220: The Channel Battle

Description

This episode delves into the intense aerial battles of July 1940 during the Battle of Britain, focusing on the RAF and Luftwaffe’s clash over the skies as Germany sought to dominate the English Channel and cripple British shipping and naval power. From fiery dogfights on July 10th to covert bombing raids that tested Nazi morale, the episode explores the strategic gambits, weather challenges, and human cost of this pivotal moment in WWII. With gripping accounts of high-stakes maneuvers and the looming threat of Operation Sea Lion, it’s a must-listen for history enthusiasts eager to uncover the drama that nearly changed the course of the war.

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Transcript

Summary

In this gripping episode, dive into the heart of the Battle of Britain as the RAF and Luftwaffe clash over the skies of July 1940. Explore the high-stakes aerial battles, the strategic gambits of closing the English Channel, and the German push to cripple British shipping and naval power. Discover how weather, reconnaissance, and bold maneuvers shaped the conflict, while uncovering the toll on both sides as losses mount and the shadow of Operation Sea Lion looms. From the fiery dogfights of July 10th to the covert bombing raids that rattled Nazi morale, this episode reveals the intensity, ingenuity, and human cost of a pivotal moment in WWII. Whether you’re a history enthusiast or a fan of tactical warfare, this is a must-listen for anyone eager to understand the skies that nearly fell.

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 220 - The Battle About Britain Part 4 - The Channel War. This week a big thank you goes out to John, Paul, and Eduard for supporting the podcast by becoming members. Members get access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast’s episode plus special member only episodes roughly once a month. Head on over to historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members to find out more.

Over July and August 1940 on both sides of the English channel two different groups of leaders would be working and preparing for the opposite sides of the invasion question. The British would be frantically preparing to stop a German invasion by whatever means necessary while the Germans would trying to determine how to make that invasion happen. While these preparations were underway a battle would already be taking place which can reasonably be considered the first phase of the Battle of Britain. This was the aerial battles over the English Channel which would become known as the Channel Battle or Kanalkampf. Unlike some of the other phases of the battle, which have an exact start and end point, the beginning point of the Channel Battle is a bit more flimsy. But it would extend roughly from the period that the French surrendered until the next phase of the battle would begin on August 8th. This episode will track the action over the channel during that period, during which the German aircraft would attack the critical artery of Britain, coastal shipping.

Britain was a maritime nation, with the most famous outcome of that fact being the Royal Navy, but the maritime bones of the British society ran far deeper. Most importantly for our story, a critical part of the British economy were the countless numbers of small merchant ships that ran between British coastal ports all around the islands. It was simply the quickest way to move bulk goods like coal around the country. There were railways of course, which crisscrossed the islands, but they were not under any kind of central management and the variety of regional rail companies made cooperation and coordination difficult at best. The demands of the war would put further strain on these rail companies and what could have helped the situation, giving over to central planning and control was resisted during the early parts of the war. But even if all of that coordination was possible it did not make up for the fact that the British rails simply were not built to handle the volume of traffic that would be required for some of the critical goods movements like getting coal to London. The easiest way to get coal to London was by loading it up on colliers and then shipping it south. In peace time it worked great, and even with the start of the war there was no immediate danger. But then the Germans attacked into France and suddenly the coastal trade which was so important to the continuation of the British economy was under risk. The ships and more importantly their crews were suddenly at risk, and these were not glamorous jobs. The crews of these small merchant ships were poorly paid, enduring poor conditions, and had no real job benefits. And suddenly these workers were on the front line of the war. The crews would face danger day after day for months, suffering casualties greater than those suffered by the RAF over Britain at the height of the battle. But they were carrying essential goods, and so the trade had to continue. Joining them in that position were also large merchant ships and convoys that were either inbound or outbound from the British Isles to foreign ports. Up until the summer of 1940 the English Channel was still open to these convoys, and they were the big targets that the Luftwaffe would seek out.

