TY - JOUR
AU1 - Cumming, Anthony J.
AB - Abstract This article undermines a prop supporting the popular belief that Britain was directly saved from invasion in 1940 because the R.A.F. held control of the air in the Battle of Britain. Primary source evidence shows that even without adequate air cover, warships retained considerable potential to resist bombing attacks. While weaknesses in the system of air defence are acknowledged, the Luftwaffe possessed significant shortcomings when operating against the Royal Navy. Germany achieved temporary local air superiority over Kent and Sussex in September 1940 and it is suggested that German leaders were disinclined to recognize this because they expected that warships would smash the invasion anyway. Until recently, everyone knew that the fighter pilots commonly referred to as ‘the few’ saved Britain from invasion in 1940. Intense media interest followed the reported conclusions of three historians from the Joint Services Command Staff College in 2006 that it had been the Royal Navy that saved Britain from invasion in 1940.1 An avalanche of angry letters from R.A.F. veterans and a spirited counterblast from Max Hastings in the tabloid press may yet preserve the myth that, had fighter command been defeated in 1940, the Navy would have been helpless in the face of German air attack.2 Certainly, the legend and its associated myths have long and tenacious roots. Winston Churchill heaped tremendous praise on the R.A.F. in the house of commons on 20 August 1940 and these sentiments were reiterated in the air ministry's masterly public relations pamphlet, The Battle of Britain: August–October 1940, the following year.3 The heroic sacrifice made by the pilots of fighter command in 1940 should never be doubted, but in attributing the German failure to invade solely to R.A.F. endeavours, the prime minister had unintentionally dismissed the ability of the Navy to fulfil its traditional role as defender of the nation. Up to this point the Navy had enjoyed a special affection in the hearts of the British public as the main bulwark against invasion. Sadly, that affection had become strained in 1916 by the grand fleet's failure to ‘Trafalgar’ the German high seas fleet at Jutland. The Navy remained a source of pride but the decline in naval prestige can be observed in a newspaper comment of April 1940 that in 1914, Fisher, Jellicoe and Beatty were household names but, until recently, hardly anyone knew the name of Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, commander-in-chief, Home Fleet.4 Furthermore, if Group Captain Winterbotham, formerly of the secret intelligence service, was to be believed, an ‘unconfirmed’ rumour was going around in 1940 that guards were being placed upon Nelson's column to ensure that a statue of Air Marshal Dowding could not be erected on the plinth.5 The celebrations for the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar in 2005 marked some fleeting resurgence of maritime pride, but it was only the previous year that a Guardian article questioned whether Britain needed a navy at all.6 Winterbotham claimed in his published memoirs that it was as a result of the Battle of Crete that the British finally learned that warships were incapable of surviving in the face of exposure to large numbers of land-based enemy aircraft.7 For reasons that will become clear, it seems doubtful if this assertion, made many years after the events and almost entirely from memory, can really be representative of what senior figures actually thought at the time. His conclusion seems self-evident in the light of subsequent actions. The dramatic loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse to Japanese naval torpedo and dive-bombers and the great sea battles of the Pacific, where aircraft played the dominant role, masked a significantly different situation elsewhere. In western waters the Navy was facing an enemy air force that was not comparable with that of the United States or Japan. Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet's Aircraft and Seapower, published in 1970, dismissed the ability of small warships to operate a flotilla defence in the English Channel in the face of Luftwaffe superiority. He also stressed the reluctance of the Home Fleet to face a single air corps in Norway, pointing out that it would have needed to contend with five air corps based in France. If the Navy had needed to engage in a suicide operation without air support, he argued, the result would probably have been worse than at Crete – naval forces would only have been slightly greater, while the enemy air force would have had roughly four times the strength it was to have on that occasion. Hezlet also doubted the ability of the fleet to use the repair facilities between Portsmouth and the Humber while under air attack and concluded his argument by asserting that Hitler did not invade because of the Luftwaffe's defeat by the Royal Air Force.8 A few years later, another author put matters into a different perspective. Wing Commander H. R. Allen claimed in 1974 that the Luftwaffe had achieved sufficient degree of air superiority over the R.A.F.'s 11 Group around 1 September for the invasion to be launched later that month.9 He maintained that the Luftwaffe may not have actually won the battle but they certainly did not lose it either – the real victor was the ‘fleet-in-being’. This and numerous damming assertions against fighter command and its leader provoked a critical review from air historian F. K. Mason in a prominent defence journal that may have prevented the book from making much of an impact upon academics. Mason's criticism was valid in regard to Allen's apparent ignorance of aircraft design and his over-harsh critique of the air staff, but the general thrust of Allen's work was justified. However, Air Marshal Hugh Dowding's death in 1970, soon after the release of the popular feature film Battle of Britain (1969) and the publication of a book by a former aide, evoked a wave of sympathy that made revisionist criticism very difficult in the nineteen-seventies.10 Allen's conclusions starkly contradicted ‘core histories’ and popular literature, but here was one of ‘the few’ prepared to acknowledge that it was the Royal Navy, or the ‘fleet-in-being’, that provided the real obstacle to successful invasion. As a fighter pilot of 11 Group, with direct experience of the Battle of Britain, he was particularly well placed to appreciate the tremendous difficulty of trying to operate in conditions of enemy air superiority. This made him deeply unpopular with his former colleagues and very few writers have dared to use him as a source. No serious military historian today doubts that 11 Group was in trouble immediately before the Luftwaffe changed the focus of its attack from the airfields and sector stations to London. If Allen was correct about the degree of superiority attained, the German prerequisite for invasion had certainly been met, irrespective of whether Hitler and the German naval staff were prepared openly to acknowledge this. Indeed, German writer Egbert Kieser even went so far in 1997 as to assert that the failure to invade was a suicidal admission of defeat on the eve of Operation Barbarossa.11 This was all very well, but whether or not the R.A.F. remained sufficiently ‘in-being’, the question in the minds of contemporaries was whether it was reasonable to expect the Luftwaffe to offset the enormous numerical advantage of the Royal Navy over the Kriegsmarine. In the nineteen-seventies, Middlebrook and Mahoney pointed out that nobody could seriously have thought during this early period that British warships lacked a significant operational capability in the face of large numbers of land-based enemy aircraft. Until November 1941, the sinking of just three of the twelve capital ships lost was attributable to air attack alone, and all of those were torpedoed in Taranto harbour. On the other hand, smaller ships were relatively more vulnerable – by this point, twenty-eight British destroyers and five cruisers had been eliminated by the Luftwaffe.12 None of this, however, is sufficient to challenge long-established views. A fresh look at the ‘bombs versus battleships’ debate as it applied to the situation in 1940 will be the major focus of this article, examining one of the naval perspectives of the so-called Battle of Britain. In this context ‘battleships’ means all Royal Navy ships, including their personnel, and the vulnerability of ships in harbours providing replenishment and emergency repairs will also be taken into account. There was far more involved with Operation Sealion than the question of whether German airpower was a match for British warships in 1940. Indeed, a comprehensive study would need to encompass factors such as the German plans for their warships, flanking minefields, coastal batteries, airborne troops and, above all, an analysis of the political will to make it all happen. Even so, it is the fundamental assumption that British warships could not stand up to Luftwaffe attacks that is challenged here. The first area to be reviewed is that of anti-aircraft defence, if only because the admiralty initially considered this to be more important than fighter defence for fleet protection. Although Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz told British intelligence after the war that the German bombs of 1940 were inadequate for the task of incapacitating British capital ships, it has proved necessary to confirm this from other sources. Examination of the admiralty's own analysis of the effectiveness of German attacks against shipping in this period takes into account the question of bombs, as well as indicating the best form of attack. A more detailed insight into the effectiveness of bombs against warships in 1940 is provided by a letter from Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, now in the files of government scientist Sir Henry Tizard, which helps to throw light on the complexities surrounding the difficulty of penetrating armour plate. The ability to survive attack depended upon more factors than simply whether the aeroplane or the warship was able to mete out the most serious punishment. The passive defence capabilities of H.M. ships, for example, can be illustrated using the evidence of both official records and the testimony of naval figures held in the records of official naval historian Captain S. W. Roskill. The crucial importance of morale within the fleet will also be asserted. This cannot, of course, be proved by methods of quantitative analysis but, using oral testimony from a member of the Home Fleet serving below decks on H.M.S. Rodney and official papers from The National Archives, a reasonable conclusion can be reached on the balance of probability. As Hezlet has rightly made some comparison between the Battle of Crete in 1941 and the situation in home waters during 1940, it is appropriate to attempt this in some detail. Crete provided useful indications of the strength of naval morale at this early