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This is Trent Park in North London -

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today part of Middlesex University.

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In the Battle of Britain,
every single German pilot shot down
over this country was brought here.

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They were allowed to
live here in some comfort,

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completely unaware that every word
they said was secretly bugged
by British Intelligence.

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Throughout the battle,
these overheard conversations

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were a direct line into what
the Germans were thinking.

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The transcripts survive.

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And what these men said
has completely changed MY mind

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about what really happened
in the Battle of Britain.

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..That is what I am afraid of.

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Reading through these transcripts,
you realise that there were
two sides to the story,

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a one that has never
been properly investigated.

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Could it be that after all these
years, there are still new things to
be said about the Battle of Britain?

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The story is a famous one.

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Just a handful of pilots -
all that lay between
Britain and annihilation.

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It's part of our national legend.

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I want to show that
it's more complex.

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That the real story is richer,
and even more extraordinary.

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I absolutely love places like
this, crammed full of jackets and
guns, and bits of old aircraft.

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And, of course,
the machines themselves.

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Even now, standing next to
this real Spitfire

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still gives me quite a thrill.

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And I think it's that image
of Spitfires and Hurricanes,

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of The Few and of those huge battles
over southern England in 1940

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that encapsulates the Battle
of Britain that I grew up with.

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But it's only one part of the story.

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This is the familiar story -
Nazi Germany, a military colossus
crushing all before it.

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Amateurish Britain,
on her knees, her army defeated.

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Hitler's forces - superbly trained,
highly efficient.

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I don't want to debunk
the Battle of Britain or dismiss
the rousing words of Churchill.

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'Let us therefore
brace ourselves to our duty,

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'and so bear ourselves
that if the British Empire

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'and its Commonwealth
lasts for a thousand years,

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'men will still say,

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'"This was their finest hour."'

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It may have been our finest hour,
but it extends beyond The Few.

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The problem is that the myth
misses so much of the detail.

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Detail that reveals
a quite different story.

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The familiar picture is that by
June 1940, Britain was isolated,

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with Nazi and Fascist powers
in control from the Arctic
all the way to West Africa.

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But was Britain really alone?

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Even from the white cliffs
above Dover, the Channel
was a formidable obstacle.

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If you're a German,
and you're standing
on the cliff tops over there

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looking at the United Kingdom,
then you forget that it's not just
Britain that you're up against.

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It's the British Empire
and all their friends.

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And you haven't got all
the time in the world,

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you certainly don't have
all the resources in the world,

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to continue this fight.

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'Peter Caddick-Adams is a
historian from the Defence
Academy at Shrivenham.

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'He's always believed that Britain's
position in 1940 was not nearly so
hopeless as is generally thought.'

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One of the criticisms we can make
of Hitler is that in the First
World War he served as a corporal.

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And he's a land man, he only
thinks in terms of a land campaign.

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And even then,
only at the tactical level.

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So his view of fighting a
World War is purely in his own mind

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in terms of the land
battle at the tactical level.

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He knows and understands
nothing about maritime warfare

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and he understands very
little about aerial warfare.

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He has advisors who will
tell him - Goering, Raeder,
whoever the top generals are.

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They will tell him
what he should be doing.

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And so, when you come
up against a campaign -

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the invasion of England - that
requires a large maritime element,
that requires an aerial battle,

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he's way out of his comfort zone.

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And often people who are
uncomfortable with a decision
that they have to make,

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that they have no personal expertise
or experience of, they delay.

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They fritter, while they
sum up the options.

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And that's exactly what's
happening in the summer of 1940.

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Saturday, July 6th.

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After completing his stunning
victory over France, Hitler
paraded in triumph through Berlin.

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TRANSLATION:

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The soldiers were marching through
the Brandenburg Gate

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and everyone was cheering.

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That was really something.

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There was this victorious mood
and everybody got swept up in it.

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And when we turned on England, well,
we thought, "We can do this!"

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Hitler had most of
Europe at his feet.

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His power had never been greater.

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Surely, he told himself,
Britain would now do the sensible
thing and sue for peace.

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They came home victorious,
and we young girls could
finally go dancing again.

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When the war started,
dancing was prohibited.

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And I lived for dancing.

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And while Britain anxiously feared
an invasion, Germany had relaxed.

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Amidst jubilant scenes, total
victory seemed just a formality.

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If anything, it's the German nation
that needs to be keeping
an eye on the clock.

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Because sooner or later,
they will run out of time.

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With all the other
grand ideas they've got.

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And they're in danger of
a fleeting opportunity

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to cross the Channel
and go and defeat England,
and then it will be gone.

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'This wasn't the Germany
famed for its efficiency.

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'In fact, uncertainty was already
compromising its effectiveness.

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'Over here, the army may have been
defeated, Europe may have fallen,

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'but Britain still
had crucial strengths.'

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The Royal Navy was the biggest
in the world, far eclipsing
the size of the Kriegsmarine.

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Britain also controlled a third
of the world's merchant shipping.

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And the contribution of the Little
Ships did not stop at Dunkirk.

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In the summer of 1940,
far from being weak and isolated,
Britain was a marine superpower.

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For me, the Battle of Britain has
always been about so much more

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than just RAF Fighter Command
against the Luftwaffe.

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It's a giant clash of Great Britain
against Germany, which involves a
war on land, in the air and on sea.

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That's why I've come here to
Portsmouth, to see Steve Prince,

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head of the Royal Navy's
Historical Branch.

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You've got great national
determination,

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particularly after Dunkirk.

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But that's also buttressed by the
wider maritime connected world that

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the Germans, as a land power, have
great difficulty in understanding.

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So, you have all the Commonwealth
forces who are here both in the RAF,
obviously in the Battle of Britain,

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budding Canadian, Australian
and New Zealand forces who are
available for anti-invasion work.

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We think of the Small Ships as
being involved at Dunkirk,

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but many of the ships,
often many of the same vessels,

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are involved in this
auxiliary patrol service,
which is along the coast of the UK.

