The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

For years the story of the Battle of Britain was a tale of British heroism and German hubris. The account used to go that Germany came close to winning when they attacked the British airfields. However a decision by Hitler to attack London allowed fighter command to rally and win.This book puts that myth to bed an explains why the Germans never had a chance of winning. The British had developed a radar system along their coast. This allowed them to initially locate German attacks which could then be monitored by ground observation stations. The British were thus in a position to alert their airfields to attacks and they could also control the rate at which fighters were sent into battle. In the battle of France and the attack on Poland the Germans had been able to destroy most of the enemy aircraft on the ground. This had been because they had been able to achieve surprise and the way that French and Polish aircraft were parked on the ground allowed for them to be destroyed easily. The British by comparison had any aircraft on the ground separated from other aircraft. Each aircraft was also kept in a u-shaped bomb shelter which meant that only a direct hit would destroy it.Germany started the battle with a bigger air force but not that much bigger. More importantly the British were out producing the Germans in the manufacture of all aircraft types. The battle was one of attrition not only of aircraft but also of pilots. The British had the advantage that as the conflict took place in their airspace they were able to recover a large percentage of their pilots and put them back into combat. The downed German flyers either died or became prisoners.The author of the book does some number crunching and calculated that for the Germans to have won the battle of Britain they would have had to shoot down five British aircraft for every one they lost. That is to destroy the British Air Force by September of 1940. The actual loss rate was a narrow advantage favoring the British. As they manufactured more aircraft this meant that they were stronger than the Germans when the battle ended.The big advantage the Germans had at the start of the battle was that they had superior fighter tactics. In the First World War fighter planes flew in a reasonably tight formation which was meant to provide protection for the others in the group. In the late 30s air combat changed so that the key to success was not the maneuverability of aircraft that had been so important in WW1. Rather what was important was speed and first opportunity. Most fighter pilots in WW2 never shot down another aircraft. Most junior pilots who were shot down would never even see their attacker. What was critical was the first sight on the enemy. On seeing the enemy a fighter would attack at speed having a short time to shoot and then to dive away. The Germans developed very loose formations called swarms. One aircraft would be designated as the hunter and the other aircrafts role was to search for enemies and to provide protection to the hunter. The German system resulted in huge number of kills for the designated hunter but not for the others. This book is interesting as it suggests that a tiny minority of fighter pilots around 5% were responsible for most of the kills in all airforces.The British had three main types of fighters in the battle. The Spitfire was their best fighter although the Hurricane was reasonable. The one turkey was the defiant, an aircraft which easy meat for the Germans and had to be withdrawn from combat. The main German fighter the ME 109 was comparable to the Spitfire and somewhat better than the Hurricane. However it only had a short range. The Germans also had a longer range fighter the ME 110 which like the Defiant ended up being easy meat for the opposition and ended the war in a night fighting role.The Germans tried two strategies. The first was to send fighters over in sweeps. The second was to send over heavily escorted bombers. The British avoided combat with the fighters doing sweeps. It committed its aircraft to attacking bombers which were protected by fighter escorts. What happened in this case is that the Germans would lose a lot of the advantages that they normally had as they had to travel slowly to cover the bombers. Most fights then turned into slogs in which the British would lose slightly more fighters than they destroyed but would make up for it in shooting down German bombers.Both sides at the time had little real idea of what was happening. The reported kills of each side were exaggerated by a rate of 5-7 times over what was happening. The British who overestimated the size of the German forces thought that they were winning a heroic victory rather than coming out marginally in front. The Germans thought that they had succeeded in destroying the British and were surprised when each attack met large numbers of aircraft which should not have been there.The best account of the battle so far in which a statistical break down has given a more real idea of what was happening as opposed to the old chronological accounts.