stage of the war, as warships and crews were subjected to unprecedented attack from the air. Here, a variety of sources, including the memoirs of Admiral A. B. Cunningham and the papers of Lieutenant-Commander J. A. J. (Alec) Dennis, will be put into context. Bearing in mind Hezlet's doubts about the likelihood of using naval bases for replenishment and emergency repair it is also essential to examine sources such as the director of naval air division's report on the vulnerability of shipping in harbour. Finally, no analysis of the situation would be complete without reference to the state of German morale. The evidence includes interviews given by Luftwaffe personnel, the post-war reports of Sealion planner Admiral Kurt Assman to British naval intelligence and the published conference notes and memoirs of the German naval commander-in-chief, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder. The anti-aircraft defence of the Home Fleet and the local flotillas operating in the Channel was clearly unsatisfactory, although it is usually held that senior naval opinion was initially content with it. That this over confidence pervaded all levels of the Navy may be doubted. Describing the anti-aircraft capability as ‘pathetic’, Lieutenant-Commander Dennis, then serving on H.M.S. Griffin as a junior officer, noted in his papers how, during one pre-war fleet exercise in 1939, a radio-controlled Queen Bee target aircraft flew straight and level through the fleet's barrage emerging unscathed on the other side.13 Specialist writer David Hamer has classified all anti-aircraft guns ranging from three to five and a quarter inches, firing timed explosive shells, as being of a medium calibre. These were supplemented by anti-ship guns, providing a barrage often timed to burst at 1,500 yards. If not particularly accurate, these barrages could be very effective in closely packed formations of enemy bombers trying to make bombing runs at both medium and longer ranges. Close range guns automatically rapid-fired projectiles at less than 1,500 yards. The main weakness seized upon by writers such as Correlli Barnett was in the fire-control system for the medium guns, although this was a common frailty in all navies other than that of the United States.14 In essence, the high angle control (H.A.C.) system was managed by means of a director, a dummy sight usually mounted on the bridge or as high as possible. The elevation and direction position was then transmitted to gunlayers who directed the guns on to the target in accordance with the received information.15 Admiral Bacon's wartime book spoke highly of the system of A.A. defence generally but conceded that the H.A.C. system did not allow for the guns automatically to follow the directors, and consequently required the manual following of pointers for aiming. This was difficult to accomplish in the heat of battle and specialist John Campbell's judgment is that it was only likely to work properly with experienced operatives fighting slow aircraft. It must also be noted that no system of fire control then available to any country could effectively deal with several aircraft attacking from more than one direction. In an effort to improve the air defence capability of the fleet, some older cruisers had their six-inch guns replaced by four-inch guns in order to act as specialist anti-aircraft ships. This stopgap solution made the A.A. cruisers unfit for any other role, necessitating the invention of a new class of cruiser carrying five-and-a-quarter-inch guns giving greater flexibility. This Dido class was just beginning to come into service in 1940. The most vulnerable ships were the destroyers, most of which relied on First World War vintage three- to 4.7-inch anti-shipping guns for air protection. Unfortunately their guns could not elevate above forty degrees, making them vulnerable to dive-bombing attacks at eighty to ninety degrees, although a few Hunt class destroyers had four-inch guns capable of high elevation. According to Hamer, most ships had close-range machine guns from 0.303 rifle calibre to forty millimetres and in 1939, a situation close to that of 1940, a typical major warship armament ‘would be two 8-barrelled 2-pounder pom-poms and four twin Lewis guns’, all of which depended on the skill of the individual sailor.16 Neither the very effective Oerlikon twenty-millimetre nor the Bofors forty-millimetre cannons were ready in sufficient number by 1940. These foreign weapons were initially only available from abroad because of the difficulty in negotiating production licences. In many situations it was going to be the effectiveness of the close-range guns that counted, but it is difficult to lay too much blame on either the admiralty or the politicians for this deficiency. A sub-committee of the committee of imperial defence had considered the problem of close-range anti-aircraft gun shortages at least as early as 1937 and included such well-known ‘appeasers’ as Neville Chamberlain and Sir Samuel Hoare. The problem was that the admiralty had been unlucky in backing the development of a gun from Vickers which, despite a higher rate of fire than the Bofors could then deliver, had proved unsatisfactory. Assuming that the committee minutes give a reasonably accurate reflection of what was said, even the much-maligned Neville Chamberlain argued that the financial effects of ordering the weaponry from abroad were not of ‘overriding importance’, and he recognized how vital it was to have a satisfactory gun. It was finally agreed that the war office could negotiate with Messrs. Bofors for 100 of these guns plus ammunition, with an option for extra ammunition later. Attempts to develop British anti-aircraft guns were to be continued, as there was no guarantee at this stage that Bofors production would satisfy demand.17 Hopes that substantial contracts could ultimately be given to British firms for their designs were never far from these deliberations. Given these problems, and the apparent over-reliance on an inadequate A.A. defence, it might be expected that the Luftwaffe would have achieved spectacular results against Royal Navy warships in this early phase of the conflict. In the event it did not do so. Naturally, the admiralty was very concerned about the effect of aircraft against shipping as the war progressed and prepared a report entitled ‘Tactical summary of bombing aircraft on HM ships and shipping from September 1939 to February 1941’. This put together the results of the experiences of the Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy in this early phase, and the data relating to the former have been omitted from this analysis. As the authors of the report admitted, the data only included attacks where enough detail for analysis was obtainable. Furthermore, for reasons that are not completely clear, it did not include ships damaged at anchorage. Either this was because the bombers may have been aiming for the harbour facilities or because it was thought unrepresentative to include docked vessels unable to manoeuvre evasively. Similarly, it was not thought relevant to include ships refitting, as presumably these were not considered operational. ‘Success’ was defined as damage causing a ship to sink or necessitating extensive dockyard repairs over weeks or months.18 Such a synthesis could not exactly mirror the situation faced by the Royal Navy during a naval Battle of Britain, but it does bring out a number of interesting points. First, it becomes clear that the Luftwaffe's most effective ship-destroyer at this time was the Ju.87 Stuka. A glance at the chart compiled from this admiralty data (see Figure 1) shows that dive-bombing was the most successful bombing method deployed in 1940 and that the main weapon for this was the Stuka. As will be seen later, the bombing potential of the Ju.87 B varied depending on whether it was the B-1 or B-2 version. What the report does not mention is that dive-bombing is subject to reasonably clear visibility and a high cloud ceiling, preferably between 10,000 and 15,000 feet. This was not a problem in the clear light and relatively predictable weather of the Mediterranean where Ju.87s often operated, but in the notoriously unreliable meteorological conditions in the North Sea and English Channel it is easy to see how an unexpected deterioration in the weather must have limited the dive-bomber's effectiveness as a weapon. It is also well known that the Ju.87 was slow and vulnerable to A.A. fire. This was not a problem when diving at eighty-ninety degrees against isolated smaller ships unable to elevate their guns above forty degrees, but against the larger ships it would have necessitated flying through intense barrages. Even in a dive, the Ju.87 was slow, seldom exceeding 200 miles per hour, as opposed to most American and Japanese equivalents which could reach speeds of up to 350 miles per hour. It was during the pull-out, when the dive-bomber was within a few hundred feet of A.A. units, that it was most vulnerable.19 Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Tactical summary of bombing attacks by German aircraft on H.M. ships and shipping from September 1939 to February 1941. Source: T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 199/1189, A/NAD326/41. In any case, the bulk of the Luftwaffe's bomber arm was not the Ju.87, but more typically twin-engine medium bombers such as the Heinkel He.111, the Dornier Do.217 and the ageing Dornier Do.17, which could dive-bomb (or at least glide-bomb) but was more suited to high-level bombing. The exception was the more modern twin-engine Ju.88, a competent level bomber and arguably a better dive-bomber than the Ju.87 but only available in limited numbers. As can be seen from Figure 1, the aircraft engaging in high-level bombing had very little success. High-level bombing took place at altitudes of between 6,000 and 19,000 feet, almost certainly because of the deterrent effect of the ship's long-range anti-aircraft barrage that usually broke up formations as soon as the shells exploded in front of them. One report indicated that this encouraged the bombers to accelerate from 200 knots up to 250 knots as soon as the first shells burst, and this was doubtless why the Germans abandoned the practice after May 1940.20 It also indicates that even if the medium- and close-range A.A. defence of H.M. ships had shortcomings, the long-range defence could still be effective. Low-level bombing attacks were defined as coming from an altitude of 1,000 feet and resulted in four successes out of thirty attacks on destroyer/escorts and eleven out of 112 on trawler/auxiliaries. High-level bombing was ineffectual against capital ships, but three out of 69 cruiser attacks again resulted in success. The report contained no detail on very low-level attacks, made at around 600 feet. These were sometimes so-called flat-trajectory bombing runs against the ship's side but might also be machine-gun runs that were ineffectual against warships.21 As the admiralty report indicates, dive-bombing