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And while Fighter Command are
operating very largely by day,

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this patrol service are
operating very largely by night.

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Yeah, and I love the idea of these
fishing crews in converted trawlers
turned into minesweepers,

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given a very small gun
and a couple of machine guns,

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and off you go. It's an amazing
kind of ingenuity, isn't it?
Just making it up on the spot a bit?

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Yes, it's an improvisation that
relies on Britain's very large -
at the time - sea-faring community

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that's available,
and their willingness to serve.

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And there was more to
the RAF than Fighters.

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There were Coastal
and Bomber Commands.

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The traditional view is that
the early efforts of
Bomber Command were ineffective.

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The truth is that, from
as early as mid-May,

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they were already making
daily strikes against Germany,

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hitting its navy,
industry and airfields.

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My hometown, Kiel,
was bombed in June 1940,

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and they were
40 or 60 people dead.

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As civilian.

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So, we were prepared to do the same.

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The material impact of
Bomber Command's efforts
may have been slight,

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but the psychological impact -
particularly on those in the Nazi
High Command - was considerable.

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Despite this, Hitler resisted calls
to strike back at Britain's cities.

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For the time being,
his principal aim was to cut off

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Britain's lifelines and
starve her into submission.

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This was the period
known as Kanalkampf -

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the fighting over the Channel.

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By the middle of July, Luftwaffe
attacks on British shipping
were having an alarming effect.

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500,000 tons of vital
supplies had been sunk.

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Hitler needed Britain out of
the war, one way or the other.

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If his victories in Europe
weren't enough to persuade
Britain to the peace table,

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maybe the threat
of starvation would.

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Hitler had retreated to
the Berghof - his house in Bavaria.

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He was already eyeing
the invasion of Russia, but
needed Britain out of the way first.

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And here he was receiving
conflicting advice.

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Hermann Goering,
the Commander in Chief
of the Luftwaffe, was optimistic.

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He promised Hitler the RAF could be
destroyed in just four clear days,
paving the way to invasion.

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But the Kriegsmarine,
the German navy, was not so sure.

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It maintained the best way to
win the war was by choking off

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the supply lines, and for this
the U-boat was ideally suited.

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Before the war, Germany had
planned to build a vast navy,
to include over 230 U-boats.

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But this had been fantasy.

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In the summer of 1940, no more
than 14 were ever operational.

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These alone were destroying
vast amounts of shipping.
Had they had 100, or even 50,

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Hitler might well have prevailed.

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There was a gulf between German
plans and what could be
realistically achieved.

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The German navy had
another terrifying weapon
causing havoc in 1940.

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Good to see you. Great seeing you.
I've got something to show you.
Fantastic.

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'Like the U-boats, S-boats
had enormous potential,

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'which is why I've come to
Cornwall to see one for myself.'

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OK, James. Oh, wow! Look at that.

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Welcome to S-130, the last
surviving German Schnellboot
of the Second World War.

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And, as you can see, we're dealing
with something here which is a
monumental piece of engineering.

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She can go at over
40 knots, that's over 50 mph.

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In fact, so fast could this vessel go
she actually has to slow down
in order to fire a torpedo.

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And because they've got a wooden
hull, they can go over any
magnetic minefield they choose?

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Yeah, this thing is the equivalent
of a kind of bespoke Rolls Royce.

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This is a Savile Row
suit in ship form.

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And yet what's clear is that
Hitler and the Kriegsmarine are
missing a trick here, aren't they?

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Because, what have we got?
Three flotillas, a couple
of dozen at max, aren't we?

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Of course, the problems for
the Germans is that

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they're insisting on such high
quality when it comes to the
Schnellboot,

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they don't have the capacity
to put 50 boats in the water.

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It takes a long time to build
an S-boat. They just don't
have the infrastructure.

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Too much emphasis on quality,
not enough on quantity, perhaps.

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This was the strange paradox
about the Germans in 1940.

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They had the knowhow, the science.

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What they lacked was the application
of that science.

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In contrast, Churchill knew exactly
where Britain's priorities lay.

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In May 1940, the Prime Minister
put his good friend, the Canadian
press baron Lord Beaverbrook,

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in charge of aircraft production.

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Beaverbrook ensured repaired
and new aircraft were arriving
at a rate never seen before.

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His impact was immediate.

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Beaverbrook's masterstroke was
to concentrate production on
just five types of aircraft -

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three bombers and two fighters.

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The Hurricane and The Spitfire.

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The whole country was gripped
by this sense of urgency.

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And with the men in uniform,
more and more it was the women
who were doing the work.

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16-year-old Joyce Reeves
was working six days a week
in an ammunition factory in Gosport.

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You started on Cordite.

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It was like spaghetti, only orange.

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You turned yellow with the stuff.

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You turned yellow.

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You had to weigh so much till
you had enough to fill a 4.5 shell.

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And then it was put in the shell,
with an igniter at the bottom,
and a fuse at the top.

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And then it was sent off to the guns.

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In Germany, production was stalling.

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Hermann Goering was in
charge of both the Luftwaffe
and the German economy.

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Just as Churchill had
put Beaverbrook in charge
of airplane production,

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so Goring turned to
his friend, the former ace
and famous stunt pilot Ernst Udet.

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Udet poured all his resources into
the development of new dive-bombers,

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which had already revealed
fatal shortcomings over Dunkirk.

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Meanwhile, other areas of
aircraft production were neglected.

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July 1940 was the most
productive month all year

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for single-seater fighters.

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Just 237 were built.

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The German effort contrasted with
the 496 British fighters produced in
the same period -

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more than double.

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It was a ratio that would
not improve for the Luftwaffe.

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This failure to deploy
their technological genius
in a coherent plan

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would have even more
dramatic results in a
crucial scientific development.

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Radar.

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Today, not much remains
of the coast-long radar chain
that once protected Britain.

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Just two out of six
towers here at Dover.

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Despite the legend, it's not true
that radar was a British invention.

