689.Battle of Great Britain (4)

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"Field Marshal Goering will refuse to set up a joint command." A group of RAF soldiers living in an aristocratic castle in Burgundy, where their predecessors had lived more than 20 years ago, were not surprised by the news. The highest rank in this group of soldiers is an air force general who can't fly, but no one can question his ability, because he is Lin Huaiqing, a Hubei Yankee who has worked as a secretary in Marshal Wu Ziyu's office since graduating from the Zaolin Military Academy, the youngest brigadier general who has been recognized by more than half of the marshals in the theory of joint operations command, and the mastermind behind the Indian campaign.

"As the Führer had predicted, Goering, the megalomaniac, would never let the command of the Luftwaffe fall out of the way until he lost control of the situation, even if we had the control of him." Intelligence officer Kennon Lee Kennon continued to analyze: "According to our intelligence, the Germans do not know the power of the British radar early warning system, although the British radar is still very primitive, but if the German planes swagger to take off in formation, I am afraid that they will not be able to reach the strait and the British number will be clear." Although the British were short of troops, they still had the ability to concentrate their forces on the Germans to meet them head-on, and if the Germans were unable to destroy the British air defense command and early warning system and paralyze the British air defense fighter force with the first blow, then there would be a bitter battle. ”

"Theoretically, we could give the Germans some advice through a military observer mission and avoid heavy losses for the Germans. The Luftwaffe will not understand how precious these are without going through the wind and rain, so I think that for the time being, we will continue to accumulate troops, strengthen the construction of airfields and early warning systems, and the third batch of fighters of the Volunteer Army will also arrive in the Mediterranean, and the British will not dare to attack our ships, at least they will not dare until we find out our identity to attack the British mainland, so it is our best strategy at the moment to continue to make a fortune in silence. Major General Lin Huaiqing's words were approved by most of the air force generals, after all, they took off their Royal Air Force uniforms, put on German military uniforms, and participated in the British War as volunteers, but they were still people from the Royal Chinese Air Force from the inside out.

In the first phase of the air war, from July 10 to August 23, the 18th year of the First Dynasty, the Luftwaffe mainly attacked the convoy in the English Channel and attacked the southern ports in an attempt to lure and destroy a large number of British fighters in preparation for the "Sea Lion" landing operation. The Dowding command used a combination of fighters, radar, and anti-aircraft artillery, with a controlled concentration of fighters (retaining some reserves in the farther north to deal with the Luftwaffe's in-depth offensive), and using a combat method of interception from all directions. By 12 August, Dowding's division had lost 286 aircraft to the Luftwaffe at the cost of 150 aircraft. Then, on Eagle Day (originally 13 August, changed to 15 August due to bad weather), the Luftwaffe attempted to break through the southeastern defenses with the 2nd and 3rd Air Groups in four large groups of aircraft, and the 5th Air Force carried out a surprise attack on northern Britain. Anticipating the German moves, Dowding commanded fighters from the north and south to meet them at the right time, destroying 75 German aircraft. The Luftwaffe still did not give up. On 16 August, the Germans made another major sortie, but achieved little success. On 17 August, the Germans carried out harassing air strikes with only sporadic small fleets. On 18 August, the Germans launched a powerful offensive and met with stubborn resistance from the British, who shot down 71 planes while the British lost only 27.

On August 19, a frustrated Goering convened a meeting of chiefs of staff at the Karin Hall Manor residence, summed up the previous stage of operations, and decided to concentrate on attacking the base of the 11th Group, the main force of the British Air Force, and stop dispatching the "Howling Eagle" dive bombers that had suffered heavy losses in the battle (who knows how the Germans would think that such a clumsy guy could participate in the struggle for air supremacy, this thing was originally a bombardment artifact that bullied the little ants on the ground, and used it to play against the Spitfire, is it because its cockpit armor is thick enough?). From August 19 to 23, air combat was suspended for five days due to weather conditions. The first phase of the Battle of Britain ended here, in this stage, the German army paid a huge price of 367 downed planes, so that 12 British airfields and 7 aircraft factories were damaged to varying degrees, 6 radar stations were once ineffective, 1 command center was bombed, 1 ammunition depot and 10 oil storage depots were destroyed, but the German army did not choose the target to concentrate, to a certain extent, dispersed the troops, reduced the effect of the assault, coupled with the stubborn resistance of the British army, failed to achieve the expected goal. The British lost 183 aircraft at this stage.

From September 16 to September 19, due to bad weather, the Germans carried out only small air raids, and the results were small.