was the most effective method for an aircraft to engage a warship. From around 1 August 1940, the Germans could deploy 1,015 bombers and 346 dive-bombers.22 In other words the Luftwaffe could deploy 1,361 bombers, of which only approximately a quarter were effective ship-destroyers, and then mainly against the destroyer/escort and trawler/auxiliary classes. If this is compared with Crete, the Germans later had 430 bombers of which 150 were Ju.87 Stukas. It must also be acknowledged that German bomber strength in 1940 could not have been exclusively focused on the fleet because of the need to reduce coastal fortifications. From this admittedly incomplete data, any implication that, with three to four times the aircraft available at Crete, the Luftwaffe could be up to four times as effective in the Channel must be a gross simplification. Despite what has been said about the effectiveness of dive-bombing it is well known that this method is less effective than torpedo bombing. Bombs need to penetrate armoured decks and superstructures to do appreciable damage, whereas torpedoes can wreak extensive destruction below the waterline. This was an area where the Luftwaffe was almost completely ineffectual against warships. What little expertise it had was concentrated in a unit comprising former naval pilots flying the Heinkel He.111, a large aircraft vulnerable to A.A. fire when making the necessary long, slow and straight approaches. This low speed and altitude was necessitated by the relative fragility of the aerial torpedoes then in use, and they seem to have been deployed exclusively against merchant shipping.23 Clearly much would have depended on the power of the bomb against the warship. Admiral Dönitz told British naval intelligence after the war that the Luftwaffe did not have large enough bombs to cause significant damage to any heavy ship that might intercept the landing force.24 But Dönitz was recalling this several years after the event and his own source is unknown. The Germans were so short of bombs at the outbreak of war that they resorted to the desperate expedient of manufacturing them from concrete, suggesting that, at this stage, production priority would have gone to general-purpose bombs rather than to the specialized types more suited for maritime operations. Even if a shortage of this nature still existed by 1940, it must be remembered that the brunt of any first assault would have fallen on the more vulnerable destroyers based around the south coast, and for these general-purpose bombs would have sufficed. A little-known aspect of Air Marshal Dowding's inter-war career was his work on experiments to penetrate armour plate by bombing. His correspondence with the air ministry in November 1939 shows that the type of bomb and fuse delay was as important as the weight factor. It also reveals considerable dissent among the British as to how long the fuse should be. Contradicting expert opinion, Dowding asserted that inter-war experiments showed conclusively that armoured ships were not significantly damaged by blast effects. Consequently, semi armour-piercing bombs needed to have a stronger case to permit penetration and needed to be detonated by fuse rather than by impact as detonation would only be effective inside the ship. Experiments showed that a bomb with a 0.1-second fuse dropped from 12,000 feet and ‘not stopped by armour’ burst in the bottom of the ship, but one of the same weight fitted with a 0.2- or 0.3-second fuse ‘would burst far below the bottom of the ship’ with much less effect. Finally, Dowding quoted a paper (0365/74/S) dated 29 November 1938 in which it was confirmed that the semi armour-piercing bomb was, ‘weight-for weight’, more effective in this context than the general-purpose bomb. Expressing anger that expensive experiments conducted between the wars were now being disregarded because of ‘American ideas’ on bomb blast effects, he concluded emphatically that ‘we now have no means by which we can sink a German Battleship’.25 At this stage of the war, both sides were unclear about exactly what was required to sink a capital ship from the air. Dowding's ridicule of ‘American ideas’ is probably rooted in the experiments of U.S. General William Mitchell to sink warships by bombing during the nineteen-twenties. Mitchell had worked with British bomber advocate Sir Hugh Trenchard (no friend of Dowding) towards the end of the First World War and by 1918 he was chief of the air service army group. His well-publicized experiments were exactly the sort of show business stunt that irritated the cold, dispassionate scientist in Dowding. In one test, a 2,000-pound bomb struck the obsolete battleship Alabama dead centre;26 other ships, including the ex-German battleship Ostfriesland, were sunk in a similar manner.27 The experiments were rightly criticized by the U.S. military for their artificiality, even though the ships had been sunk – the warships had not been conducting an anti-aircraft defence or taking avoiding action and possessed heavy armour for the purpose of deflecting shells from the side rather than bombs from above. Mitchell subsequently made himself a nuisance to those in authority and, as with many colourful characters, alienated those who might have responded to a more tactful approach. To the public, however, his showmanship made him a hero and ensured his place as one of the prophets of air power. Bombs used against the armoured ships of the Second World War needed to be at least semi armour-piercing, with a stronger steel casing to allow penetration, and fused for 0.1 seconds if 500 pounds. They also had to be dropped from an appropriate height (the admiralty report implied 12,000 feet) to achieve the desired velocity.28 As already indicated by admiralty data, although high-level bombing achieved this necessary velocity, it was generally ineffective because the bomb-aimer had to cope with factors including the smallness of the target, the fact that it was invariably moving and the drift created by wind. What the ordnance board might have said about Dowding's comments is not known, but some weight may be given to these assertions considering that the R.A.F. failed to show much expertise in sinking warships by conventional bombing until 1944, against Tirpitz, and this was only achieved using bombs of immense power.29 It might also be remarked that the British experience may not have mirrored exactly that of the Germans. Even so, it is a reasonable indication of the problems that had to be faced. British experts studied unexploded German bombs and the admiralty's ‘Tactical summary’ states that these were of various types and fuse settings. The summary tends to confirm much of what Dowding had said about the greater effectiveness of bombs with slightly delayed fuse settings – those that penetrate deeply into a warship, or that explode in the water as very near misses, will do much more damage than those that go through and burst well below the ship or that simply burst upon impact.30 That the Germans were using a variety of fuse settings suggests a degree of experimentation and uncertainty. The report indicated that German bombs varied in size from about fifty kilograms to 500 kilograms, although the latter represented only two per cent of the total. The majority of the bombs reported were up to about 100 kilograms (no more than 250 pounds) and fuse settings varied tremendously, although seventy-four per cent were fused for delay.31 Needless to say, ‘bombs reported’ is not necessarily an indication of actual bombs available, and the accuracy of observations made by men under pressure can be doubted, but the figures do provide some evidence to support Dönitz's assertion that the bombs were of far too small a calibre. That a few large bombs were noted in this admiralty analysis can perhaps be put down to the fact that the report covers the period up to February 1941, past the major crisis point. It appears that the larger bombs were only just coming into service, at least on any scale, and no mention is made of anything as large as 1,000 kilograms. John Campbell's otherwise detailed textbook on naval weapons advises that the Germans developed effective bombs against warships – semi armour-piercing bombs, designated Sprengbombe Dickwandig (S.D.), of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds), 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) and 1,400 kilograms (3,090 pounds) – but without stating at which stage of the Second World War they were introduced.32 There are also reports referring to a heavy armour-piercing Panzerdurchsclags Cylindrisch (P.C.) of 1,400 kilograms used against shipping and well-protected targets, some of which fell on the Bristol area. Again precise dates are not available but indications are that this latter type was not used in 1940.33 In his memoirs, Luftwaffe ace Adolf Galland stated that during the attacks on London from September 1940 continuing into 1941, aircraft bomb loads varied between 2,500 and 4,500 pounds and comprised individual bomb weights of between 150 and 1,250 pounds, with 2,500-pound, high explosive bombs a rare exception.34 No doubt the large naval mines that the Germans sometimes dropped by parachute on London were a reflection of the shortage of very large bombs. Of course, Galland was probably only talking about Sprengbombe Cylindrich (S.C.), thin-cased, general-purpose bombs as opposed to the thicker-cased, semi armour-piercing bombs needed against warships, although his reference to the rarely used 2,500-pound bomb might conceivably have included the 1,000-kilogram S.D. bomb. As a fighter pilot, he was not speaking from direct personal experience, but it does tend to confirm what has been said about the lack of large bombs. As for the 500-kilogram (1,100 pounds) S.C. bomb, this represented the typical load of the Ju.87 mounted underneath the fuselage on a deflection fork to keep it away from the propeller. According to aviation specialist Manfred Griehl, it was the Ju.87 B-2 onwards that carried the larger 1,000-kilogram S.D. bomb, and fitting a suitable deflection fork to protect the propeller seems to have taken some considerable time.35 The Ju.87 B-2 was equipped with a more powerful engine (Jumo 211D) to lift 1,000-kilogram bomb loads but availability of this aircraft was limited in 1940. Twenty-nine B-2s were ordered in June 1940 for production between July and September 1940. Shortly afterwards a further 100 were ordered to be produced between July and October 1940; and a final order for ninety-eight was placed presumably soon after that. Griehl also indicates that during 1940, the Ju.87 B-1 started to be brought up to B-2 standards on a piecemeal basis by installing the new engine when aircraft came in for battle repairs. Nevertheless, it seems likely that only around half of Ju.87 types had the capacity to deliver this potentially deadly bomb load by September 1940; indeed, only 230 B-2s were constructed up to the summer of 1941 and some of these went to Italy in the late summer of 1940.36 For the