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German radar technology
was years ahead.

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When the Germans examined a captured
mobile British set, they laughed
at its primitive simplicity.

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Yet radar was vital
to Britain's defence.

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Astonishingly, there was no radar
whatsoever helping the Luftwaffe
as they prepared to attack.

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When the Germans compared these
huge static towers with their own
smaller, 360-degree rotating radars,

218
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:46,040
they felt convinced they could
only be of limited effectiveness.

219
00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:50,920
What the Germans completely failed
to understand was that not only
were these towers

220
00:18:50,920 --> 00:18:53,000
Britain's eyes out
across the Channel,

221
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:56,120
they were also just one part of
Dowding's air defence system.

222
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:02,360
Air Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding,
Commander in Chief of
RAF Fighter Command,

223
00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:06,880
had worked tirelessly,
not only to build up his early
warning and deployment system,

224
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:11,640
but had also fought hard to preserve
and strengthen his fighter forces.

225
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:17,880
British technology may not have
been the best in the world,
but unlike the Germans,

226
00:19:17,880 --> 00:19:22,880
Dowding managed to harness the best
of the resources available to him.

227
00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:29,720
A hostile raid, sir.

228
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:31,000
BELL RINGS

229
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:34,760
The net result was that his fighter
force was able to intercept

230
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:38,320
enemy aircraft with unprecedented
speed and accuracy.

231
00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:52,560
Dowding's system
can still be best understood

232
00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:56,280
by looking at the surviving
Operations Room at RAF Uxbridge...

233
00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:01,920
..in 1940, the Headquarters
of Fighter Command's 11 Group.

234
00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:20,560
The system had a number of different
cogs - the radar chain,
the 30,000-strong observer corps,

235
00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:25,040
the GPO's telephone
and teleprinter service,
and of course the pilots themselves.

236
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:28,880
Its genius lay in its ability
to quickly bring all this
information together

237
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:30,880
at Fighter Command headquarters,

238
00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:34,920
then equally rapidly
feed it back out again
to the various operations rooms,

239
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:39,280
which, like this one at Uxbridge,
were almost exactly the same
at every level of the chain.

240
00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:45,480
Throughout July, as German raids
built up across the Channel,

241
00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:49,080
Dowding was able to iron out
glitches in the system.

242
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:52,000
The size and direction of Luftwaffe
formations were carefully monitored

243
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:56,320
with detail being added
as more information poured in.

244
00:20:56,320 --> 00:21:02,360
What we have here is a graphic
representation of a rapidly
unfolding situation, which enabled

245
00:21:02,360 --> 00:21:07,800
any of the controllers to see,
with a single sweep of the eye,
exactly what was going on.

246
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:12,320
In other words, co-ordination
and standardisation were the key.

247
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:17,320
What Dowding had created was
the world's first ever fully
co-ordinated air defence system.

248
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:21,200
And the Germans had nothing like it,
nothing like it at all.

249
00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:25,200
The Channel, mid-July.

250
00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:29,720
Despite continued attacks on
shipping and coastal targets,

251
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:33,000
the air fighting had
been comparatively light.

252
00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:39,680
In the whole month,
both sides would lose fewer aircraft
than they had over Dunkirk.

253
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:45,480
The real battle was yet to begin.

254
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:56,520
On 16th July,
from the Berghof, Hitler issued
Fuhrer Directive Number 16.

255
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,320
Preparations For A Landing
Against England.

256
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,000
Codename: Sea Lion.

257
00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:11,480
Three days later, he made a final
peace offer which, he hoped,
Britain could not refuse.

258
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:13,400
Churchill refused.

259
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:18,720
The stage was set for the
biggest air battle in history.

260
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:25,440
It would be a battle
of modern combat aircraft
and the young men who flew them.

261
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:33,120
In Germany and Britain,
these men and machines
were the source of intense pride.

262
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:39,120
On both sides, the airmen were
seen as young, handsome and brave -

263
00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:45,560
a romantic expression
of the national ideal.

264
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:50,400
For some of those still alive,
the memories remain vividly clear.

265
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:56,080
Hans Ekkehard Bob is one
of the last survivors.

266
00:22:56,080 --> 00:23:02,120
In 1940, he was a pilot
with the fighter group, JG 54,
based at Guines, near Calais.

267
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,800
Today, he is 93, and,
incredibly, still flying.

268
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:22,080
The plane he's strapping himself
into is a Messerschmitt 108,

269
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:26,160
a contemporary of the one he flew
in the Battle of Britain.

270
00:23:30,360 --> 00:23:35,160
Last time he was flying over
this airfield at North Weald
was at the battle's height.

271
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:56,640
HE SPEAKS GERMAN

272
00:23:56,640 --> 00:24:02,080
TRANSLATION:
My mother told me once,
that when I was five I said,

273
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:06,960
"I want to be a pilot. With my
right hand, I will fly the plane.

274
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,240
"And with my left hand
I will catch eagles."

275
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:20,240
In 1940, the situation was still
very positive for the Germans.

276
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,320
We were certain of victory.

277
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:23,880
Spirits were high.

278
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:34,080
It's clear that because
we already had experience
from previous missions,

279
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,400
we probably had an advantage
over the British at the time.

280
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,280
Because we already had Poland
and France under our belts.

281
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:45,120
The British rather
were just getting started.

282
00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:47,160
That's the way it was.

283
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:01,280
Now I want to see a British ace -

284
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:02,800
one of The Few.

285
00:25:11,360 --> 00:25:16,920
Well, this is where Billy Drake
lives. And Group Captain Drake,
as I should call him,

286
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,720
is one of the toughest
fighter leaders we ever produced.

287
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:22,800
He had an extraordinary career,

288
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:27,320
one that began with cloth-covered
biplanes before the war,
and ended on fast jets.

289
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,160
Imagine having a career like that!

290
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:39,040
'Billy remembers when the RAF
were still flying the
feebly armed Hawker Fury biplanes,

291
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:45,360
'and attending a top secret briefing
about the latest German fighter,
the Messerschmitt 109.'

