Parry, Simon W. Battle of Britain Combat Archive. Volume 18: 4 October -11 October 1940

Part 18 of a detailed chronology of the Battle of Britain in the summer/autumn of 1940. Day by day, practically hour by hour, the work describes the individual attack and defence operations of the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force between 4 October and 11 October 1940. Each mission is accompanied by combat reports from the pilots involved, detailed lists of aircraft losses on both sides and official reports on the course of the respective mission. By the beginning of October, it was clear that the classic phase of the Battle of Britain was over. The long, hot summer gave way to a gloomy autumn, the deteriorating weather made a large-scale invasion impossible, and the concentrated bombing raids on cities had developed into nightly blitzes. Although the mass battles of August and September were a thing of the past, the pilots of Fighter Command still had plenty of problems to contend with. Bad weather and poor visibility were obvious problems and claimed their first victims in terms of aircraft and human lives. A bigger problem was the tactics of the Luftwaffe. Bf 109s were detected by the RDF over the English Channel and approached the English coast almost all day long. Many pilots turned back or flew right over the Channel, leaving Fighter Command to guess which ones posed a threat. Typically, four or five attacks crossed the coast during the course of a day at an altitude of about 30,000 feet (approx. 5 ½ miles), mostly between Dungeness and Dover, heading towards Maidstone and then to the Thames before dispersing. Among the 109s were also some bomb-laden fighter-bombers attempting to drop their bombs over south-east London. The flight from the coast to the outskirts of London took an average of 12 to 15 minutes, but one Spitfire took 27 minutes to reach an altitude of 30,000 feet! Using the usual mix of eyewitness accounts and research using contemporary documents from both sides, the author and his team of experts go beyond what most books on the Battle of Britain offer. The air battles that took place after 27 September are hardly mentioned in the history of the Battle of Britain, but in this final phase, the RAF was probably closest to losing control of English airspace.