rest of the Ju.87 force, there would appear no reason why the 500-kilogram S.C. bomb could not have been substituted for an S.D. equivalent (if available) capable of damaging a cruiser. The main bomb for the Ju.87 could be as small as 250 kilograms (551 pounds) and could be augmented by four wing-mounted, fifty-kilogram (110-pound) S.C. bombs. The evidence tells us that obtaining an effective bomb for use against armoured warships depended on more than weight alone, and the complexities of the issues might well have been equally confusing for the Germans. Against a background of competing priorities there would have been no reason before the war for Germany to devote significant resources to sorting out the problem of obtaining enough bombs of the right specification. German diplomatic efforts, however incompetently executed, were intended to avoid war with Britain, the only major maritime nation that Hitler was likely to offend. Contingency plans for invasion were made in 1939 but there was no reason to think that they would ever be implemented until the wholly unexpected success in the west during the summer of 1940. No matter how effective these Luftwaffe bombs were, the question of their placement in or on a vulnerable part of the warship was an important consideration. According to Admiral Bacon and naval architect John Narbeth, the weak points on a heavy ship where bombs might have caused severe damage were the lightly armoured stern, where there was a possibility of damaging the screws or shafts; the funnel, thereby destroying the boiler uptakes; the control top nerve centre of the ship; the operating mechanism of the turrets, at their bases; and the relatively thinly armoured bow.37 Bearing in mind what has already been said about the limitations of A.A. fire, all ships had to rely to some extent on their passive defensive qualities. There were approximately forty destroyers in or near the Channel at any one time during the crisis period, and as these smaller ships were the most vulnerable to air attack it was necessary for them to evade the bombs coming their way. Destroyers could be quite skilled at this. The papers of Alec Dennis reveal an incident when he was serving on the destroyer H.M.S. Griffin. While on lone patrol in the Channel on 6 July 1940, the ship was attacked by thirty-six Dornier Do.17 medium-bombers arranged in four formations of nine each. Swinging around at thirty knots, the ship evaded the bombs from the first three groups but the fourth group landed bombs that exploded all around. Surprisingly, the ship was not seriously damaged, only sustaining a few minor leaks from near hits. The Griffin went into harbour for repair but almost immediately was out again chasing E-boats.38 This incident confirms the ineffectuality of high-level bombing against supposedly vulnerable destroyers and validates the taking of violent avoiding action. A close colleague of Admiral Forbes, Rear-Admiral L. H. K. (Turtle) Hamilton wrote to him from the cruiser H.M.S. Aurora in May 1940 on the way back from Norway. The Aurora had been subjected to a combination of continuous dive- and high-level bombing for thirty-six consecutive hours. He was still able to write that, in his experience, the chances of a cruiser being hit were slight, providing there was enough room to dodge.39 The importance of evasion was also recognized by the captains of even larger ships. In one of the earliest actions of the war, Heinkel He.111s attacked the Ark Royal on 26 September 1939 in the North Sea. Rear-Admiral T. V. Briggs, then a gunnery-officer, was ideally placed to view the action up in the air defence position of the top platform deck mounted on the bridge. According to his account, the cloud base was 6,000 feet and visibility was three to five miles. A Heinkel made a shallow dive from 5,000 feet along a 3,000-yard line on the port quarter. A ‘huge bomb’ was dropped at 1,500 feet, narrowly missing the ship as the captain pulled sharply to starboard. As the bomber passed over at 150 feet, the A.A. batteries opened fire but the sharp manoeuvre had thrown out the tracking. The aircraft, although not shot down, was almost certainly damaged. Briggs recorded that several lessons were learned on this occasion. To take just one example, the Ark Royal gunnery system of using peacetime ‘cease-fire’ gongs, in preference to the established method of transmitting orders through voice pipes and headphones, aided both clarity and response – the Home Fleet subsequently adopted the procedure. This incident does, however, reveal a problem associated with this type of rapid evasion, namely the throwing out of the anti-aircraft defence. In 1939, the Air Defence Instructions forbade avoiding action against dive-bombing attacks. As a result of these initial experiences, some commanding officers expressed the view that avoiding action for ships steaming at twenty knots when the dive-bomber started to attack was justifiable.40 Because of the effect on the A.A. defence, the matter was referred in October 1939 to the director of naval air division. Bearing in mind that the fleet air arm had its own Skua dive-bombers, later to sink the German cruiser Konigsberg, this was the obvious opinion to seek. G. M. B. Langley gave a reasonably detailed response in which he pointed out that the displacement of the ship was small during ‘time of fall’ but that high speed avoiding action might result in the pilot trying to change his aim in the dive, although this was difficult to do. Langley made the point that trials showed avoiding action at low speed to be ineffective. He was prepared to agree that it was probable that high speed avoiding action would increase bombing error but it all depended on the pilot's skill and experience and the speed and manoeuvrability of the ship. Interestingly, he thought that such action should not be resorted to if it would throw out the A.A. fire, indicating that there was still an unjustified confidence in the efficacy of the A.A. system. Less controversial was the endorsement of other types of manoeuvring, including changing direction in order to line up the guns and to use the wind to advantage. This was what ships should do when placed in these circumstances.41 The director of naval ordnance was clearly unhappy about avoiding action at high speed, stressing the negative effect on long- and close-range A.A. defence. There was a reluctant recognition of some of the deficiencies of the A.A. system in the statement that ‘ideal’ long- and close-range weapons systems would not become available until 1942/3 and until then the only improvements attainable were likely to come from practice.42 Nevertheless, it is clear enough that, regardless of what the admiralty thought, captains were going to depend heavily on the ability of their ships to ‘dodge’, whatever the consequences to the A.A. defence. In light of what has been said about the vulnerability of smaller ships to air attack and the deficiencies of A.A. fire, the possibility of a desperate incursion into the English Channel by the capital ships of the Home Fleet in the event of a German invasion covered by air superiority cannot be ruled out. Whether or not the Home Fleet would have needed to reinforce the local flotillas, strong naval morale was clearly crucial. The Prussian strategist Clausewitz divided morale into components of ‘mood’ and ‘spirit’. Mood is short-term, depending heavily on the physical comfort of the individual, and is prone to abrupt change. Spirit is long-term but essential in maintaining a unit's cohesion in the face of extremely dire situations; it is built best by constant and intense engagement with military activity. Both require attention to diverse factors such as ideological commitment, leadership, training, logistics and honour. Psychologists might also point to the arguably greater importance of attachment theory, in which a man will feel obliged to support his substitute family of comrades by remaining at his post despite the appalling risks of doing so. These factors are said to stave off the mental breakdown liable to occur when men are placed under extreme stress for long periods.43 It is perhaps when the fleet is at anchorage for long periods that morale is liable to be steadily eroded, with disastrous outcomes. The admiralty were aware of this danger, having been forced to deal with discontent among the fleet during the Invergordon mutiny of 1931 (the implications of this ‘pay-strike’ were dramatic insofar as it helped to force Britain off the gold standard). Neither does it seem likely that they had completely forgotten the much earlier naval mutinies of 1797, particularly serious events as Britain was at war with France and facing the prospect of invasion. Both situations indicated a failure of ‘spirit’. One potential problem identified by Admiral Forbes, commander-in-chief, Home Fleet, at the beginning of the war was the youth of junior ratings without experience of combat, sometimes to the extent of ‘not [having] even heard a gun fire before’.44 In the flagship alone, 374 ratings were less than nineteen years old. The director of naval intelligence (D.N.I.) noted that some 22,000 ordinary seamen and boys had entered the fleet during the rapid expansion of the previous three years. This amounted to fifty per cent of all active seamen and the D.N.I. considered that, in the circumstances, the high proportion of young men in all active service ships was not surprising.45 Whether Forbes was prompted by worries over potential fighting efficiency or motivated by paternalistic concern is impossible to say, but ‘youth’ would not necessarily have been an obstacle to efficiency. The early months of the war were quiet for the Home Fleet. Despite a failed hunter/killer experiment to sweep the U-boats out of the Channel with mixed groups of heavy ships, there was not a great deal of action for the men beyond routine patrolling and escort work. According to Ron Babb of H.M.S. Rodney, there was a certain amount of frustration that the enemy were not being engaged and the men were kept busy practising drills and getting used to the equipment. He did not see this as being a significant problem of morale or a symptom of ‘no confidence’ in the leadership.46 This is important because Admiral Sir Charles Forbes was replaced at the end of 1940, ostensibly for not having the confidence of the fleet. In fact, as James Levy has pointed out, Forbes was ‘a fine admiral’ held in generally high regard and, despite sympathetic treatment by official historian Captain Roskill, his contribution to the Navy's efforts in this early period has often been underrated.47 No wonder, then, that at the end of 1939 the director of personal services commented on the considerable resentment among the men and their families that much of their work was not being adequately publicized. He discounted the idea of mutiny but noted how disheartening it was for the men to see the R.A.F. and Army receive good publicity while the sailors were virtually ignored, despite their role as the