292
00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:47,720
It was a very frightening lecture,

293
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,160
because we were told
all about the 109s,

294
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:57,720
and there we were with the Furies,
and we said, "Well, if we can't
shoot them down, what do we do?"

295
00:25:57,720 --> 00:25:59,960
He said,
"You'll have to ram them, old boy!"

296
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:03,240
And that was his statement.

297
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,720
Luckily, we got the Hurricanes
in time.

298
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,920
Fewer than 100 RAF pilots from the
Battle of Britain are still alive.

299
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:20,640
Those from the Luftwaffe
can be counted on two hands.

300
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:27,120
But one of the best sources for
how pilots were thinking at the time
are the diaries some of them kept.

301
00:26:27,120 --> 00:26:35,080
There's one in particular that I
want to see, here at the German
Diary Archive in Emmendingen.

302
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:42,480
Siegfried Bethke. A staffel
commander in JG 2 throughout

303
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:47,160
the whole of the Battle of France
and all of the Battle of Britain.

304
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:49,040
And... Good-looking chap, really.

305
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,680
I think there is sometimes a
tendency still in England, for us

306
00:26:52,680 --> 00:27:00,880
to view Germans very much as sort of
Commando-comic-book villains, sort
of Aryan automatons or something.

307
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,560
But what's so wonderful
about these diaries

308
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:08,160
is the real human person
emerges very, very clearly.

309
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,880
And this is really fantastic,

310
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,000
because there's a dedication
in the front of this diary from

311
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:18,600
his girlfriend,
who later becomes his wife, Hedi.

312
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:22,560
And she says, "My dear Siegfried,
in these great times
one must keep a diary.

313
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,000
"What will all be written here?"

314
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,560
Well, I can tell her, quite a lot
because this is one of the best

315
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:31,560
personal testimonies I've ever come
across about the Battle of Britain.

316
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,480
And it's from a
Luftwaffe fighter pilot.

317
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:41,560
Bethke's diary gives us a vivid
picture of what was happening at
the new airfields being built 

318
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,200
along the Channel coast
in northern France.

319
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:50,800
These entries are
unfamiliar territory

320
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:56,680
because they show just how much time
the Germans spent protecting
their bases from British bombers,

321
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,800
rather than attacking England.

322
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:00,080
Here he says, "Cockpit Readiness.

323
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,400
"One day off. Quiet.

324
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:06,120
"The next day cockpit readiness."

325
00:28:06,120 --> 00:28:10,320
And here he is saying,
"This is why I get up at 4:15am."

326
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:16,400
5am to 22:30 in his cockpit,
and he finally gets to bed at 23:30.

327
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,240
Now, that's a long day to
be sitting in your cockpit.

328
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,320
The reason he's sitting in his
cockpit is because he's guarding

329
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:29,880
the airfield against enemy raiders,
British raiders, bombers coming in

330
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:35,480
and attacking the airfield.
What is startling about this diary
is just how many references

331
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:40,600
there are to bombers, Blenheim
bombers, coming over and bombing
them, or being attacked by them.

332
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,560
But not over England,
but over the continental coast.

333
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:53,680
On Wednesday 31st July,
Hitler finally authorised
an all-out attack on Britain.

334
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,840
In the days that followed,
the Luftwaffe made
its final preparations.

335
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:10,200
Goering now had his air forces
ready - some 2,500 aircraft,

336
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:17,480
flying against the 650 fighters
and few hundred bombers of the RAF.

337
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,800
In the front line were 11 Group,
commanded by Dowding's
right-hand man

338
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:29,120
and tactical innovator,
Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park.

339
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,400
By the beginning of August,
Britain had had

340
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:34,720
two months in which to recover
from the humiliation at Dunkirk.

341
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,880
Over there, across the water,
the French coast was now full

342
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,040
of newly completed airfields,
all crammed with aircraft.

343
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,960
The mood amongst the Luftwaffe
was buoyant. Confidence was high.

344
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:48,400
While Britain waited for the
inevitable onslaught, all Goering

345
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,200
believed he needed was just
four good days of clear weather.

346
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,920
AIR RAID SIREN WAILS

347
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:08,760
According to the weather forecasts,
a ridge of high pressure
was moving in from 12th August.

348
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:26,680
Preliminary raids were sent over to
destroy the British radar chain and
attack ports along the South Coast.

349
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:41,280
At 10 o'clock, we heard this noise
and my brother said, "What is that?"

350
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:46,040
So we went out and it was
covered with planes, upstairs,

351
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:52,240
in the sky, black, and I thought,
"Oh, dear, something wrong here."
So we went into the shelter.

352
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:56,360
We heard all the bombing,
and all the machine guns.

353
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:15,280
I saw the parachutists coming down
in flames cos they were hit,
and then it eased off.

354
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:20,200
So when we came out of the house
to see what had happened, midday,

355
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:28,480
all along Mortimer Road where
we lived, was bullets and the
cartridge cases and the shrapnel.

356
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,720
So we run down the road
and by heck, they came back!

357
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:37,880
So of course we ran like mad
back to the shelter, terrified. I
thought it was our last day on Earth.

358
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:39,280
BELL RINGS

359
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,680
The all-out attack
on Britain had begun.

360
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:54,600
Tom Neil had just celebrated his
20th birthday, and was a fighter
pilot throughout the battle.

361
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:58,000
From Control you will learn
there are 30 enemy

362
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:06,080
forming up over France,
60, 90, 100, 150, 250, 400!

363
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,320
Oh, my God! 400?!
And there's only 12 of us!

364
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:10,880
You know, that sort of attitude.

365
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:16,840
That was the time when you really
felt apprehensive, but once
you were airborne...no problem.

366
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:27,080
The operation against the RAF
was codenamed Adlerangriff,
the Attack Of The Eagles.

367
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:35,000
In the five days
following its launch,
Fighter Command lost 118 aircraft.

368
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,160
But the Luftwaffe lost more...