To seek out these targets the Luftwaffe would begin moving Luftflotte 2 and 3 to take up positions on the northern coasts of France and Belgium starting as soon as the French signed the armistice on June 22nd. This positioning was mostly for the later battles to come, but it was also the exact position to put aircraft in to stage attacks on British shipping in the Channel and North Sea. The orders to begin such attacks would arrive on July 2nd when both of the Luftflotten would be ordered to begin their attacks on all sea traffic in the Channel. These attacks would not take long to bear fruit when on July 4th Convoy OA178, which was outbound from London to America was found and attacked. There would be absolute carnage when various Luftwaffe squadrons, including several dive bombing Stuka squadrons fell upon the convoy. 4 ships totally over 15,000 tons were sunk quite quickly, and 8 others were damaged. Critically the convoy had been unprotected by the Royal Air Force at the time of the attack, and this fact was not well received by Churchill and others. Orders were quickly dispatched that all Channel convoys should have much greater fighter protection at all times, with six fighters being seen as the minimum number that should be on patrol over the convoys at all times, and more ready to reinforce them at the first sight of the Luftwaffe. Some convoys would also be rerouted to the north, so that instead of going through the Channel they would go north and around Scotland before heading west, but it did not make sense for all shipping to take this detour, and so the demands for protection for all merchant shipping in the channel were seen as the only way for critical trade to continue.

Dowding, at the head of Fighter Command, really disliked the calls for protection of the merchant shipping in the channel because it caused all kinds of problems for the RAF fighter squadrons. First, due to the proximity to German bases the alert times for channel attacks was very small, far too small for British fighters to reach the location from their airfields in time to protect the ships. This meant that the only option were standing patrols, literally just ships flying circuits around channel convoys. These patrols allows the British fighters to be on station, but was an incredibly wasteful way for fighters and pilots to spend their days. Long boring patrols wore away at pilots and aircraft and it left them vulnerable to German attacks as the Luftwaffe fighters would always have the initiative in any engagement. Second, there were a lot of ships in the channel at any given time, and so this meant that the British fighters would be thinly spread to protect large swaths of the seas. This gave the Germans the ability to concentrate their forces at a given point and overwhelm the RAF fighters at that specific point. When this problem was combined with the requirement for standing patrols it became very challenging to properly reinforce any specific area of the channel, because so much of the overall fighter strength was already flying patrols over other areas. These were all problems, but the idea of standing patrols like what was required was also simply against overall RAF strategy. The entire reason that the RAF had invested in infrastructure like the Chain Home systems, and then Dowding and Fighter Command staff had worked so hard on how to use the information from the radars is because they had rejected the entire concept of standing patrols as wasteful. But then as soon as the fighting started they were being ordered to do the thing that they knew would not be successful, largely for political reasons. A similar problem was happening on the German side during the opening weeks of the campaign as well. However, unlike the RAF fighters which did not want to be tied to convoys, on the German side they were displeased that they were being tied so closely to the German bombers. The Luftwaffe fighters preferred to operate through what they called free hunting fighter sweeps, which was essentially just an offensive patrol of enemy airspace. Then once enemy fighters were found they would get into attack position and attack. This was not really possible during the Channel battle because the RAF was not committing their fighters to random patrols and they were under strict orders to disengage from any purely fighter based German patrol. The idea was that the German fighters were not the primary targets, and so it was best to conserve any RAF fighter strength for bombers. As the skies became more dangerous for the German bombers, pressure mounted on the German fighters devote more and more resources towards bomber raid support. Many of the Luftwaffe fighter squadron leaders hated this development, for example one of their leading aces, a World War 1 veteran Theo Osterkamp believed that the Bf-109s were fundamentally less effective when tied to the slower moving bomber formations. The various Luftwaffe leaders involved in the fighting would discuss how to handle these problems, until on July 21st, at a conference at his home at Karinhall Goring became involved. Due to the growing losses of among the German bombers Goring was in favor of stronger fighter protection for the bomber formations, believing that both the Bf-109s and 110s should both be detailed to this protection mission. He accepted the idea that perhaps the fighters would be more effective as long as it brought bomber losses under control. As this filtered back to the front, there was actually a good mount of training that had to be done for it to be possible. Many of the less experienced German fighter pilots had to learn how to fly escort formations, particularly with much slower aircraft like the Stuka. It just was not a job they had experience with, and it required different formations and considerations. This push and pull on the German side, of how specifically fighters should be used to best support the objectives of the campaign would be an ongoing discussion and July was just the beginning.

