The Most Dangerous Enemy

A History of the Battle of Britain
By Stephen Bungay. Aurum Press, £20 hardback

Time flies, and the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain is upon us. Ten years have passed since the last full-length history on this defining moment in Britain's 20th century history, so Stephen Bungay's book is welcome.

The Battle of Britain has a special place in national mythology and continues to fascinate public imagination. "The Few" were, and are, British heroes, their reputation unsullied by the passage of time. The author, however, seeks to take a different approach to the well worn history of the battle. As he says in his prologue, "By the end of the century, 1940 had changed, and it is changing still." Bungay is of the generation of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson (a contemporary at Oxford). He sets out to reassess the Battle of Britain without the mythology and to reflect on the values it embodies.

Is he successful in this? Well, I think he probably is. For whilst our national mythology trumpets the victory of British amateurism over the cold, calculating, military professionalism of the German war machine, the author shows it was actually the other way round. Goering's aerial onslaught on Britain was defeated by a highly professional international force of pilots including contingents from Australia, Canada, South Africa, Poland and Czechoslovakia, plus assorted individuals from a variety of other countries. The largest national contingent from the Commonwealth was from New Zealand, 129 pilots in all, including the legendary ace Al Deere.

Technologically the advantage was with the RAF too. The virtues of the Spitfire have been well publicised, but the Hurricane also held its own against the Bf 109s of the Luftwaffe. One German fighter pilot wrote to his parents of the skills of his Staffel commander and referred contemptuously to the RAF's Hurricanes as "tired old puffers". The next day he and his boss were killed by two Polish pilots of 501 Squadron which flew Hurricanes. Statistically, it was the Bf 109 which was most vulnerable to the RAF's guns of all the German aircraft employed in the battle. Of those the RAF got in its sights, it destroyed 77%, a markedly greater destruction ratio than the 63% the Bf 109s achieved in return. Much of the credit for this must go to Ralph Sorley, the RAF officer who almost single-handedly ensured that Spitfires and Hurricanes were armed with eight machine guns rather than the four originally planned.

Above all else, however, the Luftwaffe was out-generalled. If it was Dowding who created the weapon that was RAF Fighter Command, and Churchill who used it, then Bungay is clear that it was Air Vice-Marshall Keith Park, commanding 11 Group of the RAF in the south east, who wielded it most effectively. Throughout the long months of the battle Park hardly put a foot wrong, anticipating the next moves of the Luftwaffe and always keeping one step ahead. The author describes Park's performance as extraordinary and, taken together with his similarly outstanding performances in Malta in Burma, is happy to declare him "the greatest fighter commander in the short history of air warfare".

The Battle of Britain was Germany's first defeat in the Second World War. Her next defeat was a long time afterwards, and during the dark days of 1940-41 the memory of the RAF's victory undoubtedly kept hope alive across much of Europe. Stephen Bungay's book adds yet another interpretation to this most famous of British battles and should not be missed. The crisis facing Britain in 1940, and the way it was overcome, should also help put our present "crisis" firmly back in perspective.

S W Crawford 14th September 2000

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