The Battle of Britain Read Free Page B

fields among woods or forests far from a town. The aircraft were kept in the open air. The pilots were often billeted with civilians if a village were near enough. The ground troops lived in barns and slept on straw.
    The standard fighter formation was three aircraft, with the leader in the centre and his wing men laterally separated by 220 yards (200m) from him, one 55 yards (50m) below him, the up-sun aircraft taking the higher position.
    The control and reporting system was, by British standards, ramshackle. Warning of hostile aircraft was based on the Système de Guet, the Look-Out System, similar to the Observer Corps in Britain but less reliably served by the telephone lines on which it depended. This was weakly supported by a radio method of detection,
détection électromagnétique
or D.E.M., consisting of a chain of alternate transmitters and receivers. These gave a rough plan position of aircraft by observations on the bearing produced between the direct wave from the transmitter to the receiver and the reflected wave from the aircraft. It had a range of approximately 50km and did not give satisfactory results on more than one aircraft.
    Fighter control was handicapped by poor radio equipment. Aircraft sets needed frequent retuning in the air. Their air-to-ground range was 93 miles (150km) at heights above 3,280ft (1,000m), and air-to-air 31 miles (50km)
    This small Regular air force and inchoate Reserve, with its scanty supply of modern fighters and enduring hard living conditions, nevertheless entered the war with high morale.
    The entire nation felt secure behind the Maginot Line, the most impressive fortification ever built, consisting of three lines of reinforced concrete outposts, blockhouses and forts with underground arsenals, living quarters and hospitals. Defended by enormous artillery pieces and tens of thousands of infantry, it stretched along the German frontier from Belgium to Switzerland. The French believed it was impregnable.
■ The British Expeditionary Force
    The first units of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), under the command of Field Marshal Lord Gort, began to land in France on September 10, 1939, Two RAF formations had preceded them. The Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF) was commanded by Air Vice Marshal P. H. L. Playfair, CB, CVO, MC, who had joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1912 from the Royal Artillery and won his Military Cross in France during World War I. His headquarters was near Reims, around which his squadrons were based. Their task was to work with the FrenchArmy along the German frontier. The Air Component of the BEF, under Air Vice Marshal C. H. B. Blount, CB, OBE, MC, with his headquarters near Arras, was based in the Pas de Calais. Its function was to operate with the BEF, which went into the line along the Belgian frontier, and to patrol Channel convoys. Blount, who transferred from the Surreys to the RFC in 1913, had also won his gallantry decoration in the Great War, when commanding No. 34 Squadron in France and Italy.
    The Advanced Air Striking Force consisted of 10 bomber and two fighter squadrons. Nos. 12, 15, 40, 88, 103, 105, 142, 150, 218 and 226 flew the Fairey Battle. This was an obsolescent three-seater type with a single 1,030hp Rolls-Royce Merlin engine and armed with one fixed .303in Browning gun forward and one .303in Vickers K aft. Its maximum speed was 241 mph (388km/h) at 13,000ft (3,960m) and its ceiling 23,500ft (7,160m). The bombload was 1,000lb (453kg). Nos. 85 and 87 had Hurricanes, whose specification is given elsewhere. The Battles landed in France on September 1 and the Hurricanes on the 7th.
    The Air Component, whose records were almost totally destroyed during the hasty retreat of the British forces in June 1940, comprised the following: Four corps squadrons, whose function was army cooperation: Nos. 2, 4, 13 and 26, flying Lysanders. These were two-seater, single-engined, high-wing monoplanes with 890hp Bristol Mercury XII engines