While the orders had been given to the Luftwaffe on July 2nd, and the first major attacks had taken place on the 4th, many histories put the start of the channel battle on July 10th. This is mostly due to the the actions that took place over a specific Channel Convoy with the codename Bread, this was a major convoy and therefore as soon as it was spotted by a Luftwaffe reconnaissance flight the decision was made to attack it in strength. The convoy was protected by the new standing patrol orders, with six Hurricanes of 32 squadron in place to guard the ships. The Luftwaffe would send 30 Dornier bombers, roughly the same number of Me-110s and then twenty Me-109s into action over the convoy. This number of aircraft took time to form up for their attacks, and while they were doing so they were detected by British radar stations which gave some warning. This allowed three additional squadrons to begin to rush reinforcements into the area, including 16 additional Hurricanes and 8 Spitfires. All of these aircraft would race toward the convoy and the result would be chaos, with over 100 aircraft engaged in a massive running dogfight over the convoy. The two air groups were so concerned with one another that only a single merchant ship would be destroyed by the German attack. During the fighting on July 10th the Luftwaffe would lost 10 aircraft destroyed with 6 more damaged, with only 1 RAF fighter destroyed and 8 damaged during the fighting. This seems like a very good ratio for the RAF, and it was, but it is worth remembering during this action and many that would follow the German numbers were often higher due to the destruction of bombers which were often far easier to attack than the single engine fighters, and in the all important area of single engine fighters the RAF had a decisive advantage in the convoy battle of July 10th. This success was also balanced against a peripheral action that did not occur over the convoy but did happen because of the convoy fighting, and that was a Bomber Command raid by 107 Squadron. 6 Blenheims would launch an attack on an airfield around Amiens that had been used by the Luftwaffe for the attack, and unfortunately for the crews they were sent in without any fighter escort. The weather over France was also just bad enough to make accurate bombing challenging, but not bad enough to offer real protection. As they entered their attack runs over the airfield they were set upon by German flak and fighters, and 5 of the 6 Blenheims would be shot down. When these losses were combined with other Bomber Command losses from the day, the overall number of aircraft destroyed on both sides was almost equal. The Luftwaffe believed they came off far better though, claiming around 35 total RAF planes shot down. This was not the beginning of the problem, but was a good example of the challenges to come for the Luftwaffe when it came to estimating RAF strength in the months that followed. All they could do was compare the estimated kills with the known RAF strength, and that painted a much more positive picture than was actually the case in reality, and the difference between the impact of those estimates and reality would only grow over time.

Even at this very early stage of the battle some of the important lessons of the campaign were already being learned on both sides. For the Germans the most important of these lessons was that daylight bomber raids without protection from Bf-109s were going to be very risky. Along with this the Bf-110 was not proving to be up to the task of serving as a long range escort, and was really only capable of protecting the German bombers by making itself a target. During the early weeks there would be many instances of Bf-110s on the worse end of aerial battles with British fighters. One of these Bf-110s would be flown by Gerhard Kadow who flew a mission on July 11th where 4 Bf-110s were all shot down over England, with only 3 airmen out of 8 surviving. Kadow would arrive safely on the ground, only to of course be captured like many German airmen . He would later write about his final action: “Relying on my two cannon and four forward facing guns, I carried out a head-on attack on the first fighter – I pressed all buttons and the bullets flew out like water out of a watering can. Our closing speed was very fast and both of us broke away in order not to collide. Whether I had any success I don’t know, as in the next instant two other British fighters were behind me and opened fire. My engines stopped and I knew that getting home was impossible.”. When he safely put his damaged aircraft down on the ground he would attempt to destroy the aircraft by setting it alight, again a very common event when a damaged aircraft was landed successfully. He would be shot by a British soldier who arrived on the scene, with Kadow later saying: “I complained [to the officer] that it was unfair to shoot us fliers who had been shot down. He said we had been trying to destroy our aircraft and he tried to prevent us doing that – be glad, he said, that we had not received a bullet in the belly!”. The other, and excepted aspect of the campaign was that weather was going to play a major role in the frequency and targets of German raids. Determining the exact weather over Britain was one of the challenges that the Germans would have to solve if they wanted to launch raids and in a time before satellite and powerful weather radars this often meant manually determining the weather for each day. The primary source of information were weather flights that would be staged almost every morning, with some prediction capabilities based on U-boats and secret supply ships that were positioned in the Atlantic. These weather were considered important enough that U-boats were specifically detailed to essentially just sit in the Atlantic to provide daily weather reports due to the understanding that the weather systems would move east. After the big dogfights of July 10th over the next two weeks the overall tempo of the fighting ebbed due to both weather and just luck. When it came to finding naval targets the Germans were wholly reliant on airborne reconnaissance flights, and these did not always find targets. There would still be raids even if maritime targets were not found, often on shore based installations around the port cities of southern and southeast England. RAF Bomber Command would also be active during the last weeks of July, launching various raids against targets on the continent.