main defender of the country. It was the lower ranks who were most affected and ratings were unable to understand, for example, why it was not feasible for the Navy to have the type of regular radio broadcast enjoyed by the personnel of the other services.48 Admiral Godfrey, director of naval intelligence, obtained an interview with Frederick Ogilvie, director-general of the B.B.C., in a bid to try to improve the situation. It is unclear if this resulted in any substantial progress, but a discussion ensued on reducing the depressing frequency of broadcasts relating to shipping losses and on trying to raise the Navy's profile generally. It was noted that the well-known broadcaster Bernard Stubbs had already increased his output on naval matters and the possibility of making broadcasts from naval canteens was raised. Furthermore, a proposed system of accrediting newsreels and photographers to naval commands was also being considered. This was all thought ‘satisfactory’ and the file closed.49 At least the admiralty was following Clausewitzian principles in maintaining naval ‘spirit’ by trying to bolster the sailors' feelings of self-worth. The first serious test of morale occurred with the Norwegian campaign in the spring of 1940. The commanding officer of the A.A. cruiser H.M.S. Curacoa reported on 5 May 1940 that his gun crews, consisting mainly of Royal Navy volunteer reserve ratings, were intimidated by the first bomb salvo of near misses but, after a little encouragement, their behaviour fully met all requirements.50 Ron Babb in the engine room of the battleship H.M.S. Rodney recalled hearing the wail of the Ju.87 Stuka through the air ventilation system. As an engine room artificer, busy with gauges, machinery, alterations in speed and a multitude of other jobs, this did not overly concern him. He conceded that some of those who worked deep in the ship were worried about the prospect of getting out should it sink, but he was not aware of anyone driven to mental breakdown over it. Surprisingly, given the design constraints imposed by inter-war naval agreements and the relative age of his ship, Mr. Babb expressed confidence in the battle worthiness of the Rodney. In fact, he rated its ability to withstand attack highly in terms of both gunnery and construction. Furthermore, he asserted that Home Fleet morale was good throughout the fleet and denied that it was ever adversely affected by bad news. He participated in rugby matches with other ships' crews and had conversations in the mess at Scapa Flow, strongly maintaining that the attitude was one of ‘give us six months and we'll knock 'em to kingdom come!’51 During this campaign, Admiral Hamilton wrote to Admiral Forbes from H.M.S. Aurora praising his men, who on 27 May had been on duty for fifty-one consecutive days without let-up. They became slightly restless over the bombing but only at the end of thirty-six hours of constant air attack. It was the men between decks who got the most jumpy, but even they eventually reached a point where exhaustion enabled them to sleep through a raid. One petty officer did report sick but a threat to demote or even to shoot him kept him at his post. A Chinese crew attempting to abandon a merchant ship were similarly dissuaded by threat of armed force. Hamilton was particularly complimentary of his destroyers, suggesting that even in the ships most vulnerable to air attack morale was high.52 One factor likely to unsettle the men at Norway was the greater need for alertness, given that the Luftwaffe were often able to utilize the hills and mountains surrounding the fjords to mount sudden attacks, thus reducing the available time to bring the guns to bear or to take avoiding action. As the commanding officer of the Curacoa observed, the situation in the fjords was most advantageous to enemy aircraft – this was also a clear reference to the limited room for ship manoeuvre in these waters.53 But it appears that those most susceptible to breakdowns were men not directly involved in the fighting who could not see what was happening. In these cases, imagination was clearly the most destructive force. For those on deck, who could clearly see the danger, the option of fleeing far was hardly feasible and it was rare, if not completely unknown, for individual ratings to leave their post for a ‘quiet’ corner or a locker to hide in while the ship was under attack. The ultimate test for naval morale came with the campaign at Crete the following year. As would have been the case in Sealion, the Navy needed to operate within easy range of large numbers of enemy bombers and prevent troops and equipment from being landed by sea. Crete is approximately 160 miles in length with mountainous terrain. As all the harbours, bays and airfields were in the north, more or less facing the Greek mainland, it was necessary for the Navy to enter the Axis-‘controlled’ Aegean. It also meant having to operate nearly 450 miles away from the main naval base at Alexandria. As R.A.F. fighters from north Africa lacked adequate range to operate over Crete for long periods and the fleet air arm could only bring to bear small numbers of low performance fighters from a single aircraft carrier, the brunt of air defence from frequent and sustained attacks fell on A.A. gunners and on the captains and their ability to dodge the bombs. Even in the summer of 1941 there were still not enough A.A. guns and those on the vulnerable destroyers were generally incapable of high angle elevation. Much depended on the individual skill of gunners operating with a primitive ‘spiderweb’ sight.54 Unfortunately, many sailors would go into action already tired from the recent evacuations of Greece and from escorting convoys to Malta. Shortly before the battle, the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet, Admiral A. B. Cunningham, warned First Sea Lord Dudley Pound about the strain being experienced among both officers and ratings in A.A. cruisers and destroyers, as every voyage now meant constant air attacks.55 The battle opened on 20 May 1941. As German paratroopers fell on Crete, the Mediterranean fleet moved to prevent Axis seaborne reinforcements from reaching the island. Unfortunately there was a shortage of A.A. ammunition from the outset, with most ships suffering approximately twenty-five per cent shortfalls.56 The destroyer Griffin was part of Force B, with her sister ship the Greyhound and the cruisers Gloucester and Fiji. Alec Dennis, still serving as an officer on the Griffin, has described how Force B came under heavy air attack during 21 May. The first assault observed by Dennis was made by twenty Ju.87s divided into three groups, one after the other against all four of their ships. It was a ‘classic attack’ that was as horrifying as it was ineffective. Dennis went on to explain how all the bombs missed as the ships weaved around at full speed, with the cruisers throwing up large amounts of flak. The A.A. fire was equally ineffectual: ‘We pooped off with our 3” museum piece and our.5” machine guns did their best with their antedeluvian [sic] control system. They deserved better luck as one could see holes appearing in the aircraft, but little bullets like that weren't much use unless they hit the pilot in a painful place.’57 Force B steamed west to join the battleships beyond Kithea but within two hours of the commencement of the first attack the same Ju.87s returned for a second strike, again without scoring any hits. The previous night, Admiral Glennie's Force D obliterated an invasion convoy of around twenty-five vessels, including fishing boats (caiques) and coasters carrying troops, and perhaps also some anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns.58 Furthermore, on 22 May, Admiral E. L. S. King's command forced a second invasion convoy of forty caiques back to Greece and would undoubtedly have destroyed it had he not come under heavy air attack. Frustrated at what he considered a bad error of judgment on the part of King, Cunningham maintained that the safest place for him would have been amidst the enemy fleet59 Even so, these contributions by the Navy might have won the Battle of Crete for the British had the land defence been conducted differently. Saul David mentions that part of the German plan was to transport light tanks and other vehicles once sea communications had been established;60 they could not do this until the issue had been decided with the capture of Maleme airfield. The story of the subsequent evacuation of British and Commonwealth troops by the Navy under fire is well known. Evacuation imposed extra strain on the naval forces and the ships coming under air attack were now heavily laden, something which hindered the passive A.A. defence. Dennis noted subsequently: ‘Johnny [Lee-Barber] avoided all nine [Stukas] with great skill, turning as far as possible into the dive at 30 knots. With all the extra weight on board, this meant a sickening roll over at each turn, and one wondered … whether we might turn over anyhow.’61 Cunningham would later write that the fleet suffered ‘disastrously’, but pointed out that Axis seaborne reinforcements were prevented from influencing the battle during the critical period. That the fleet did its duty in these circumstances was clearly linked with the fact that the sailors' morale was sufficiently high to endure this trauma and that the ships were robust enough to withstand hours of constant air attack. Although Crete fell to German forces, all of the Navy's objectives were achieved and the enemy's efforts to land troops and equipment by sea were frustrated until the battle had been decided on land. This was achieved without the mass psychological breakdown that might have been expected, but there were casualties, both physical and mental. Dennis condemned the initial splitting away of the Greyhound from his formation to sink a caique as ‘a serious mistake’. He claimed that her fate could have been foretold by any of the men at the scene and, on trying to rejoin the other ships, she was sunk by eight Ju.87s. The subsequent need to rescue survivors led to the splitting away of the Fiji, which in turn was sunk, and the same fate befell the Gloucester. As Dennis commented, these ships had been detached singly and consequently had received casualties and damage. The Gloucester and the Fiji were both low on ammunition, with the latter down to practice ordinance. Ruefully noting that the Griffin was the last survivor of Force B, he commented that all the witnesses realized that these ships should have stuck together for mutual defence.62 The strain of enduring such an intensive and sustained air attack was unprecedented in naval history and it is not surprising that some mental breakdown, comparable to the ‘shell shock’ suffered by the trench bound soldiers of 1914–18, occurred. Psychologists now recognize that the human endocrine system helps the body to react to emergency situations by flooding it with adrenaline in preparation for the ‘fight-or-flight’ response, but this may cause severe reactions