The Battle of Britain has been covered many times before, but Stephen Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy aims toward being far more comprehensive and insightful than most. The author began with the `gut' feeling that the traditional image of a `handful' of Spitfire pilots saving Britain from inevitable German invasion in September 1940 was more myth than reality and he sought to find a more realistic interpretation. The result, after many years of research, is certainly one of the most interesting books on the Battle of Britain and perhaps the most controversial. Bungay's research led him to develop a hypothesis that seems at odds with traditional history but which is very well argued in these pages. In short, Bungay's hypothesis is that the Luftwaffe never had a realistic chance to defeat the RAF in July-September 1940 and thus, the Battle of Britain was far from a `near-run thing.' The author's hypothesis is convincing as far as it goes, but it does in fact fall into the traditional rut of British thinking, the Battle of Britain was just about the RAF versus the Luftwaffe and it only concerned a three month period after the fall of France. Indeed, the author's `out-of-the-box' thinking is in fact still anchored in a parochial mindset.The Most Dangerous Enemy is divided into 31 chapters in three sections: Build-up, Battle and Aftermath. After laying out why Churchill decided to continue the war after the fall of France, the author launches into a superb discussion of British defensive capabilities and German offensive capabilities. Although written in relative layman's terms, these sections cut to the heart of aviation technology and force ratio issues that many other books just twaddle around with indecisively. Indeed, there is real genius in how the author sets up each side's preparations for the Battle of Britain. He clearly concludes that the RAF prepared for the battle professionally by adopting radar and the group system, while claiming that the Luftwaffe was more amateurish in focusing on tactics. The author also makes the point that the Luftwaffe leadership really didn't know what to go after and that their counter-air campaign was already failing badly before the "switch to London." None of this is all that surprising, since no air force was prepared to undertake independent campaigns of this nature in 1940.There are several interesting points made here about German tactics, such as the success of low-level attacks (but which were not repeated) and unexpected success in severing British communications lines. However, the British air bases were able to bounce back very quickly and none were put out of action for long. Reading this book, readers may gain the impression that the RAF was never really under extreme stress, which seems at odds with the desperate effort to get Poles, Czechs, French, Yanks and anyone else who could fly into a fighter cockpit over England. The author goes to great pains to highlight the Luftwaffe's inability to replace its losses but claims that the RAF was getting stronger by the month, which is far from the whole truth. The author also provides three appendices (Luftwaffe order of Battle 13 August 1940; Fighter Command OB 1 July and 1 September 1940) and several maps that depict the main Luftwaffe and RAF air bases.Although I have to agree with many of the author's conclusions that the Luftwaffe lacked the ability to defeat England on its own, I felt that his overall conclusions were overly narrow and parochial. The author says that "victory in the air... did not bring Britain any closer to victory in the war, but merely avoided her defeat." Yet there is little mention here that the German air campaign against Britain did not end in September 1940 and continued on a reduced scale for another year, inflicting tens of thousands of casualties. I've yet to see the Battle of Britain history that admits that the Luftwaffe was still able to fly 500 bombers over London in May 1941, which certainly does not validate the idea of any aerial victory. Furthermore, the over-focus on the air campaign, as in most Battle of Britain histories, ignores the fact the Great Britain was getting pummeled by German U-Boats, S-Boats in the channel and an aggressive aerial mining campaign that sank over 200 ships in 1940-41. In return, the RAF could only mount occasional puny bomber raids on Germany that inflicted little damage in 1940-41. If the RAF "won" the Battle of Britain it should have been able to shift forces to keep air superiority over the Mediterranean and Singapore but instead, the bulk of its forces were fixed in place defending the home islands. Indeed, Britain was unable to gain the strategic initiative until late 1942, once American and Soviet assistance changed the equation. Readers would be advised to discount the final chapter, in which the author tries to elevate Keith Park to sainthood and suggests that Germany was ultimately better off losing the Battle of Britain. He writes that, "few battles have ultimately proved to have such positive consequences for the defeated," and suggests that Germans are fortunate that the British defeated them, saving themselves from a loathsome totalitarian future. This part of the book seems like it was written in a pub over a couple of pints and is badly argued, unlike the rest of the book. While it might not seem so to a 21st Century Briton, the average German today would almost certainly be much better off in material terms if the Third Reich had won the war and avoided losing 2 million people and a 46-year division of the country. Bad for the rest of us, but almost certainly better for Germans - which is why they fought the war in the first place. This is like an American historian arguing that modern Britons should thank us for defeating Cornwallis at Yorktown, thereby saving them from an unchecked imperialistic future.