Not every German raid during the middle weeks of July was successful, but those that were did start having a serious impact on British planning. On the 26th of July a major step was made when the narrowest sections of the English Channel were closed to all daylight merchant ship movements. This was done to try and limit the losses and the reduce the commitment of RAF resources to their protection. But there was also another worrying development, just as problematic as the actions of the Luftwaffe. RAF reconnaissance flights had spotted and verified that the Germans were installing large artillery pieces in the Calais region, these guns could range the entire channel in this area, it being the narrowest at that location. This put not only the shipping in the channel at risk, but even the nearby Royal Navy base at Dover which was the base for a group of destroyers that were positioned to protect the surrounding area. This was a huge win for the Germans, as trying to reduce the presence of the Royal Navy in this area was a major objective for the preparations for invasion, as the Royal Navy was the greatest threat to any German operation. Late July was also a period when many other defensive measures were ramped up all over southern Britain as the pace of German raids continued to increase. One of these measures was the use of barrage balloons, which are one of those actions that were taken that had a major impact on morale, as the large balloons which were cabled to be at around 1,500 meters altitude, were a very visible symbol of resistance. Almost 1,500 of them would be deployed in various areas with the goal of entangling enemy aircraft in their cables, something that was a real risk during night raids also of course far less of a concern during daylight raids. There were even some efforts to use them to protect the channel convoys, with the creation of the Maritime Balloon Barrage Flotilla which tethered the balloons to fishing boats which I am sure did nothing to make the boats more agile.

Even though the total traffic through the channel was reduced after the closing of the channel on the 26th the fighting did continue for the final days of July. Generally these actions were interceptions of inbound and outbound German bombers, or the German fighters intercepting the British fighters that were trying to intercept the Germans. One example of this would be on July 29th when the Hurricane’s of 501 Squadron would intercept some German bombers on their way back from a bombing raid. Flight Lieutenant George Stoney would write: “Then, below me, I saw three Junkers tearing for home. They were only about 30 feet above the surface of the water, going away from our shores as fast as they could. I dived and attack them in turn, and chased them about a dozen miles out to sea. I gave the first one a good burst, and I knew I hit him. When the battle was on I was surprised because there was no confusion. Everything was very orderly. Each combat was distinct in itself. Things seemed to happen as in a nicely rehearsed play. I was astonished to find myself able to be a spectator and a fighter at the same time. From the moment we took off to the moment we landed exactly 36 minutes elapsed, though I suppose the fight itself did not last more than five minutes. After that we had breakfast.”. Over the period from July 10 through 31 the RAF would lose more total aircraft, with 172 losses versus just 167 for the Germans. These losses included both fighters and bombers on both sides, which for the RAF meant bombing raids over the continent .

A good place to end this episode would be discussing those bombing raids which would continue throughout July and August, although they are not frequently discussed these days. At this point the Air Ministry was dictating to Bomber Command when and where they should be bombing and then Air Marshal Portal would be given the task of trying to actually get enough bombers over the targets. However, much like the Germans the British at this point were having difficulties actually achieving what they wanted to with their bombing campaigns. It was much worse for the bombers of Bomber Command because they often had to launch all of their missions at night due to the complete aerial superiority of the Luftwaffe over France and Germany. Night after night the medium bombers of Bomber Command, the Wellingtons, Hampdens, and Whitleys would fly out to hit targets primarily in northwest Germany, Kiel, Hamburg, Mannheim, and other such targets. Whether or not they were hitting anything was a different conversation. Accuracy was poor, both due to the challenges of navigation and the challenges of dropping bombs on target. But they would still have an interesting effect, and that was the fact that both Goring and Hitler really did not like the idea that the RAF bombers were able to drop bombs over Germany. These attacks would also play a major part in the propaganda campaigns within Germany. In a speech later in the year Hitler would mention these attacks in a speech saying: “About six weeks ago, [Churchill] began to fight in the sphere in which he seems to think he is particularly strong, namely the air war against the civilian population, though under the pretense that the targets are important for the war effort.”. Now of course Hitler did not mention that the actual damage caused by the British attacks, and also the civilian casualties, were minimal, that did not fit the narrative. There were things that the Germans could have learned from the British efforts, and how hard it might be to truly destroy targets during a strategic bombing campaign, but they did not have time to absorb any lessons. That was because there was a deadline approaching, the launch date for Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain, an operation that we will discuss the planning for starting next episode