and loss of perspective when the victim is stressed for long periods. These stress responses to life-threatening events are today categorized as post-traumatic stress disorder. Even if combatants are temporarily removed from the arena, they can remain stressed at the prospect of returning, even to the extent of behaving as if they are still under fire. Mental breakdowns were most seriously marked aboard the Ajax, where around thirty were reported among a crew of 800 men.63 None of this deterred Cunningham from forcing damaged ships and battle-weary personnel back into the fight. Enormous resentment was reportedly felt among the crew of the Ajax, whose vessel had been damaged by a 1,000-pound bomb. Cunningham's pep talk to the crew implied that they were all urgently needed and, despite the slight damage to their ship, they ought not to be skulking in harbour.64 This was perhaps hard to stomach from a man who was conducting the wider campaign from the safety of Alexandria, but if the way in which his colleague Admiral Hamilton dealt with men attempting to opt-out is indicative of the military culture in the nineteen-forties, then his response was not unusual – it was, after all, his job to try to ensure that ‘fight’ was going to win over ‘flight’. The situation clearly demanded ruthless determination if the Army were to be successfully evacuated. Cunningham was, nevertheless, sufficiently moved (or worried over future criticism) to signal his acute concern about the mental state of his sailors to the first sea lord on 30 May 1940, suggesting that he was not entirely oblivious to their suffering. His harsh words have to be read in the context of his later justification that other ships were being forced to endure similar experiences to the Ajax, which had, he believed, spent ten out of the previous sixty days in harbour. He compared this with the A.A. cruiser Dido, which had enjoyed only one day in harbour in the previous twenty-one – other warships were in a similar position. He was therefore surprised to find that the only real signs of ‘cracking up’ were aboard the Ajax.65 Post-combative stress is perhaps a medical problem only fully recognized and understood in our more tranquil and enlightened era. Cunningham's ruthless determination made it possible for 17,000 troops to be withdrawn in fewer than five days. The commander-in-chief was also right to warn of the dangers of drawing rash conclusions from the failure of ships to stand up to air attack.66 As he correctly realized, no system of A.A. defence was likely to be able to deal with heavy and repeated air attack coming in from all directions. Prior experience had shown that ships needed to keep together for mutual support in the face of such an onslaught, and Cunningham recognized that units ought not to have been detached singly to rescue the Greyhound's stricken crew – the whole force should have been sent in support.67 Consequently, the Mediterranean fleet had suffered more than it needed to. The Axis sank three cruisers and six destroyers (one by the Italian air force), and heavily damaged thirteen ships, including the sole aircraft carrier. Perhaps more importantly, 1,800 personnel were killed in action. As for the Luftwaffe, around 147 aircraft had been lost, mainly to the Mediterranean fleet, with another seventy-three downed for other reasons, representing over twenty-five per cent of German aircraft.68 The Navy had achieved its objectives and without the massive psychological casualties that might have been expected. There were, of course, some difficulties experienced at Crete that might not have been felt to the same extent in home waters. Some German bombs, for example, may well have been both more effective and more plentiful, even if the skills in landing them on top of British warships had not improved. By the time of the Battle of Crete in May 1941, the Germans may have worked out the optimum fuse settings, a factor seemingly as important as the size of bomb used. At Crete, the Navy had no nearby port facilities for emergency repair or replenishment of A.A. ammunition (it will be recalled that ships were often low on ammunition). Furthermore, during the evacuation phase, ships were heavily loaded with troops with an obvious affect on their ability to dodge the Axis bombs. Hezlet, however, suggests that in the event of German air superiority in the Channel and North Sea, it would not have been possible to use local bases. With the Ju.87 B-1 having a limited operational range of 490 miles, it seems likely that this particular warplane operating from the Calais area could cover naval bases between Portsmouth and the Wash. A few extended-range Ju.87R aircraft might have had the ability to reach some northern bases, although they would certainly have lacked fighter escort. Whether bases close to the landing area would have been quite as unusable as Hezlet suggests is difficult to evaluate;69 they would at least have had the benefit of a ground-based A.A. system with barrage balloons to protect the warships. One problem that might have hindered the defence of harbour installations in the summer of 1940 was identified by Rear Admiral Fraser and his report forwarded to the admiralty on 26 July 1940 through Admiral Drax, commander-in-chief, Nore. The report complained about the over-centralization of fighter and A.A. defences and highlighted an incident in which a German seaplane had landed on the water close to the radar direction finding (R.D.F.) station at Bawdsey. Incredibly, a Bofors A.A. unit stationed within range failed to open fire as it needed permission from fighter command at Uxbridge to do so. Unfortunately the unit could not obtain a clear telephone line to Uxbridge and did not obtain permission until the seaplane had left. Whether the A.A. unit had actually been obliged to seek permission is unclear but the report indicates some confusion and a problem with the organizational structure relating to early warning. Drax argued that R.D.F. stations needed to alert A.A. units directly, before the enemy aircraft came into sight, implying that the built-in delay resulting from the passing of enemy aircraft information gleaned through R.D.F. and the royal observer corps through the filter-room at fighter command headquarters was unacceptable. The concept of passing information through this central point was a sensible one as there was a need to differentiate between enemy and friendly aircraft movements before alerting fighter and A.A. units. Nevertheless, as Drax argued, it was probably better sometimes to risk shooting at friendly aircraft rather than to risk failing to shoot at an enemy who might sink a cruiser or destroyer with a mine.70 Yet, as Fraser indicated in a separate report, in the circumstances of ‘maximum air warfare’, a situation that had yet to develop, large numbers of enemy aircraft were more likely to be readily identifiable than single aircraft. Although he does not mention this in the context of an invasion, it seems clear enough that this eventuality would form part of any ‘maximum air warfare’ scenario, and would not have posed a major recognition problem.71 Neither Drax nor Fraser made reference to paragraph fourteen of the Recognition Instructions (second edition, July 1939) which stated that friendly aircraft should keep away from naval bases, arguably shifting the onus of responsibility away from coastal defence establishments.72 R. M. Ellis, director of naval air division, examined the question of the efficacy of bombing on ships in port for the chamber of shipping in December 1939. Relying heavily on the Spanish Civil War experience, he was dismissive about the skills of the Italian air force, stating that from 1,000 feet their bombs struck at an estimated 300 yards from the target. He went on to calculate, in a somewhat arbitrary manner, the rate for hits and effective near misses as an unremarkable 0.025 per cent per bomb. Ellis recognized the superior quality of the Luftwaffe in attacks on British ports but thought that the A.A. defence might offset factors such as bigger bombs and greater loads. He suggested a strike rate of ten per cent against a large merchant ship, five to ten per cent in the case of dive-bombing. However, preventing the bombers from undisturbed bombing by A.A. fire and posting balloons to deter dive-bombers would reduce the accuracy rate to the low levels achieved by the Italians. Admitting that larger ships in crowded docks provided bigger targets, he still thought the strike rate must be below one per cent per bomb, although there was no real data on this.73 Despite the somewhat vague and arbitrary nature of this admiralty report, there is sufficient doubt to query Hezlet's rather sweeping assertion about the ‘impossibility’ of not being able to use the bases between the Humber and Portsmouth. Furthermore, the need to provide direct air support for the Army against coastal defences would have prevented the Luftwaffe from throwing its full strength against both the fleet and its bases. One final example of disappointing air assaults on vessels at anchorage can be seen in the R.A.F.'s attacks upon the invasion armada during September. The precise damage inflicted by British bombers on weakly defended, static, un-armoured invasion barges has never been satisfactorily resolved. Churchill was unimpressed when he wrote to the secretary of state for air, remarking that the aerial photographs seemed to show how ineffective the bombing really was. He was particularly disappointed to see the untouched ranks of barges lined up along the quay, with only a handful destroyed at the entrance.74 It is not in dispute that the Germans lost a number of barges. The synthesis of captured documents by British naval intelligence indicated that 12.5 per cent of transports had been lost, 12.6 per cent of barges and 1.4 per cent of tugs. These losses were held by the naval staff to be replaceable, but not if the attrition were ongoing.75 However, German transports had also been shelled by the Royal Navy. The Daily Express of 12 September 1940 reported naval light forces attacking ports and shipping concentrations.76 Attacks had certainly been made by the Navy at Calais, Ostend, Bolougne and Cherbourg, yet the damage attributable to warships and aircraft respectively has not precisely been ascertained. It may have been that the German naval commander-in-chief, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, had his own reasons for stressing the attacks of ‘English bombers’.77 It is hard to detect any German confidence over the prospect of the Luftwaffe sinking the British fleet. A former Heinkel He.111 pilot, Lieutenant Gerhard Baeker, has made it clear, in a frequently repeated television documentary, that his instructions to attack the fleet from an altitude of 6,000 metres would have been suicidal against the ships' anti-aircraft guns. The same programme claimed that Kesselring, commanding air fleet II at Rotterdam, said that the air force alone could not sink the Royal Navy.78 No doubt this belief was