369
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:42,880
251.

370
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:56,200
Sunday, 18th August became known as
the hardest day as both sides
threw all they had

371
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,400
into an increasingly ferocious
air battle.

372
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:04,880
According to Goering's pre-battle
plan, he should already have cleared
the skies of British planes.

373
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:09,200
Yet the RAF was still meeting
every raid the Luftwaffe sent over.

374
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:15,000
Both nations had placed great faith
in their fighter aircraft.
But which was the best?

375
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:23,600
The German pilots
who survived being shot down
were hastily taken into custody.

376
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:30,680
Before being take to prison camp,
they were sent to Trent Park
in North London,

377
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:35,960
where their conversations were
secretly bugged by Denys Felkin
and his team in Air Intelligence.

378
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:44,360
It was immediately apparent
that the German airmen felt their
aircraft gave them the upper hand.

379
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:49,720
The 109 is superior to the Spitfire
if it has a pilot who knows
how to fly it well.

380
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:56,120
It is incomprehensible
how frightened many airmen
are of the Spitfire.

381
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:02,520
I'd always prefer a 109
to the Spitfire.

382
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,640
You have to fly in long wide curves
and the Spitfire can't keep up!

383
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:14,920
Not a surprising judgement
from the German pilots,

384
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:20,000
but there were English airmen
who agreed about the 109.

385
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,760
It was a small aeroplane,
with a very weighty engine.

386
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:28,520
And it could dive very quickly,
and it escaped very quickly.

387
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:33,080
So tactics were largely
determined by them.

388
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:38,200
And time and time again, we used
to watch them coming, but there
was nothing we could do about it.

389
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:43,320
And they would dive away,
quite freely, without us being
able to catch them.

390
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:49,960
In a Spitfire, I always felt that
given ten seconds to work up a bit
of speed, you could cope with them.

391
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:54,080
But initially,
the 109 was a more effective fighter.

392
00:34:56,600 --> 00:35:01,040
The Messerschmitt 109
was acknowledged to be
a trickier machine to handle.

393
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:05,080
But once mastered,
it had a number of key advantages.

394
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:12,000
Hans Ekkehard Bob had been
flying the 109 since 1938.

395
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:18,680
TRANSLATION: Personally,
I was always able
to outmanoeuvre the Spitfire.

396
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:24,920
That means in dogfights I was
able to get behind the Spitfire

397
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:27,240
and get into the firing position.

398
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:40,560
We were, of course, convinced that
the ME-109E was the best plane
to be used in missions at the time.

399
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:49,560
The argument over who had
the best aircraft has been
raging ever since the battle.

400
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,400
I want to resolve this
once and for all.

401
00:35:55,400 --> 00:36:01,640
Now this is the real thing,
a Messerschmitt 109E as flown
in the Battle of Britain.

402
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,560
There's only two
proper Messerschmitts

403
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,920
flying in the world today
and this, when it's finished,
will be the third.

404
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:11,520
All the others you can see are
post-war 1950s,
Spanish-built Bouchons,

405
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:16,280
not the same thing at all,
but this is the real McCoy.

406
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:21,840
One key difference
lay in the engines.

407
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:29,440
Our engines had carburretors,
whereas the Germans always had

408
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:33,200
direct injection,
which we have in our cars nowadays.

409
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:39,360
In a carburettor, it all depends on
a little chamber in the carburettor,
and the float that goes up and down.

410
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:45,520
And when the demands of the engine
are such, the float goes up and
more fuel is allowed in the engine.

411
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,920
In an aircraft, when you
push the nose down, the float

412
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:54,560
flies to the top of the cylinder,
you get the fuel whether you like
it or not and the engine stops.

413
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,920
Now, masses of black smoke
used to come out of the exhaust.

414
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:03,000
And the engine would stop for as
long as you kept on negative G,

415
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,760
which could be up to 2,
3, 4, 5 seconds.

416
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,720
By which time, of course,
your enemy had escaped.

417
00:37:08,720 --> 00:37:10,760
He was halfway home to France.

418
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,960
And in a dogfight, there was another
equally vital factor.

419
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:27,080
The enormous advantage of the 109
for low-flying attacks is the
terrific power of its armament.

420
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,800
You make one attack and it does
an enormous amount of damage.

421
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,680
The British pilots couldn't feel
so confident in their firepower.

422
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:45,480
In a Spitfire or a Hurricane
you had 14.7 seconds of fire,

423
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:48,440
of really peashooter ammunition.

424
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:55,920
And the 109 had 55 seconds
of machine-gun fire,
nearly four times as long.

425
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:01,880
You can argue all you like about
manoeuvrability and performance,

426
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,960
but I think it really boils
down to this - firepower.

427
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:10,080
Now, Spitfires and Hurricanes
were armed with .303 Browning
machine guns, which fired these.

428
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,120
This is the bit that hits
the enemy plane. It's pretty small.

429
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:17,560
Now, here we've got a bit of German
fuselage from a 109 that was hit
during the Battle of Britain,

430
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:22,240
and repaired, and as you can see
here's the hole, pretty neat
and not an awful lot of damage.

431
00:38:22,240 --> 00:38:23,920
So we've got that.

432
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:29,880
Germans also have machine guns,
but in addition they've got 20mm
cannon shells.

433
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:35,120
Now, this is a high-explosive
cannon shell so it hits
the aircraft and then explodes.

434
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,160
They also had
armour-piercing shells.

435
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:43,040
Now if you put this together
with a 303, there's absolutely
no comparison at all

436
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:48,880
and if I was flying in the Battle
of Britain, I know which
I'd rather have - cannons.

437
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:58,080
For me, there is no doubt
that the Messerschmitt 109
was the better plane in 1940.

438
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,120
55 seconds of firepower
was a colossal edge.

439
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,400
That was on top
of its other advantages.

440
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,080
Tom Neil faced the 109 in combat.

441
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:16,280
The 109s had the supreme ability
to catch us whenever they wanted,

442
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,160
to get away whenever they wanted, and
to knock us down whenever they want.