I thought I’d read most of what had been said about the BoB and approached Stephen Bungay’s book (via a Kindle sample) prepared for repetition and rehashing. How wrong I was. Bungay’s diligent and long book is a model of what historical research should be. Structured in 3 parts: Build Up (10 chapters), The Battle (16) and Aftermath (4), the narrative is near perfect, showing the thinking, misunderstandings, insights and the illusions on both sides, making heroes as much of the planners (Dowding), the greatest tactical air defence commander ever on our side (Park, a New Zealander) as well as lesser-known men – like Ralph Sorley who researched, devised and bullied into production the unheard of power of eight-gun fighter armament—plus seven other men in Bungay’s Top 10 who made Britain’s fighter defence what it was: near perfect. These men were as vital as the pilots themselves.And he does not stint on the Germans either. Kesselring, Osterkamp and others become as real as the British side and full of energy, cleverness and, as becomes obvious, illusions and the certainties that can only come from over-optimistic intelligence reports that describe the dying-on-its-feet RAF.Each chapter ends with a lot of reference sources and notes, and I realised quickly that Bungay had that rare gift of being able to distil extremes of research into not-too-long, well-written, well-argued chapters, leaving the mass of detail for me (or you) to browse as needed. The detail was so good that sometimes it felt as if I was there.Bungay’s motivation for his study arose from his doubts over a government booklet, published in 1941 that he found on his father’s bookshelf, and which greatly bigged-up the BoB and lionised its pilots—and made the Spitfire The Only Fighter (tough luck Hurricane – you just weren’t beautiful enough even though you scythed down just as many Germans pro rata as the elegant Spit). This work of propaganda and mythology sold **two million copies** during a bad time in Britain’s war.This booklet created the Great BoB Myth, The Few, the dark enemy at the gates, imminent invasion, plucky little Britain (little!—we had an Empire at our back), shoot-down rates against the Luftwaffe that were sheer fantasy, and so on. And myths are not true accounts, be it the Trojan War or the Battle of Britain.I knew I’d like Bungay when he wrote:“My training, both at university and subsequently in business, has led me to be sceptical about anything until I see the data”My feeling exactly. So, the author went out and found the data. He haunted the Kew Public Records office. He obtained and read in the original German the accounts by the Luftwaffe of what was happening during the summer of 1940, and many other high level command papers that showed what the German attackers thought, what they believed, their brilliance and—always a revelation—their unbelievable ignorance and ineptness. Bungay interviewed some of the decreasing number of pilots who fought in 1940 and survived. There is a little battle magic and battle tragedy in his book, enough to give it a feeling of reality—for example, when we learn how 19 year old Spitfire pilot Bob Doe, 14 confirmed kills, worked out and entirely on his own how to stay alive ‘up there’ by ditching orthodox RAF doctrine and behaving like the Luftwaffe. Remarkable.The German fighters, 109s, all of them, flew in to battle at a staggering 36000 feet, from which lofty perch they dived (make that screamed) out of the western rising sun down on to the defenders. It came as no surprise to learn that 4 out of 5 RAF pilots shot down never saw their attackers.And finally, the poor old maligned Hurricane, so pathetic that one 109 pilot wrote home to Mutti and Vati that it was ‘a tired old puffer’—until he and his leader got killed by a pair of Tired Old Puffers flown by Poles.The streetwise ‘wild men’ of Polish 303 Squadron out of Northolt—who were late arrivals to the Battle on August 31st and who flew Hurricanes, shot down more Germans than any other BoB squadron. Aggressive pilots like 303 posted a claim to loss ratio of 14:1—that is 14 shot down or damaged for every 1 Pole. Of course, the Poles weren’t novices. They were streetwise, battle-experienced pilots, and men who largely ignored the RAF’s antiquated training in fighting tactics.The Hurricane was no push-over and my heart swelled with pride.Here I must declare an interest. My engineer father worked 12 hour days building Hurricanes in Kingston on Thames and then the secret Langley factory from 1937 until he transferred to Tempests in ’43.Finally, in the 4 chapters called Aftermath, the strangest most powerful finding on the long-term effect of the BoB on the Germans:“In 1945, after the defeat of Germany, the Russians asked the Wehrmacht’s most senior operational commander, Field-Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, which battle of the war he regarded as most decisive. They were expecting him to say ‘Stalingrad’. What he said was: ‘The Battle of Britain’. They put away their notebooks and left.For breadth, depth and sheer readability, I give A Most Dangerous Enemy an unequivocal 5 stars.Read it.