behind Kesselring's well-known advocacy of an airborne assault involving paratroops and gliders on the British Isles around the time of Dunkirk. As for the supreme commander, Adolf Hitler knew very little about maritime matters – he was in the hands of Raeder and rarely went against the advice of his naval commander-in-chief. Even though he had rashly put the invasion idea to Hitler in the first place, Raeder was clearly worried about the prospect of confronting the Royal Navy and was looking for reasons not to proceed. A memorandum from the naval staff to Hitler dated 19 July 1940, the day before his implicit peace offer was announced before the Reichstag, set out several operational problems that needed to be overcome. It cautioned that the Royal Navy would consider the battle as ‘life-or death’ and throw all their units into the fight.79 This was further reiterated in Raeder's post-war memoirs. The Royal Navy could be expected to use their full power in an all-out fight for survival.80 Raeder's own conference notes for 31 July 1940, addressing Hitler and members of the German army, reveal his belief that in the circumstances of a proposed wide crossing stretching from the Straits of Dover to Lyme Bay (later abandoned), the attrition of British warships by air would not prevent numerous destroyers and motor boats from attacking the invasion armada.81 All of this shows that, even with Luftwaffe superiority, the German naval staff had a healthy respect for the power of the Royal Navy and expected their morale to hold up. The true opinions of the German planners only came to light after the war had ended. In response to a parliamentary question about German invasion plans in 1940, W. E. Parry, director of naval intelligence, had German Admiral Kurt Assman prepare an analysis synthesizing captured documents including The War Diaries of the Naval Staff, various Sealion files and ‘reliable’ sources that can safely be assumed to include the essays of other German admirals made at the behest of British naval intelligence. In this paper, Assman made it clear that naval planners had grave doubts that German air power could eliminate British sea power. With regard to the prospect of a successful landing assisted by luck, the paper went on to state that, as the Royal Navy was steadfast and supreme, it could not be taken for granted that the Luftwaffe would manage to prevent the interdiction of German supplies.82 Assman also made it clear that all those involved with the proposed landings were secretly relieved when the Luftwaffe failed to meet the preconditions for a landing.83 In the circumstances, it seems clear that the naval staff were unwilling to make any realistic assessment of the success that the Luftwaffe had already achieved, preferring to insist on an unattainable and unnecessary degree of air supremacy. If true, one cannot avoid the conclusion that it was the Navy rather than the R.A.F. about which these German planners were most concerned. The German naval staff could not have known that Admiral Forbes had told Churchill he was not prepared under any circumstances to bring his heavy ships south of the Wash. At this meeting Churchill surprised his colleagues by not erupting into rage, merely commenting that he was not inclined to take this statement seriously.84 Forbes was a man quite capable of resisting bullying, as he had proved earlier when the prime minister had tried to force him to move his fleet from Scapa Flow to Rosyth on a semi-permanent basis.85 According to Forbes, Churchill told him after the war that he had always been confident that the admiral would have brought the fleet down from its northern base in the event of an invasion but had never thought that there would be one.86 Forbes's apparent failure of ‘spirit’ has to be seen in the light of an awkward relationship with Churchill and the admiralty, who had previously interfered in his conduct of operations around Norway with deleterious consequences. The need for Forbes to assert his independence does not mean that he was frightened of the Luftwaffe, although having experienced the effects of air attack around Norway, he was not going to risk his heavy ships without good reason. Forbes had also alarmed the admiralty with his conviction that, as an invasion was unlikely, anti-invasion naval resources would be better used in the deteriorating Battle of the Atlantic.87 For these reasons his words at this wartime meeting with Churchill, expressed in a moment of irritation, should not be taken too literally. One must now consider again the assertion of Winterbotham that after Crete ships could no longer survive against large numbers of land-based aircraft, which is much the same as Hezlet's assertion about command of the sea being unattainable solely by ships.88 It may seem pedantic to cavil at the phrase ‘command of the sea’ but it is now generally acknowledged that water is not like ground that can be captured, fortified and held – in any true sense of the word, ‘command’ of the sea is something rarely, if ever, attainable. ‘Command’ implies absolute control and one has only to remember that the Germans transported their army to Norway in the face of overwhelming British naval superiority before the Luftwaffe had the chance to establish itself and influence events. In the numerous wars with France during the eighteenth century, French expeditions had frequently slipped through the blockade net, despite a clear British naval superiority. If one concedes that the Germans held the upper hand in the Aegean, then it was in terms of inflicting admittedly heavy losses but without the power to prevent either the interdiction of German seaborne reinforcements or the evacuation of the British and Commonwealth forces. None of this means that British planners were wrong to strengthen the power of the R.A.F. in the Mediterranean as a consequence of the ‘lessons of Crete’ or to consider very carefully the dangers of operating against large numbers of land-based aircraft. On the other hand, it did not mean that warships could never operate successfully without air superiority; this depended on circumstances and need. As already noted, there are strong indications that the Germans did better around Crete than they might have done in British waters. Most Ju.87s had, by the summer of 1941, been upgraded to carry heavier bomb loads. Griehl mentions an attack by Ju.87s on H.M.S. Illustrious, a 23,000-ton carrier, in January 1941. Using 1,000-kilogram P.C. armour-piercing bombs, and hand-picked crews from Stukageshwader I and II, they scored six direct hits plus three near misses without actually sinking it. Even with the advantage of the heavier armour-piercing bombs, the engagement proved more difficult than the German airmen had expected.89 The German dependence on dive-bombing in Crete brought with it a corresponding dependence on clear visibility and high cloud, not something that can be consistently and accurately forecast around the British Isles. In addition, despite operational experience around Norway suggesting that ships needed to keep together for mutual support, this was ignored during the Greyhound incident off Crete. A failure to press home the attack against the second convoy meant that a potentially damaging blow to the enemy was not made, one which might have spared Admiral King's ships the full effects of air attack. A further point for consideration is the fact that a shortage of A.A. ammunition contributed to the difficulties experienced by the Mediterranean fleet, and easy replenishment of stocks would not have been possible from Alexandria owing to the distance involved. Hezlet may have been correct in stating that repair and replenishment would not have been possible for the Home Fleet between the Humber and Portsmouth, but he failed to provide evidence for his position. On the contrary, with A.A. defences including barrage balloons around the naval bases, the danger of an effective attack from the air while these replenishment and emergency repair operations were going on seems relatively low. Finally, only one carrier was deployed at Crete. Had the R.A.F. (or more likely just 11 Group) been destroyed in 1940, it remained open to the admiralty to use all of its carriers in the defence of the nation, together with approximately 130 low-performance fighters.90 No doubt these would have fared badly against the Me.109 fighter but the Fairey Fulmar was faster than the Ju.87 and would surely have disrupted many attacks. Needless to say, it cannot be taken for granted that Admiral Forbes and the various flotilla commanders would have avoided tactical errors but we do know from his correspondence with Admiral Hamilton that Forbes, at least, was told about the importance of ships keeping together. Yet, even by the Battle of Crete in May 1941, Simpson has noted that the concept of concentration against air attack had not been incorporated into the fleet battle orders, although it may be doubted if Forbes and the flotilla commanders would have troubled themselves unduly over their precise contents.91 In reality, whatever the outcome of the local air battle over Kent and Sussex during 1940, it is hard to imagine that some limited degree of air cover from fighters outside the R.A.F.'s 11 Group and the fleet air arm could not have been provided for the British fleet during the crucial hours. It cannot be denied, however, that a last-ditch battle in the Channel would have been a desperate affair, with heavy losses falling on the smaller units. In such a situation, morale would have been the crucial factor, and all the indications are that naval personnel would have stood up to constant air attacks with at least the same degree of vigour displayed at Crete. This vigour may have been even greater bearing in mind, first, what was at stake and, second, that the men at Crete went into the fray already tired from exacting operations before this battle. What can be said with certainty is that, with or without air support, the ships and men of the Royal Navy in home waters were a significant force to be reckoned with, justifying Admiral Raeder's fears that the British would throw everything into a determined life-or-death struggle. The German views noted in this article also tend to undermine traditional understandings, as typified by Hezlet's assertion that the landing did not take place because of the R.A.F. Traditionalists are not completely wrong, but it is closer to the truth to say that the alleged degree of R.A.F. superiority was a convenient face-saving excuse for Hitler not proceeding. Had this excuse not been available, who can say what other reasons for inaction may have been presented? What concerned the German naval staff was less the alleged inability of the Luftwaffe to deal with the R.A.F. and more the enormous difficulty of balancing German naval inferiority by sinking the Royal Navy from the air. Footnotes * This article was awarded the Julian Corbett Prize for research in modern naval history, University of London, 2006. 