In order to reduce the loss of aircraft, Goering ordered the air raid on London to be changed from day to night from October 1, 1940, and in view of the British fighters' focus on attacking bombers and ignoring the characteristics of fighters, Messerschmitt-109 bombs were added to carry out sneak attacks during the day. At first, it worked, and the bomb-mounted Messerschmitt-109 did not stop it. On 13-23 August, the Luftwaffe suffered a setback in the air offensive with the loss of 290 aircraft, while the British lost 114 aircraft.

In the second phase of the air battle, the Luftwaffe attempted to open air access to London in order to destroy the remaining British fighters and destroy its ground facilities and aircraft factories, followed by concentrated bombing of London. Dowding ordered as many fighters as possible to be sent to protect the aircraft factories in the south and to intercept enemy aircraft attacking ground facilities.

From August 24 to September 6, the Battle of Britain entered a critical second phase, the Germans, according to Goering's decision, carried out large-scale air raids on the main base of the British 11th Brigade and the aircraft factories in southern England, during these two weeks, the German army flew more than 1,000 sorties a day, including August 30 and August 31, and reached an average of 1,600 sorties per day! Bombing wave after wave, air battle after air battle, and at this decisive stage, the British pilots were very tired from being in a state of high tension for more than a month, sometimes having to make several sorties a day. Since the beginning of the air battle, 103 British pilots have been killed and 128 seriously wounded, accounting for a quarter of all pilots! The British Air Force began to suffer from a shortage of personnel, especially the experienced pilots, who suffered a large number of casualties, and even some young people who were only about 20 years old were already considered veterans. In such a dire situation, the far-sighted Admiral Dowding still did not use the reserve of 280 aircraft retained in the northern depths, and his strategy was condemned by the hard-fought soldiers at the front and complained by the officers on standby in the rear. Despite this, the British army continued to fight tenaciously, and some pilots made several sorties a day, maintaining high morale, and even surpassing the Germans in sorties on September 6! The ground crew worked day and night to maintain and repair the injured aircraft, and their physical strength and energy reached the limit, and many fainted at work. In the two weeks from August 24 to September 6, 195 British planes were shot down and 171 were seriously damaged, while the total number of new aircraft produced by Britain and repaired in the same period was only 269, and the British Air Force was already seriously damaged! What is more serious is that the five most important airfields in the south of Britain have been seriously damaged, the most important command center of the British Air Force - the underground fan command center, the command center according to the radar station, ground air defense observation posts and air combat pilots sent back the enemy situation report, comprehensive analysis and assessment, and then use radio to direct the fighter planes in the air to fight, the German army intercepted the command center and the pilots through radio monitoring, realized the importance of these command centers, and went all out to attack this kind of command center, 6 out of 7 command centers in the southern region and near London were destroyed! The command and communication system of the British Air Force is on the verge of collapse, and if it continues like this, the British Air Force will soon lose the strength to resist! The German numerical superiority began to gradually take hold, and in these two weeks, the Germans lost 214 fighters and 138 bombers, but there were still enough forces to continue the offensive.

The British had the upper hand in the previous battles, but the actual attrition to the Royal Air Force was still huge. At the same time, the Luftwaffe was also facing the urgent problem, its battle in Britain greatly depleted the German army's logistical supplies, so the German top brass was forced to shift the strategic objective from attacking military objectives to overpowering the Royal Air Force to attacking urban areas and weakening the British national power, and the plan to invade Britain Sea Lion was shelved indefinitely. The Germans changed their tactics and launched a massive air raid on London, and the Battle of Britain entered its third phase.

On 24 August, 12 lost German bombers flew over London and dropped bombs in the city center. On August 25, on the instructions of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British Air Force sent 81 bombers to attack Berlin in retaliation. Despite the fact that the material damage caused by the air raids was minimal, it greatly shook Germany psychologically! On the night of August 28 and August 31, the British attacked Berlin twice, and the citizens of Berlin experienced the war firsthand. Sitara was enraged (following such an emotional overweight boss, the Luftwaffe said that the baby was bitter, but the baby didn't cry) and shouted for the complete destruction of London! On 3 September, Göring convened a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff and decided to shift the focus of the attack to London from 7 September. On September 4, in a speech, Sitara claimed that night attacks would be reciprocated by night attacks, with the British dropping a thousand kilograms of bombs and the Luftwaffe returning with ten, hundred, or even a thousand times as many bombs. In fact, the German air raids on London had already begun at the end of August. On the evening of September 6, the Germans dispatched 68 of the latest B6 "Whirlwind" bombers to bomb London for the first time, but they were not piloted by Chinese pilots of the Volunteers. The fire of revenge of the Chinese has not yet fallen, and the nightmare of the British is far from waking up.