If you have one book on the Battle of Britain I think it should be this one. It puts the Battle of Britain into a complete context.Everyone knows the story of "the few"; heavily outnumbered RAF fighter pilots who threw themselves on an overwhelming enemy and won. Its notoriety is perhaps its achilles; everyone accepts thats all there is to the story and asks no further questions. There are many to ask, but the big one is just how did the most potent, experienced and technically superior air power, with much larger numbers, lose? The answer is in many parts but begins actually many years before the battle took place.And thats where the book starts, unravelling the chain of events and personalities that would result in the most important and famous David v Goliath battle in history. Its an amazing tale that most of us would never have found out.Bungay has done a first class job of knitting together all the differnt pieces of a complex and large picture to present a single work that encompasses so much, in such detail and yet remains so clear and easy to read.As well as covering prewar events he has done a great job of painstaking research to give an almost minute by minute account of almost every air raid in the battle. He avoids bogging the reader down in repetitive accounts of daring-do but uses each one to show how the battle ebbed and flowed and thus shaped following decisions and assessments. Its almost like listening to a sporting comentary that inevitably builds tension and excitement. but most importantly it allows the reader to understand how the important people on each side were seeing the battle.This is a history book; if you are looking for first hand accounts of dogfights then buy a biography of a pilot who was there (First Light - Geoffrey Wellum or Fly for Your Life - Robert Stanford Tuck are exellent examples).This book describes the build up to the battle and how it came to be; why each force had the aircraft they had and the types they had; the operational characteristics is explained the limits they posed. Then it describes how the cammanders concerned devised their strategies and tactics amidst the prevailing political cultures and military objectives.One of the most important points is that surprisingly Nazi Germany was not prepared for this battle! That seems an odd thing to say about the side that on paper should have thrashed their opponents but Bungay presents all the historical evidence and knits it together to show how it all fits. The Nazis were unlikely to be in any shape to invade Britain, even if they won the air war; they had little or no reserves to replace their losses. That was a shock to me too but you will have to read the book to find out exactly why.The Battle of Britain was a far more complex event then we all realised. The skill, bravery and determination of the fighter pilots is clearly shown in the book; one account of how 9 hurricanes attacked a single formation of several hundred bombers escorted by even larger number of fighters says it all. This aspect shines through without describing every pull on the stick or kick of the rudder. You get a feel of what the pilots were up against in the combats vividly but the book keeps to the big picture and all its parts.One aspect that I liked particularly is that it clearly describes the roles of the main commanders, what they did and the affect on the events. This allows the reader to understand just why these people were important; a title doesnt really explain anything but knowing just what people do identifies the key players.Bungay has done fantastic research and pulled together vital statistics that were being missed by key people at the time (forgivable in some cases since they had not the benefit of hindsight or access to the other sides stats, etc.) and also many historians since. After reading this book I now have further new found admiration for Dowding and Park and their incredible understanding of what was required to defend against the Luftwaffe.This book is a pleasure to the enthusiast and masterful reporting to the professional. It has collated the important facts, analysed them and presented the results in a very succinct, clear and interesting style. From either perspective this was a pleasure to read. It gives the Battle of Britain new dimensions that were mostly overlooked before.I dont believe any other single book could cover so much about the Battle of Britain. It is an excellent piece of work and a pleasure to read. It is the real history of the Battle of Britain; until you read this book, you dont know the half of it.

What can I say that's a bit different from the other 60- odd laudatory reviews here? Well, perhaps not much, but I will have a go.The BBC charter requires the Corporation to 'inform educate and entertain', and that is also what this book does. I was concerned about using the word 'entertain' when dealing with warfare, but one definition of it is to 'keep hold, or maintain in the mind' and that will do nicely.Mr Bungay creates a good balance between background history, technical analysis and description of the day to day events. The truth is that to just list all the daily sorties, detail the places attacked and record numbers of aircraft shot down can eventaully become, dare I say, somewhat grueling to read, so here the author frequently stops doing that and switches to something relevant but quite different.For example, having reached 18th August Mr Bungay diverts onto the necessary qualities of the pilots ('hunters and hunted') and then onto tactics. He also includes many anecdotes, much irony and some black humour- all appropriate in this context when we bear in mind that those young men were theirselves noted masters of all these things. For example we find the letter from a novice German pilot who shows huge excitement and appears to be having a great time- though perhaps really it was just bravado for his mothers benefit: he refers to the Hawker Hurricane as an 'old puffer'. We are then informed that the very next day he was shot down and killed- by an 'old puffer': I felt very sad for his poor mother. There is though also light humour. We owe a great deal to the Poles, who came to be greatly liked and respected. I laughed upon learning that Polish pilots Brzezina and Szczesny of 74 squadron were 'quickly and inevitably' dubbed 'Breezy' and 'Sneezy'. If you want to know what 'Miss Shilling's oriface' really was you will have to read the note on page 264.The book is not overly clogged up with charts and tables, but there are enough to show what really happened. I learned many things. For example I'd always thought that the Messerschmitt BF109 had the best of its encounters with British fighters, but actually it did not. Of course the 109 as a type shot down more of them than it lost, but that's because the RAF pilots were under orders to go for the bombers, not the fighters. In fact, and despite inferior RAF tactics, even the Hurricane fared quite well again the 109 and overall the Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down twice as many aircraft as the Germans managed to do whilst losing surprisingly few pilots in the process.By contrast, away from the day to day action we are told all about the feuding within both the Luftwaffe and Fighter command. The latter includes the tale of how Mallory and Sholto Douglas outmanouvred Dowding and Park. But never mind, in our own time old injustices have been set to rights: it is the latter two who clearly masterminded the victory- a true deliverance- and that is well recognized today. In Central London both men are now honoured by fine statues in their memory.So, it becomes apparent that the Battle was not a 'close run thing' at all. There was much more to this victory than a pair of good fighter aeroplanes and their brave pilots. Traditionally we British love to think of ourselves as the defiant underdogs, but whilst there was no lack of courage (on both sides) we also were very well prepared, husbanded resources, produced more aircraft than we lost and sustained the supply of pilots- all things that the Luftwaffe failed to do. So we won. Note that I say 'we', not a BBC- style 'The British'.You will find this book a gripping read, all 407 pages of it, whilst being educated and 'entertained' in the process; that, after all, is all anyone can really ask for in any book.

