in turn by the defenders.

It was the target for an armada of
German raiders. (PHONE RINGS)

Britain's Number 74 Squadron
were scrambled to intercept
German aircraft.

(BELL RINGING)
But the British fighters
were in for a surprise.

The German tactics
were actually pretty good.

You'd have these big armadas
of bombers coming in at 15,000 feet.

And then above them,
lurking in the sun,

were these great swarms of Me-109s.

So, they were there to come down,
dive on the British fighters

as they came in
to attack the bombers.

And that worked quite well.

But both the British Spitfire
and Hurricane fighters

were about to confront
the German Luftwaffe's
lethal fighter plane.

A plane that had previously conquered

both the French
and Polish air forces.

The Messerschmitt Me-109.

JULIAN: It was also deadly against
the French and the British,

which is actually what controlled
the skies over France,

and ended up with Britain coming
into the Battle of Britain on its
own,

trying to match the fighters
that Germany already had.

(RINGING)

What followed next on July the 10th

was the first dogfight
of the Battle of Britain.

German and British planes
engaged in a violent game of tag

above the Straits of Dover
on Britain's south coast.

For the first time, these guys
would be involved in a mass battle.

They try to get behind each other
or underneath each other,
inflict some damage.

Always looking out behind them
for what's going on.
They wheel away and so on.

Everywhere you look, there's drama.

There are machines flashing in front
of you, over you, under you.

It's incredibly hard to
actually work out what's going on.

Who is friend and who is foe.
And so it's massive confusion.

British RAF pilots
jostled for position in
the skies over England.

And Hurricanes really took the brunt
of the initial attacks
in the Battle of Britain.

Now, the Hurricane aircraft is
manoeuvrable and reasonably fast.

It was the equal of
both the Messerschmitt 109

and the Spitfire of the time
and was more manoeuvrable.

It could pull tighter turns.

Manoeuvrability for British fighters
was a very important aspect,

I think, of their success
during this period.

It wasn't quite as good
in acceleration as the Spitfire

or its opponent, the Me-109,

but it made up for that in other
ways

by its manoeuvrability and strength.

It could take a lot of punishment
without actually being knocked down.

Spearheading the German
aerial attacks on Britain,

the Messerschmitt Me-109 set about
decimating British fighter squadrons,

setting the stage
for a British defeat.

(BELL RINGING)

July 1940.
The Battle of Britain had begun.

Britain was alone
in its fight to defend

against the might of the German
air force, the Luftwaffe.

In combat,
British pilots fell vulnerable
to the Spitfire's weaknesses.

If there was a weakness,

it was really
the absence of two things.

One is, initially,
self-sealing tanks.
The Germans had self-sealing tanks.

So that meant,
if your fuel tank got hit,

a British plane would immediately
erupt into flames in the early days,
which meant you were a goner.

The other thing,
on the mechanical front,
was the absence of fuel injection.

The Me-109 had an advantage which
neither the Hurricane

nor the Spitfire could match.

The Me-109 had a Daimler-Benz
engine, which had fuel injection.

Which meant that
the Messerschmitt could outmanoeuvre

a lot of the aircraft
it came up against.

One of the techniques that a 109
pilot would use

to get away from another aircraft

or to put himself into a better
position to attack it

would be to bunt,

which is to push the nose of the
aircraft over, which gets negative
G.

The engine would not, of course,
lose any power.

It would continue working all the
way down.

The Spitfire or the Hurricane that's
behind him,

if that bunts over like that,

the negative G causes the floats to
go up

and the engine could actually stop
working for some time.

Unable to function when the Spitfire
was forced into a steep dive,

the engine was starved of fuel and
stalled.

The engine that was fuel-injected in
the 109 just kept going,

so he immediately accelerated away
into the dive.

This meant that the Messerschmitt
engine could still fire on all
cylinders,

even in a loop or a dive.

But the Spitfire, which used gravity
to pump fuel, could not.

Losing power, the Spitfire was
vulnerable to attack from the
Messerschmitt.

And that few seconds without power
could be the difference between life
and death.