443
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:24,000
Cos they had big 20mm cannons,
we had peashooters by comparison.

444
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,720
And they could knock us
down with three shots.

445
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,040
The ME-109E might have
been the better aircraft,

446
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:48,200
but it was being forced to operate
at a number of disadvantages.

447
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:49,280
The first was fuel -

448
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:52,120
flying over from France,
they had only around 10 minutes

449
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,760
in the combat zone,
before they had to head for home.

450
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,640
If they didn't, they risked
ending up in the Channel.

451
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,960
And, whilst it may look like
a narrow river from the air,

452
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:05,720
the reality of being a lone
airman, lost adrift in that vast
expanse at sea level,

453
00:40:05,720 --> 00:40:08,480
held true terrors
for the German pilots.

454
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:11,040
The second disadvantage
was tactical -

455
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:15,320
preventing its pilots from
fulfilling its basic design function

456
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,080
was unthinkably,
unimaginably stupid.

457
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:26,880
Despite earlier insisting the 109s
operate freely to make
the most of their advantages,

458
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:32,840
Goering then reversed the order,
demanding his fighters escort
the dive-bombers at all times.

459
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:45,520
The 109 was designed
to fly at speed, not so slowly.

460
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:49,280
Its pilots were struggling
to keep it airborne.

461
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:58,240
TRANSLATION: When that order came
from Goering it caused a huge stir.

462
00:40:58,240 --> 00:41:00,800
We fighter pilots were furious.

463
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,160
We were shocked that
a commander in chief

464
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,840
could issue such
a ridiculous order as that.

465
00:41:14,240 --> 00:41:16,560
We fighters hated
flying in direct escort.

466
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:20,480
No-one wanted to do it
because you were helpless.

467
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,680
You flew next to the bombers
in normal formation.

468
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:28,200
You couldn't defend yourself
or attack or anything.

469
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:29,720
You could do nothing.

470
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:36,520
You just stayed still
until you were shot down -

471
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:40,240
that was what it amounted to.

472
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:55,520
Because the 109s couldn't operate
so effectively at such low speeds,

473
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:59,920
they were less able to protect the
Stukas, which were now decimated.

474
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:10,760
On 25th August, the Stukas were
withdrawn from the battle for good.

475
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:18,800
The most lauded part of
the German bomber force was gone.

476
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:22,120
And the Channel
wasn't getting any smaller.

477
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:30,880
'Flying his 109 on sorties
every day from Normandy
to England's South Coast

478
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,720
'was starting to worry
Siegfried Bethke.'

479
00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:37,480
He's obviously, clearly, pretty
nervous, and why wouldn't you be?

480
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:43,480
But one of the things that really
worried them was the distance
across the Channel they had to fly.

481
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:48,520
This was a problem going across
the Channel at the Dover Straits
from Calais and the Pas-De-Calais,

482
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:53,120
but this was quite another going
from Cherbourg all the way
to the South Coast of England

483
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,040
to Portland and Weymouth and so on.

484
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,480
And here he's admitting to his
nerves quite clearly and he says,

485
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:03,360
"I have to admit that the thought of
the Channel and everything behind it

486
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,280
"made my stomach churn
during the briefing,

487
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:10,040
"a feeling I did not get
before the battle against France."

488
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:14,400
And then he goes on a little bit,
he talks a bit more,
and then he says,

489
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:16,440
"I am a little bit
unsure of myself."

490
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,920
I think that's rather a nice
human touch.

491
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:31,160
The war took a sinister turn
on the night of Sunday 25th August,
when, on Churchill's insistence,

492
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:36,000
around 50 RAF bombers
set off to attack Berlin.

493
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:41,800
The night before, German bombers had
mistakenly dropped bombs on London,
something Hitler had forbidden.

494
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:51,600
TRANSLATION: There was a building

495
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,240
next to the commuter line
in Charlottenburg

496
00:43:54,240 --> 00:43:57,600
and it was destroyed
and everybody came and stared at it,

497
00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,560
like some sort of miracle.

498
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:04,600
Everybody went there
and looked at it to see what
a destroyed building looks like.

499
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:10,440
Hermann Goering said,
"You can call me Meier if a plane
ever drops bombs on Germany."

500
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:14,560
Well, his name was Meier
real quick, wasn't it?

501
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:25,320
The British Bomber Command
had already begun to bomb Germany,

502
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,880
six times in August 1940.

503
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:35,720
There was no real cause to do that,
to go to Berlin.

504
00:44:35,720 --> 00:44:41,320
We were very enraged
to do the same to London.

505
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:52,040
Incensed, Hitler ordered retaliatory
attacks on London, as the
British government knew he must.

506
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:57,440
For some, this change of tactics,

507
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,920
from attacking airfields
to British cities,

508
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,040
was the decisive moment
in the battle.

509
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:06,880
The best general we ever had
was Hitler himself.

510
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:12,120
He suddenly stopped
the destruction of our airfields.

511
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:20,120
He lost his temper
and said to Goering,

512
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:25,000
"Send all the bombers to London
and teach them a lesson."

513
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:30,320
That, probably, made the Battle
of Britain a success on our part.

514
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:37,360
If the Luftwaffe's core aim
was to destroy the RAF
in advance of an invasion,

515
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:41,040
it's hard to see how they
would achieve it by bombing London.

516
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:47,920
But I'm not convinced
the bombing of airfields
had been that successful anyway.

517
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:51,160
This is Manston in Kent,

518
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:54,080
one of Fighter Command's
frontline airfields in 1940.

519
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:59,360
During the Battle of Britain, it
was attacked numerous times as were
other airfields in southern England.

520
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,720
We've been told that by
the beginning of September
Fighter Command was on its knees -

521
00:46:03,720 --> 00:46:06,520
it isn't true.
Of all the RAF's airfields,

522
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:09,720
this was the only one to be
knocked out for more than one day.