Superbly written book that combines insightful analysis with a wonderfully engaging prose style. The writer challenges much of the commonly accepted orthodoxy yet is not the sort of revisionist who constructs a book around supporting pet revisionist theories and in places counters some revisionist ideas just as effectively. The book follows a logical sequence, starting with an examination of why the battle was fought including consideration of the political will to continue fighting and support for arriving at a negotiated settlement with Germany. The book examines the British air defenses and German offensive capabilities and most crucially the respective strategy and operational aims. This is what really underpins the book as the writer contrasts a supremely professional British air defence structure and command with a German opponent that failed to make a decision between whether they were trying to achieve a quick victory or lay siege to Britain and which lacked the resources to achieve the victory demanded of it. The book demonstrates that although the battle was intense and the losses brutal it was a much less narrow victory than generally presented. The sections dealing with the development of the Spitfire and Hurricane send a tingle down the spine and put some more specialist publications to shame. Although the book is negative towards much of the German hierarchy it recognises that the German theatre commanders like Kesselring probably did as well as they could given the incoherent strategy and general lack of direction whilst the fighter commander Theo Osterkamp is presented as a supremely rational and competent commander. On the RAF side, the book makes the point that the decisive weapon in the RAF arsenal was not so much radar itself as the Dowding system of fighter control, a distinction that many have failed to recognise yet one which is fundamental. The book does enter the long standing argument over the relative contributions and qualities of the Hurricane and Spitfire and is balanced and realistic in the opinions offered on the subject. Some have criticised the book on the basis that others have made many of the points contained within the book, but that does not detract from the writers achievement in my opinion and what lifts the book above others is not just the technical content but the wonderful style and literary flair which makes the book a joy to read. 5*, very highly recommended indeed.

There are so many books available on the Battle of Britain, but this is the best I've read. A healthy and fascinating mix of anecdote, opinion, and solid research give this book so many dimensions missing in others that cover this important historical event.Other authors have emphasised how close-run this event was - how Britain avoided defeat at the hands of the Luftwaffe by a hair's-breadth. I've never been entirely convinced by this. I could never put my finger on why, which is why I probably read so many books on this subject. But thankfully Bungay hits the nail on the head with a view that is contrary to the consensus: the British war machine was far more efficient than the Germans'; that the Germans didn't have the industrial capacity to replace the aircraft lost over England. And, crucially, the genius of Park and Dowding's organisation of the defence was such that the Luftwaffe was far from achieving a certain victory.Everything is brilliantly explained: the tactics, the aircraft, the pilots, the politics, and much that has been neglected in the past such as the role of Bomber Command, and a decent explanation of why the famous "Big Wing" was such a bad idea.Stick with the book to the end and you will be amused by Bungay's ironic quips, and moved when he delves deeper into the lives of some of the pilots. He rightly laments the sorry status this battle has in WWII history, pointing out that it's the world, not just Britain, that owes a debt of gratitude to the pilots.What is profoundly sad is the knowledge that this breed is dying out - an example is the story of the retired Spitfire pilot who didn't mention his role in the battle, quietly working in his garage, content to be anonymous. One day, his secret is out, and the reaction is very moving.Buy this - it's the best history of the most important air battle, ever.