Adlertag

11–13 August 1940 saw the first large raids on the UK in the Battle of Britain. Adlertag or Eagle Day was to open the great offensive after the warm-up of July. The weather disrupted the complex planning and a fiasco ensued. What characterises the 11–13 August period is the contrast in the strategy and tactics applied by the two main German units, Luftflotte 2 under Field Marshal Kesselring and Luftflotte 3 of Field Marshal Sperrle. Kesselring, with a single exception, used only one of his bomber Geschwadern, supported by his two Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber Gruppen and his sole fighter-bomber outfit, covered by all his fighters. Sperrle on the other hand used multiple conventional bomber Geschwadern, largely those equipped with the modern Ju 88 aircraft, and some Stukas, from across three Fliegerkorps, covered by his fighter resources. These three days were the beginning of the intense part of the Battle of Britain when they applied their chosen methodologies but did not see the errors of their choices, which allowed the RAF to win the Battle.

As to witnesses to the Battle, fascinating details are to be found within these pages: a twelve-year-old Jewish schoolboy, for instance, extracted from Germany just before war broke out through the Kindertransport scheme, finds himself conflicted between patriotic feeling for his Luftwaffe countrymen flying over his refugee boarding school and the knowledge that their defeat by the RAF would preserve his own life.