1 B. James, ‘Pie in the sky’, History Today, lvi (Sept. 2006), 38–40. The historians have since distanced themselves from some of these reported conclusions but still maintain the need for a holistic approach (C. Goulter, A. Gordon and G. Sheffield, ‘The Royal Navy did not win the “Battle of Britain”: but we need a holistic view of Britain's defences in 1940’, 30 Nov. 2006 <http://www.rusi.org/research/militarysciences/history/commentary/ref:C4538D604EF124> [accessed 7 June 2007]). 2 M. Hastings, ‘So who did win the Battle of Britain?’, Daily Mail, 26 Aug. 2006, pp. 46–7. 3 Air Ministry, The Battle of Britain: August–October 1940 (1941), p. 33. 4 ‘Our no. 1 sailor’, Daily Post, 21 Apr. 1940, p. 18. 5 F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret: the Inside Story of Operation Ultra, Bletchley Park and Enigma (1999), p. 58. 6 J. Meek, ‘All at sea’, The Guardian, 21 Jan. 2004 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1127409,00.html> [accessed 11 June 2007]. 7 Winterbotham, p. 68. 8 A. Hezlet, Aircraft and Seapower (1970), pp. 154–6. 9 H. R. Allen, Who Won the Battle of Britain? (St. Albans, 1976), p. 202. 10 F. K. Mason, ‘Well who did? – And who didn't?’, R.U.S.I. Jour. United Service Institute for Defence Stud., cxix (Dec. 1974), 84–5; R. Wright, Dowding and the Battle of Britain (1969), p. 172. 11 E. Kieser, Hitler on the Doorstep. Operation Sea Lion: the German Plan to Invade Britain 1940 (1997), p. 273. 12 M. Middlebrook and P. Mahoney, Battleship: the Loss of the ‘Prince of Wales’ and the ‘Repulse’(1979), pp. 17–20. 13 London, Imperial War Museum (hereafter I.W.M.), 95/5/1, papers of Lt.-Com. J. A. J. Dennis, R.N. (hereafter Dennis papers), p. 14. 14 C. Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: the Royal Navy in the Second World War (1991), p. 47. 15 Adm. Sir Studholme Brownrigg, ‘Gunnery in the Royal Navy’, in Britain's Glorious Navy, ed. Adm. Sir R. H. S. Bacon (c.1942), pp. 204-23, at pp. 205, 222–3. 16 D. Hamer, Bombers Versus Battleships (1998), pp. 41–5; and J. Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War II (1985), pp. 8–18. 17 The National Archives of the U.K.: Public Record Office, CAB 16/137, ‘Proposed purchase of anti aircraft guns from Messrs Bofors (Paper No. D.P.R. 187) 29 April 1937’. 18 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 199/1189, A/NAD326/41, ‘Tactical summary of bombing attacks by German aircraft on HM ships and shipping from September 1939 to February 1941’ (hereafter ‘Tactical summary of bombing attacks by German aircraft’). 19 G. Paust and M. Lancelot, Fighting Wings (1944), pp. 136, 145. 20 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 199/66, ‘Page 2 of enclosure No. II to commanding officer, H.M.S. “Curacoa's” letter No. 0307/191 of 5th May 1940’ (hereafter ‘Curacoa letter’), para. 13. 21 ‘Tactical summary of bombing attacks by German aircraft’, tables I, II. 22 London, Ministry of Defence, Naval Historical Branch, NID.24/G.H.S./1, Feb. 1947, ‘German plans for the invasion of England in 1940 – Operation Sealion’ (hereafter ‘German plans for the invasion of England’), statistics at p. 53. 23 P. Schenk, Invasion of England, 1940 (1990), p. 246. 24 T.N.A.: P.R.O., CAB 120/438, L. G. Hollis to prime minister, 19 Oct. 1946, enclosing ‘German preparations for invasion in 1940’, p. 2. 25 I.W.M., HTT 226, papers of Sir Henry Tizard, letter from Dowding to Air Ministry, 25 Nov. 1939. 26 Paust and Lancelot, p. 65. 27 S. W. Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars, i: the Period of Anglo-American Antagonism, 1919–29 (1968), pp. 247–8. 28 ‘Tactical summary of bombing attacks by German aircraft’. 29 J. Terraine, The Right of the Line: the Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939–45 (1998), p. 674. Terraine mentions that on 15 Sept. 1944, Tirpitz was attacked and damaged by 27 Lancasters using ‘Tallboy’ (12–14,000 lb.) and ‘Johnny Walker’ anti-shipping bombs. Only on 12 Nov. 1944 did bombers carrying ‘Tallboys’ finish her off. 30 ‘Tactical summary of bombing attacks by German aircraft’, pp. 4–5. 31 ‘Tactical summary of bombing attacks by German aircraft’, p. 10. 32 Campbell, p. 276. See also Lt.-Col. E. Wakeling, ‘A short history of Royal Engineer bomb disposal’ (27 June 2004) <http://www.bombdisposalclub.org.uk/BD_history.htm> [accessed 11 June 2007]. Details of P.C. bomb from ‘The Luftwaffe over the Bristol area –Luftwaffe weapons’ (27 June 2004) <http://fishponds.org.uk/luftbri5.html> [accessed 11 June 2007]. 33 Telephone interview with Lt.-Col. E. Wakeling, 2 July 2004. 34 A. Galland, The First and the Last (Bristol, 2001), p. 61. 35 M. Griehl, Junkers Ju.87 Stuka (Shrewsbury, 2001), pp. 71–2. 36 Griehl, pp. 69, 137. Griehl mentions an unspecified number of Italian Ju.87 B-2s bombing on and around Malta around the end of Aug. to early Sept. 1940. 37 J. H. Narbeth and Adm. R. H. S. Bacon, ‘Battleship construction’, in Bacon, pp. 90–115, at pp. 110–11. 38 I.W.M., Dennis papers, p. 68. 39 Cambridge, Churchill Archives Centre (hereafter Churchill Archives), ROSK 4/49, letter from ‘Turtle’ Hamilton to Forbes from H.M.S. Aurora, 27 May 1940. 40 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/9920, 1536368, Register No. TSD 295/39/G, ‘Air attacks on Home Fleet, 26 September 1939’ (hereafter ‘Air attacks on Home Fleet, 1939’), para. 9. 41 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/9920, 1536368, minute dated 18 Oct. 1939 from G. M. B. Langley for director of naval air division. 42 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/9920, 1536368, minute dated 11 Dec. 1939 from director of naval ordnance. 43 G. Sheffield, ‘Morale’, in The Oxford Companion to Military History, ed. R. Holmes (Oxford, 2001), pp. 599–600. 44 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/9920, 1536368, minute dated 13 Oct. 1939 from G. N. Oliver, director of training and staff duties division. 45 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/9920, 1536368, minute dated 9 Nov. 1939, from director of naval intelligence. 46 Interview by A. J. Cumming with Ron Babb on 7 Apr. 2004 (hereafter Babb interview). 47 J. Levy, ‘Lost leader: Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Forbes and the Second World War’ , Mariner's Mirror , lxxxviii ( 2002 ), 186 – 93 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close ; S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939–54 (3 vols., 1954–64), i. 268. 48 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/10225, morale in the Home Fleet, minute from director of personnel services, 13 Dec. 1939. 49 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/10225, minute dated 20 Dec. 1939 from Admiral Godfrey, director of naval intelligence. 50 ‘Curacoa letter’, para. 12. 51 Babb interview. 52 Churchill Archives, ROSK 4/75, letter from ‘Turtle’ Hamilton to Admiral Forbes, 27 May 1940. 53 ‘Curacoa letter’, para. 13. 54 R. Spector, At War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Warfare in the 20th Century (2001), p. 169. 55 A. B. Cunningham, A Sailor's Odyssey (1951), p. 358. 56 Cunningham, Sailor's Odyssey, p. 363. 57 I.W.M., Dennis papers, p. 121. 58 There is some doubt over the precise strength of this flotilla, but it was clearly substantial. 59 A. B. Cunningham, ‘Report on the Battle of Crete’, in The Cunningham Papers, i: the Mediterranean Fleet, 1939–42, ed. M. Simpson (Navy Records Soc., 1999), p. 422; see also Cunningham, Sailor's Odyssey, pp. 369–70. 60 S. David, Military Blunders: the How and Why of Military Failure (1997), p. 336. 61 I.W.M., Dennis papers, p. 56. 62 I.W.M., Dennis papers, pp. 123–4. 63 Cunningham, ‘Report on the Battle of Crete’, p. 181. 64 I.W.M., department of sound recordings, 9316/4/4, interview with G. W. Deacon (quoted by Spector, p. 183). 65 Signal from Cunningham to first sea lord, 30 May 1941 (Simpson, p. 417). 66 Cunningham, Sailor's Odyssey, p. 391. 67 Cunningham, ‘Report on the Battle of Crete’, p. 423. 68 David, p. 347. David's estimate of naval losses is confirmed by W. S. Churchill, The Second World War, iii: the Grand Alliance (2005), p. 269. Luftwaffe losses from Hezlet, p. 172. 69 Range for the Ju.87 B-1 from E. Angelucci and P. Matricardi, World Aircraft: World War II, pt. i (1978), p. 106. But L. Deighton, Fighter: the True Story of the Battle of Britain (1977), p. 138 quotes the Ju.87 B radius as only 150 miles. This discrepancy might be explained by the Ju.87 B-2 version's heavier power plant reducing the range. 70 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 199/64, from Adm. Drax to the admiralty, 3 Aug. 1940, ‘Suggestions by Rear Admiral Fraser’ (flag officer in charge, Harwich No. Q.102.A/40 of 26 July 1940). 71 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 199/64, from Rear Adm. Fraser to flag officer, Harwich, dated 26 July 1940, ‘Interception of enemy aircraft attacking the coast and shipping off the coast’. 72 ‘Air attacks on Home Fleet, 1939’, para. 8. 73 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 199/65, 1486/39, ‘Air attacks against ships, 1939’, minute from R. M. Ellis for D.N.A.D. to director of trades division, 14 Dec. 1939. 74 Prime minister to secretary of state for air, 23 Sept. 1940 (Allen, p. 139). 75 ‘German plans for the invasion of England’, pp. 67–8. 76 ‘Channel bases shelled’, Daily Express, 12 Sept. 1940, p. 1. 77 ‘Report of the Naval Staff, 10 September 1940’, in J. P. Mallman Showell, Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939–45 (1990), p. 136. 78 British Broadcasting Corporation, Hitler and the Invasion of Britain (Timewatch, first broadcast 7 Apr. 1998). 79 Memorandum from the naval staff to the Führer, dated 19 July 1940 (Mallman Showell, pp. 117–18). 80 E. Raeder, My Life (United States Naval Institute, 1960), pp. 324–5. 81 ‘Conference with the Führer on 31 July 1940’ at the Berghof (Mallman Showell, pp. 122–5). 82 ‘German plans for the invasion of England’, p. 82. 83 ‘German plans for the invasion of England’, p. 82. 84 H. Ismay, The Memoirs of General the Lord Ismay (1960), pp. 188–9. 85 W. S. Churchill, The Second World War, i: the Gathering Storm (1948; 2005 edn.), p. 443. 86 Churchill Archives, ROSK 4/49, letter from Forbes to Godfrey Style, 6 Feb. 1947. 87 T.N.A.: P.R.O., ADM 1/10556, from C-in-C Home Fleet to the secretary of the admiralty, 4 June 1940. 88 Hezlet, p. 172. 89 Griehl, p. 201. 90 Hezlet, pp. 172–3, data relating to R.N. resources at the time of Crete; W. S. Churchill, The Second World War, ii: their Finest Hour (1949), p. 144. Churchill indicated that 55 pilots were transferred from the Navy to the R.A.F. and took part in the Battle of Britain; therefore it cannot be assumed that all of these 130 aircraft would have been manned. 91 Simpson, p. 247. © Institute of Historical Research 2007 This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) © Institute of Historical Research 2007
TI - The warship as the ultimate guarantor of Britain's freedom in 1940
JF - Historical Research
DO - 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2007.00451.x
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