523
00:46:09,720 --> 00:46:11,400
And this is the point -

524
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:14,680
to destroy a large, grass airfield
took an awful lot more bombs

525
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:16,920
than the Luftwaffe
were dropping on them.

526
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,440
The truth is,
that although the skies
were thick with enemy aircraft,

527
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:26,000
and although the rising number
of pilot casualties was causing
concern for Dowding and Park,

528
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,240
when the Luftwaffe turned on London,

529
00:46:28,240 --> 00:46:30,680
the RAF were still
a long way from defeat.

530
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:42,240
'Air Ministry communique.
The biggest yet. End of message.'

531
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:46,560
Both sides greatly exaggerated
claims of aircraft shot down.

532
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:52,120
Neither side, however, had a clear
idea of exactly what was happening.

533
00:46:54,560 --> 00:47:00,800
One person uniquely qualified to
examine the intelligence failings
on both sides is Sebastian Cox,

534
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:02,760
the RAF's official historian.

535
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:07,760
The RAF grossly overestimates
the strength of the Luftwaffe,

536
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:09,040
but the Luftwaffe,

537
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:12,920
not only do they overestimate the
number of planes they shoot down,

538
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:17,640
but they seriously underestimate
the capacity of the RAF

539
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,320
to replace planes that they have lost

540
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:25,280
and that has a serious effect on
the way the Germans fight the battle.

541
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:27,920
Both sides had a problem,

542
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:31,680
because they assumed the basic
military unit of planes

543
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:33,960
was the same in each air force.

544
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:39,480
But in the RAF, a fighter
squadron was about 20 planes.

545
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:45,400
In the Luftwaffe, the staffel
was only roughly 12 planes.

546
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:51,280
The RAF don't correctly understand
the structure of the German units,

547
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:56,800
and they think that
there are more German aeroplanes
in each of these units

548
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:58,440
than is actually the case.

549
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:04,760
And so the simple arithmetic
of multiplying the number of units
by the wrong number of aeroplanes

550
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,200
gives them an excessive
strength for the Luftwaffe.

551
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:16,440
Because of this simple mistake
alone, the RAF thought the Luftwaffe
was 50% bigger than it actually was.

552
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:26,080
At the same time,
the Luftwaffe thought the RAF
was smaller than it really was.

553
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:30,400
Presumably, overestimating
the strength of your enemy
is probably no bad thing,

554
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:34,000
but it's a serious problem
if you underestimate it, isn't it?

555
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:40,240
If you are on the defensive
and you overestimate the strength of
the enemy who's going to attack you

556
00:48:40,240 --> 00:48:43,520
that's not necessarily
going to be disastrous.

557
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:50,240
Whereas if you're on the offensive
and you underestimate
the defensive strength of the enemy,

558
00:48:50,240 --> 00:48:54,920
that can lead you into serious
difficulties, which is
what happens with the Luftwaffe.

559
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:04,720
By the beginning of September,
Luftwaffe pilots
were showing signs of strain.

560
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:19,240
Judging from what Bethke's saying
in this diary, for the Luftwaffe,
things were pretty bad.

561
00:49:19,240 --> 00:49:22,160
For example, he talks on
the 2nd of September, he says,

562
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:24,160
"We can almost never surprise them,"

563
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,800
and this is why he feels,
fighting from Normandy,

564
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:28,920
he's never going to get
the kind of scores

565
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:32,320
that some of these other pilots
are now amassing on the Luftwaffe.

566
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:36,360
He says "Because you can
never surprise them,"
they're always higher than him.

567
00:49:36,360 --> 00:49:39,400
I mean, we're always taught
beware the Hun in the sun,

568
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:44,120
but from Bethke's diary
it's clear that you have to beware
the Spitfire in the sun.

569
00:49:51,720 --> 00:49:57,440
If we began in July,
we had losses from 50% or so.

570
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:00,800
And this was, of course,

571
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:03,440
a very, very hard job

572
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:09,080
and we were not
very enthusiastic about it.

573
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:21,640
"I'm afraid that our fighter
escorts are considerably weakened,
you notice that now."

574
00:50:25,240 --> 00:50:28,520
"I know a staffel which has
only two aircraft left."

575
00:50:33,720 --> 00:50:38,880
"Once, for a whole week we always
reported number of aircraft
fit for service, nil."

576
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:48,480
By 7th September,
the Luftwaffe had lost 721 aircraft
since the attack had been launched.

577
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,680
Fighter Command, 405.

578
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:59,120
But the real difference was that
the RAF was replacing its losses.

579
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:03,960
One of the important points
which is very seldom mentioned

580
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:07,360
is the efficiency of our
organisation,

581
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,040
which provided
aircraft when we lost them.

582
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:16,640
And time and time again, if we flew
for three, four times a day

583
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,840
we'd be down
to five aircraft out of 18.

584
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:24,720
And suddenly, miraculously,
by lunchtime the following day,
we were at full strength again.

585
00:51:24,720 --> 00:51:27,640
Where they came from,
nobody knows, they just appeared.

586
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,880
Billy Drake had been
shot down back in May,

587
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:35,360
and after a spell as an instructor
training new pilots,

588
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:37,280
he returned to the front line.

589
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:43,160
And when you became operational
again, can you recall there ever
being a shortage of aircraft?

590
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,720
No... No!

591
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:52,680
It was replacing pilots
that was more of a worry.

592
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:55,600
But Keith Park now came up
with a brilliant solution.

593
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:02,560
Exhausted squadrons were
rotated to regain strength,

594
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:07,800
while new pilots were allowed
to gain flying experience
away from the front line.

595
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:13,000
Because of the flexibility
of Dowding's system, this could
be implemented immediately.

596
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:18,720
It was simple, effective,
saved lives, and gave Britain
an invaluable advantage.

597
00:52:18,720 --> 00:52:23,240
Billy Drake appreciated
the effectiveness of Park's ideas.