The German Messerschmitt Me-109 was a
force to be reckoned with.

The Me-109 was more heavily armed

and it took some time before Fighter
Command recognised

that the machine guns they had were
not entirely satisfactory.

But the Me-109 had some fatal
drawbacks for its pilots, too.

The Messerschmitt 109, due to its
very narrow landing gear,

was a very difficult aircraft for
take-off and landing.

And as many aircraft and pilots were
lost in landing and take-off
accidents

as were actually lost in the
air-to-air combat.

But once mastered, it was a lethal
killing machine.

The 109 was a brand-new, very fast
aircraft,

with a very powerful engine,

and a very good engine, which was a
little better than the British
engines.

What you're trying to do is get
behind your opponent

and hit him with your machine-gun
bullets.

It's a question then of who can get

on the tail of the other aircraft
the quickest.

As well as fighting the enemy,

pilots had to battle against immense
G-forces.

In a steep turn or dive, body weight
increases up to six times,

with potentially fatal results.

Blacking out was a completely
routine event.

So, you're dealing with all this,
and then you have to work out

how to shoot this very nimble-moving
object in front of you.

Success or failure depends on three
things.

It depends on the machine, it
depends on your skill as a pilot

and it depends also on luck.

Each British pilot chose their own
way

to attack the German enemy.

There were many different ways of
attacking a bomber fleet.

You could attack it from the sides.
Some people chose to attack it
head-on,

which was hair-raising action, as
you can imagine,

which required enormous guts.

Attacking German bombers head-on

was a tactic Britain's 111 Squadron
chose to use

when it scrambled to meet the
Luftwaffe.

If you see a fighter plane coming
straight at you,

it's a very, very unnerving
experience

and your instinct is to turn away,
which is what many of these bombers
did.

It was one way in which you might be
able

to inflict fatal damage on the
bomber aircraft.

They're both moving at extremely
high speed,

so you have to be absolutely
razor-sharp in your reactions

to make sure that you inflict damage
and then avoid the worst.

It broke up the formation, which
meant they were less able to defend
themselves

and it meant for them, effectively,
the attack was over,

and they really were heading for
home.

Defending Britain's shores were
pilots from all over Europe.

NATASHA: There were about 3,000
pilots from 17 different countries

who fought throughout the Battle of
Britain.

And the Polish and the Czechs were
said to be

some of the most adventurous and
daring of all of our pilots.

Survival rates for air crew
increased,

as more pilots gained combat
experience.

The first thing they learnt was that
they could do it, they could blunt
these attacks.

And they were learning all the time.
Every day they went up,

every minute spent in combat, you
were learning something new.

When they got back on the ground,
they would be talking: what did you
see? How did you deal with that?

This hadn't been done before, so
they were making it up as they went
along.

So it was really learning on the
job.

And they learned very successfully
and very quickly.

The German Luftwaffe was targeting
British convoys of merchant ships

to choke off vitally needed supplies.

Defending them were Britain's fighter
pilots.

At the same time as the Bread convoy
from London was under attack,

Spitfires of Britain's 610 Squadron
were scrambled from Biggin Hill

to engage with another group
of Me-109s

roaring over Dover on England's
southeast coast,

searching for more targets.

This is the start of this, you know,
constant tempo of daily battles.

Fighters coming out to meet them,
attacking the bombers,

taking on the fighter escorts in
these dogfights.

So, from then on, you've got these
daily battles that ebb and flow.

The numbers get bigger and bigger
and bigger.

The raids continued.

Seventy German bombers flew in from
the west,

taking radar stations by surprise,
attacking Swansea in Wales.

The bombers inflicted serious damage
to ships, as well as the city.

Meanwhile, Fighter Command wrestled
with the problem

of multiple simultaneous attacks by
the German air force.

At the same time as attacking
Swansea,

the German air force was bombing the
Bread convoy over Dover

on England's south coast.

The problem for Fighter Command was:
do you engage the German air force
when they're doing it?

Cos if they're not attacking you,
they're attacking this convoy.

The RAF's response to this were
fighter patrols over the Channel

and responding to relevant German
threats as and when they came up.

Dowding scrambled a number of
squadrons

and then, realising the strength of
the German force, he scrambled more
fighters,

and there was a huge dogfight which
took place across the convoy.

Over 100 planes wheeled above the
Bread convoy,

engaged in a massive dogfight.

British Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh
Dowding's pilots

successfully resisted the German
attack.

The Dowding System, the early-warning
system of radar and eyesight,

also proved invaluable to British
defence.

One of the many problems the Germans
faced in the Battle of Britain

was that they underestimated the
British radar chain completely.

They didn't realise that once they
were being engaged by enemy
aircraft,

they were being engaged by an
aircraft that had been alerted by
radar.

Despite the edge the home chain
system gave its squadrons,

Fighter Command struggled for
survival,

as wave after wave of German fighters
attacked British airfields.

Impatient to launch his invasion on
Britain,

Hitler ordered a full-scale aerial
assault.

The famous air battle in the summer
of 1940

for control of Britain's skies had
begun.

Hitler had two clear objectives. The
first, to blockade the Channel

and choke Britain's lifeline of
convoys.

The second, to clear the skies of
British fighter planes.

The whole of southern Britain is
vulnerable.

You can expect to see enemy
aircraft,

particularly in places which fall
into this German plan,

i.e. the ports like Southampton, and
later on Plymouth.

As German fighters attacked Britain's
convoys,

Fighter Command's losses mounted.

In under one month, 120 British
planes

had been destroyed or damaged, with
nearly 77 pilots killed.

The effectiveness of Fighter Command
was in serious doubt.

Throughout the summer of 1940, the
RAF suffered persistent losses.

Coastal Command, which had
slow-flying and ineffective
aircraft,

also suffered really very heavy
losses.

The age band for the Battle of
Britain pilots

was from about 19 to 23.

And the length of time that they
stayed alive was not very long at
all.

It was a matter of weeks for the
average pilot.

If you got through, say, the first
six weeks,

then you had a much greater chance
of surviving.

However good they were as pilots,
they didn't have much experience

at shooting people down and going
into combat.

So serious was the shortage of
British pilots

that training was cut down from six
months to just four weeks.

Some arrived on squadrons

with only a handful of hours in
Spitfires or Hurricanes.

PATRICK: They aren't familiar with
the machine

and their training isn't as thorough
as it was for those who were there
at the beginning.

By mid-July 1940, British fighter
squadrons

desperately needed more planes.

Lord Beaverbrook, the British
newspaper magnate,

was given the task of mobilising
greater aircraft production.

So, he became the minister of
aircraft production.

And he shouted at people.

He did try to make sure that every
effort was being made.

Throughout all of July, Fighter
Command had mounted

over 12,000 sorties against German
planes.

By that stage, the Germans had
decided

the most effective way of getting at
British shipping was to use the dive
bomber,

but they would need to be escorted,
as other bombers would be, by a
large body of fighters.

July 14th.

The German raiders targeted another
convoy of merchant ships

heading along England's south coast.

Twelve Spitfires from the 610
Squadron,

together with seven Hurricanes from
the 151st Squadron

and nine from 615 Squadron, were
scrambled to meet them.

They successfully fought off the
raiders.

Despite the July raids, the German
Luftwaffe was failing to achieve

the success Hitler was hoping for to
invade Britain.

By contrast, German victory had been
achieved over landlocked Europe

through lightning air strikes, the
Blitzkrieg.

The same tactics couldn't be used
across the English Channel divide.

And Britain's fighter pilots were
proving harder to defeat.

German aircraft had a number of
disadvantages in the Battle of
Britain.

The most obvious of course was that
existing fighters

had relatively small fuel capacity,

and so they could engage in combat
over southern England

for little more than 20 minutes, and
then make their way back.

Otherwise, you'll crash in the
Channel, as many of them did.

As July came to a close,

attacks on Dover in the south of
England

rose in frequency and strength.

British pilots were constantly
scrambled

to take on the German fighters

in another fight to the death in the
air.

DUDLEY: Pilots would probably be
woken at about 4 o'clock in the
morning.

Dressed in their pyjamas, they'd go
out to the aeroplanes,

which had been looked after, all
night sometimes, by the ground crew.

So they didn't sleep at all in many
cases,

repairing the aircraft, getting them
ready.

At about 4 o'clock, the pilot would
go out,

climb into the aeroplane, start it
up,

make sure everything was ready, shut
it down,

and then he'd go back to his billet

until that terrible noise of the
bell were going

and then they would run for their
aeroplanes.

Now, this was an exhausting process,

so you could be on standby from
dawn.

You could fly your first operation
at 5 o'clock in the morning

and you could still be at it at 9
o'clock at night.

You might have gone out five or six
times during that day.

Pilots longed for a grey, overcast
day

to recover from the relentless
battles.

If it looks like flying is going to
be difficult,

they're rejoicing, because it will
give them a brief respite.

The diaries and the letters talk
about this awful weariness that you
never escape from.

Even if you get a day off, you never
actually catch up on your sleep.

You never get back to that point
where you were at the beginning of
your tour.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding

ordered his pilots to take eight
hours off in every 24

and a continuous rest of 24 hours
each week.

Dowding understood that there was a
limit to what you could ask pilots
to do.

It's exhausting, draining, to do it
day after day.

The adrenaline works a bit,

but after a while, it is a difficult
thing to do continuously.

It wasn't only Britain's Fighter
Command that was under pressure.

A month after the Battle of Britain
began,

the German Luftwaffe had lost 500
pilots and crew.

There's a lull in hostilities, but it
was the quiet before the storm.

At the beginning of August, the
shape of the battle starts to alter.

The emphasis now is on attacking the
RAF,

attacking its infrastructure,
attacking its bases.

The British airfields weren't the
only military targets.

The early-warning radar system was
targeted too.

August the 11th, 1940.

Isle of Wight radar station at
Ventnor

reported a heavy raid assembling over
the Cherbourg peninsula.

British Spitfires from 609 Squadron
at Warmwell

and Hurricanes from 145th Squadron
from Tangmere were scrambled.

Six others were put on readiness.

The day for an all-out assault to
destroy British Fighter Command

came on the 13th of August.

Operation Eagle Day.

Eagle Day is meant to be the climax
of the Eagle attack.

So, this is when the Luftwaffe would
take on the RAF head-to-head and
destroy it.

Goering had been huffing and puffing
through August.

Finally, he said, "Come on. I want
you to destroy the RAF in four
days."

I think Goering believed it was
possible, actually,

that the RAF could be destroyed in
four days.

German Reichsmarschall Goering
demanding nothing less

than the total destruction of Fighter
Command.

And with the fall of Fighter Command,
so Britain would fall.

We start to see attacks against RAF
Fighter Command airfields in the
southeast,

in an attempt to take out RAF
strength and destroy its
infrastructure.

So, we see attacks against airfields
such as Manston and Biggin Hill.

On the 16th, three days later,
Tangmere suffered its worst ever
day.

It was the most horrendous attack.

It started late morning, with
probably about 70 aircraft,

a mixture of Stukas, Junkers 87s,

and the twin-engine bombers, the
Junkers 88s,

setting off from the northern French
coast towards Portsmouth.

The German raiders split into
separate groups,

each headed for Southampton,
Portsmouth and Tangmere.

And two formations of Hurricane had
been launched from Tangmere.

Spitfires, remember, are heading for
high level to attack the fighters

and the two Hurricane formations are
now both heading

to attack these guys as they attack
Tangmere.

And this is the main cut and thrust
of the period,

with the RAF seeking to respond to
those threats, scrambling fighters,

the old idea of what nowadays we
would call quick-reaction alert.

Five of the Stukas were shot down
into the Solent itself.

During the course of about a 10-hour
period or so,

launched somewhere in the region of
1,500 sorties against targets in
England.

DR OVERY: Tangmere was really very,
very heavily damaged.

The Battle of Britain stretched
pilots of the Royal Air Force to
their very limits.

You're dealing with finite
resources.

You've got men who can only fly so
many times a day,

even though they did fly from dawn
to dusk.

They were facing exhaustion, they
were taking losses, et cetera.

Courage is a finite commodity.

And I think it's part of their
achievement

that they were able to keep those
reserves of resolve, if you like,

going right until the battle was
won.

The German Luftwaffe continued its
relentless attacks.

The airfields of southeast England
were facing total destruction.

August 1940.

In the early years of World War II,

the Battle of Britain raged over
Britain's skies

as British fighter pilots fought the
German Luftwaffe for air superiority.

German fighters continued their
relentless onslaught

on Britain's airfields in southern
England.

Their objective: to destroy Britain's
Air Force,

to pave the way for the German
invasion of Britain.

So, in the middle of August, you
start seeing

really big formations of German
bombers.

Three hundred bombers in one
formation.

At midday on August the 18th,

radar reported the largest build-up
yet of German aircraft.

Britain's Fighter Group 11 was
brought to readiness.

Squadron 501 was already in the air,
patrolling Canterbury and Margate

on England's south coast to protect
its airfields.

A further four British squadrons were
ordered up to guard Biggin Hill and
Kenley.

Meanwhile, the German bombers were
approaching their target.

First on the list was Kenley
airfield, just 15 miles from London.

A group of German bombers crossed the
English Channel at 100 feet, avoiding
radar detection.

Taking advantage of ideal flying
conditions,

German bombers found their targets at
Kenley airfield,

destroying all 10 hangars and six
Hurricanes,

killing 12 and injuring 20.

For the RAF, the really important
date was August the 18th,

because that was the first day of
good, clear weather.

The Luftwaffe did finally manage to
attack

a number of important Fighter
Command stations very seriously.

In the middle of August, you have
three days of intense fighting,

when some of the fighter stations
get very badly beaten up.

During the raids on August the 18th,

the German Luftwaffe lost twice as
many planes as British Fighter
Command.

But the raids continued relentlessly
every day.

DR OVERY: On August the 18th, the
German air force did engage in a
number of very heavy raids

on Fighter Command stations across
Sussex and Kent, inflicting quite
heavy damage,

particularly on Biggin Hill and on a
number of other stations.

The attack on Biggin Hill airfield
wasn't the only one of its kind.

During August 1940, German raids
increased pressure on Britain's
Fighter Command.

For the RAF, it was clear that
something had changed.

It was clear now that the
hit-and-run raids,

the raids on the Channel and so on,
had all been a preliminary.

They sort of appeared from August
the 18th,

really, as the period when they were
up against it.

But it didn't stop there. On the 30th
of August,

hundreds of German bombers and
fighters

came across the Channel over Kent in
the southeast of England

towards the airfields protecting
London.

British Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh
Dowding's other concern

was that his Group Sector 11
stations,

including Debden, Kenley and Biggin
Hill, were coming under heavy attack.

The first week of September for both
sides was a gruelling time.

Both sides were exhausted.

The pilots on both sides showed
significant anxiety symptoms and so
on.

The tension of doing this over and
over and over again was...

Both sides were getting exhausted.

One last, final effort was made to
get at Fighter Command,

because breathing down Goering's
neck was Hitler saying,

"Am I going to invade? Am I not
going to invade?

We've got two weeks left. What are
we going to do?"

Goering said, "Oh, it will be all
over in two days."

So, that week, the first week in
September, very heavy losses on both
sides.

Six of the seven British Group Sector
11 airfields

were bombed to the point of collapse.

Five of its advanced airfields were
seriously damaged.

The German air raids inflicted heavy
losses on both sides.

After months of unrelenting, furious
aerial combat,

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding
was facing the inevitable -

the defeat of British Fighter Command
at the hands of the German Luftwaffe.

DR MAHONEY: Towards the end of
August 1940, early September,

they were actually causing attrition
to the RAF.

But just as it seemed the final blows
were about to fall,

the German Luftwaffe changed tactics.
(PHONE RINGING)

In September 1940, the Luftwaffe
shifts its focus of attacks

from RAF Fighter Command airfields
to industrial targets and civilian
targets.

The German air raids that bombed
British cities

famously became known as the Blitz.

But it had a silver lining for
Britain's Fighter Command.

This is important for the RAF, in
particular the Fighter Command,

as it gives them a degree of
breathing space

to recover from losses suffered
during the third period of the
battle,

and eventually come back in force.

The change in strategy from bombing
British airfields to bombing
Britain's cities

allowed Fighter Command to regroup
and rebuild.

It was Reichsmarschall Goering's
fatal error.

It begins in the afternoon with a
huge raid on London.

It's the first time London has
really been hit hard.

There have been bombs scattered
around London, but nothing like
this.

It's a terrible new development. But
at the same time, it's a salvation,

because the Luftwaffe has switched
away from attacking RAF targets

and it's now hit a big target, which
you can't possibly hope to destroy.

This was a terrible mistake by the
Germans, a terrible mistake by
Hitler.

On September the 15th, Germany's
Luftwaffe assembled for a major raid
on London.

They were met by 15 British Hurricane
squadrons

and eight Spitfire squadrons.

On this day, the Germans launch an
all-out attack against Britain,

thinking that they had shattered RAF
Fighter Command

and that they could operate freely
over Britain.

Much to their surprise, RAF Fighter
Command was reinforced,

and in aerial battles over London,

the Luftwaffe suffered heavy defeats
to the British.

RAF Fighter Command's strength
continues to grow,

partly as a result of some of the
pressure relieved

when the Germans changed their
attacks to cities.

London was hit by day or by night
for the next 56 out of 57 days.

In the afternoon, 400 German fighters

escorted 150 bombers, staggered in
three waves.

Britain's RAF scrambled eight
squadrons

to patrol over Sheerness, Chelmsford,
Kenley and Hornchurch in Essex.

Four more British squadrons were
ordered up, and then another eight.

A total of 250 British fighters were
in the air.

For the first time, the German
fighters were outnumbered.

From the west, a force of 80 German
bombers

headed across Surrey towards London.

They were met by Hurricanes from 217
Squadron

and 607 Squadron from Tangmere.

They tore into them.

During the Blitz period, the German
strategy essentially sought

to coerce the British government
into surrender.

But the public were surprisingly
resilient to German attacks

and morale remained relatively high.

The so-called Blitz spirit.

This time, Britain's Fighter Command

overwhelmed the airborne German
raiders.

And they inflicted very heavy
damage.

25% of the bomber force destroyed or
heavily damaged.

No air force can stand that rate of
attrition for more than a few days.

As Britain's Fighter Command rebuilt,

the whole defence process of
detection, interception and
destruction worked.

There's no doubt that the September
battles showed

that Fighter Command had finished
its apprenticeship,

that it was now fully trained.

Now experienced and replenished,

the full force of Britain's fighter
pilots ranged against the failing
German Luftwaffe

to finish the battle.

The official end of the Battle of
Britain was October the 31st 1940.

The invasion plan had not worked.

The battle officially ended on the
31st of October,

and the plan to invade Britain is on
hold.

And there's no prospect of it being
resuscitated any time soon.

In fact, Hitler is planning to
invade Russia,

so the invasion threat to Britain,
such as it was, is over.

The Battle of Britain saw the
destruction of 1,733 of Germany's
Luftwaffe planes.

British Fighter Command lost 915
aircraft.

Of the 2,917 pilots under Britain's
Fighter Command

who took part in the air battles of
1940,

544 had died.

Britain's Prime Minister Winston
Churchill

famously made a speech in the House
of Commons, broadcast on radio,

honouring the few, the pilots of
Fighter Command.

CHURCHILL: Never in the field of
human conflict

was so much owed by so many to so
few.

It was one of the great decisive
battles of the Second World War.

I think nothing in the Second World
War was more important for the
British

than the air defence put up by the
RAF in 1940.

The Battle of Britain became a
symbol of British defiance against
Hitler,

British defiance against the Axis,

British defiance against all those
forces of darkness

that were going to overwhelm the
world.

Operation Sea Lion, Hitler's plan to
invade Britain,

was postponed indefinitely.

The Battle of Britain had been won.

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