598
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:28,480
Those responsible for assessing
the operational capability said,

599
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:35,080
"These squadrons
are not capable of being
accepted as operational,

600
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:38,800
"and therefore,
we'll send them up north,

601
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:43,560
"away from the main theatre
above Britain, to recoup."

602
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:48,960
Once again, the Germans
had no comparable system.

603
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:51,640
Experienced pilots flew on and on.

604
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:54,040
New ones were flung
straight into the battle.

605
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:59,680
By mid-September, Dowding's
defences were holding firm.

606
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:06,000
Around Britain's coast, more than
1,000 ships patrolled her waters.

607
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,200
And convoys WERE getting through.

608
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,360
Britain was as strong as ever.

609
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:16,560
The operations room here
at Uxbridge has been set up

610
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:20,520
to represent the situation
as it was on 15th of September 1940,

611
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:25,320
and it's absolutely full
of information about
the state of the squadrons.

612
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:28,080
Now over here
we have the Biggin Hill sector,

613
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:33,200
and there were three single-engine
fighter squadrons - 92, 72 and 66.

614
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:38,480
What Park and Dowding were looking
for was to have 12 operational
aircraft on any one given day,

615
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:41,800
and then roughly double
the amount of pilots as a cushion.

616
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:47,960
So what we've got here
is P for pilots, 92 squadron
and A for aircraft, 19 and 12.

617
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:52,400
And then in 72 squadron,
we've got 20 pilots and 11 aircraft.

618
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:55,680
66 squadron -
19 pilots and 10 aircraft.

619
00:53:55,680 --> 00:54:02,320
So they've got plenty of pilots
and only 66 squadron is seriously
under strength in any way.

620
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,920
In other words,
the situation is pretty healthy.

621
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:08,960
The contrast with across
the Channel, with the
Luftwaffe's fighter situation,

622
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:10,400
could not have been greater.

623
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:13,960
Not that Goering understood this.

624
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:19,800
Armed with increasingly fantastical
Intelligence reports, he believed
the RAF was now all but destroyed.

625
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:24,400
All that was needed, he reassured
Hitler, was one final push.

626
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:34,280
On Sunday the 15th of September,
a huge air battle took place.

627
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:50,840
Although much smaller
than originally claimed,
the toll was still high.

628
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:54,600
The Germans lost 61 aircraft
and 93 men.

629
00:54:56,320 --> 00:55:00,480
For the British it was 31 and 16.

630
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:03,680
But far more important
than the figures

631
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:07,920
was the fact the Luftwaffe
was as far away
from beating the RAF as ever.

632
00:55:10,960 --> 00:55:14,960
Yet some German pilots still thought
the invasion was imminent.

633
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:20,000
It's quite interesting,
but Siegfried Bethke doesn't make
an entry on 15th of September 1940,

634
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:23,000
the day we've come to know
as the Battle of Britain Day.

635
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:26,240
But he does put an entry in
on the 16th, the next day,

636
00:55:26,240 --> 00:55:30,800
and in which, funnily enough, he
still thinks the invasion's a goer.

637
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:36,120
He reckons it's going to happen
in the next few weeks and certainly
within the next month.

638
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:40,440
And the reason he thinks that is
because his squadron, his staffel,

639
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:43,200
has just been placed up
in the Pas-De-Calais,

640
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:46,640
and he's flown over and seen
all the invasion barges.

641
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:52,320
It's true that by mid-September
the barges were ready.

642
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:58,520
Hitler's invasion plans
were complete.

643
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:02,320
The army was ready, so too the navy.

644
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,280
But the Germans
still hadn't beaten the RAF.

645
00:56:08,200 --> 00:56:14,320
From the start, they knew
that without air superiority
the plan would be doomed.

646
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:18,040
Today, we can piece together
the events of that
world-changing summer

647
00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:20,760
in a way that those
who lived through it never could.

648
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:23,960
We now know that the battle was
fought on a much broader front,

649
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:27,880
that beyond The Few
were the men of Bomber Command
and the rest of the RAF,

650
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:30,480
and the full weight
of a great maritime nation.

651
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:35,360
This, combined with Dowding's
ingenious defence system
and plentiful aircraft,

652
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:39,720
ensured that Britain
was a far stronger enemy
than Germany had ever expected.

653
00:56:39,720 --> 00:56:43,440
And it was, of course,
a battle of two sides, not one.

654
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:48,200
The result was as much to do
with German failings
as it was Britain's achievements.

655
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:53,880
If anyone had been amateurish,
it was the Germans.

656
00:56:57,680 --> 00:57:01,560
Hitler knew
that time was now running out.

657
00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:04,120
The Luftwaffe had failed.

658
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:08,560
The captured pilots at Trent Park
were coming to the same conclusion.

659
00:57:08,560 --> 00:57:13,240
"If they don't come in three weeks,
then they'll not
be coming across this year."

660
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:20,680
"Either the landing will come very
soon in this good weather,
or will probably not come at all."

661
00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:27,160
"They simply must start the attack
this winter or we'll
have no fighters left."

662
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:30,800
"We have missed the best moment
for the invasion."

663
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:37,840
September moved into October,
and summer turned to autumn.

664
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:46,440
Just a few months earlier, victory
had seemed inevitable and Hitler
had had the world in his grasp.

665
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:48,560
Now it was slipping away.

666
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:55,560
On the 12th of October, he postponed
the invasion indefinitely,
effectively ending the battle.

667
00:57:55,560 --> 00:57:58,080
Britain had won.

668
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:04,400
When you really look
at the complexity and detail
of the real story,

669
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:08,600
it becomes even more dramatic
and exciting than the one
we've all grown up with.

670
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:12,800
Hitler's plans now lay in tatters.

671
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:16,000
Britain's victory ensured
the war would continue.

672
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:23,720
While there was relief
that her sovereignty had been saved,
the celebrations would have to wait.

673
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:27,400
But the genesis of victory
that came five long years later

674
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:32,040
can be found in the summer of 1940
in the Battle of Britain.

675
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:43,480
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

676
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:46,520
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk