A great deal of money was spent on the anti-aircraft defences for nearly a hundred newly acquired airfields although the Germans were not to know that Dowding had already decided he had no fighters to spare for attacks against the Luftwaffe bases. Later, some experts criticized this decision but there is little doubt that such intruder-flights by the RAF would have confused the already complex radar picture to a state of chaos.

'Smiling Albert' Kesselring, 55 years old, was one of the most skilful and popular German commanders. Later in the war he was to make a new reputation as a commander of land forces in Italy.

He had been moved from the army to the air force against his will but once there he dedicated himself to the job. At the advanced age of 48 he learned to fly and usually piloted himself on his visits to units. In the 1930s he had become the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff. As a spokesman for the professionals, Kesselring had often found himself in conflict with Göring and Milch.

It was after one such terrible row with Milch that Kesselring asked to be retired. Alarmed by the idea of losing one of the Luftwaffe's very best men, Göring talked him into staying, and offered him command of an Air Fleet as a way of distancing himself from Milch.

When war began the shrewd and ambitious Milch realized that, as the emphasis changed from civil aviation to military force, the experience that had given him his initial start in the Air Ministry was being eroded by the knowledge and training of the long-time professional soldiers around him. Milch decided that a field command would consolidate his strong position.[7]

Milch's allegiance to Hitler was unequivocal. Whether this was due to his monarchist inclinations or his instinct for survival, it certainly proved valuable when on bad terms with Göring, as now he was. Often it was rumoured, in the corridors of the vast Air Ministry building, that Milch was about to take over Göring's job, to which Göring countered with rumours that Udet was about to take over from Milch. Hitler had taken a personal interest in the Luftwaffe's bomb shortage (refusing until 12 October 1939 to allow the manufacture of more of them, on the grounds that Britain and France would soon make peace with him). When bomb manufacture was resumed, Milch managed to get control of it instead of relying upon Udet's Air Armament Department. And as part of his plan to become a field commander Milch had taken a Dornier Do 17 for himself and flown over the Polish battlefronts, including a flight to watch the Stukas bombing Warsaw into rubble.

When a Bf 108 courier aircraft forced-landed in Belgium in January 1940, carrying plans pertaining to the imminent invasion of that neutral country and its neighbours, the commander of Air Fleet 2 was fired. It was exactly the job that Milch wanted. But Göring told Milch that, although he agreed to such an appointment, there was an objection from the Luftwaffe Chief of Staff. The objection is easy to understand but the idea that Göring would have heeded it, less so.

By this time Göring had realized that whatever shortcomings Udet had — and they were many and varied — he presented no danger to Göring's power. Outsiders were always tempted to guess (wrongly) that Göring and Udet had been close friends since the First World War but now a real friendship had grown between the two of them. Göring's door was always open to Udet, who sometimes went to him with departmental problems that he did not want Milch to know about. And Udet no longer referred to Göring as 'the Fat One', using instead the more respectful nickname "Iron Man." And Udet trusted Der Eiserner in a way that no adroit politician could possibly deserve.

Göring was well aware of his right-hand man's limitless ambition and when Milch's attempt to get command of Air Fleet 2 was blocked, Göring was happy to see this key post given to Kesselring (no friend of Milch, as his previous offer to resign indicated).

But for a man keen to get to a battlefront, Berlin was the place to be in 1940. Milch now turned his eyes to the coming invasion of Scandinavia. This campaign was planned and conducted under the personal direction of Hitler. For the transport of soldiers to Norway, a special unit was created from Lufthansa air crews, under the supervision of that company's traffic manager. This was the sort of operation that Milch could handle expertly. After the initial assault had been successful, Milch was permitted to reorganize the Luftwaffe's units in Scandinavia so that they became Air Fleet 5. During the days before the newly appointed commander of the Air Fleet arrived, Milch achieved his ambition of commanding an air force in battle. As a result, Milch was given the coveted Knight's Cross. The 'tin tie' was the highest award for valour in Hitler's Germany and more usually awarded to Luftwaffe aces who had shot down twenty enemy aircraft.

Now Milch found it difficult to reconcile himself to the desk in Berlin. He took his personal aeroplanes to the west front and followed the fighting across France. He regularly visited the operational units and liked to watch bombing operations from the air. It was Milch who went to Dunkirk and afterwards told Göring that the air bombardment had not destroyed the British Expeditionary Force nor prevented its evacuation. This did nothing to sober Göring's over-confidence about the coming assault against Britain. And for that, too, Milch had an idea that was no less than Napoleonic. He urged an immediate paratroop landing on selected airfields in southern England (paratroops were a part of the Luftwaffe). Fighter and dive-bomber squadrons would then fly into the captured airfields to use them, while transport aircraft would ferry troops in. Luckily for the Stuka units and the Junkers transports which had suffered no less than 40 per cent casualties in the Dutch fighting, Göring shrugged off this lunatic idea with the excuse that he had only one paratroop division, and he knew the army would never agree to lend him men for such an operation. Milch listed this as Germany's first big mistake.

Hugo Sperrle, commander of Air Fleet 3, was a year older than Kesselring and eight years older than Milch. He was a huge bear-like man whose slow movements and style made some condemn him as lazy. Milch thought this, just as Sperrle regarded his boss as no more than an airline official dressed up in soldier's uniform, and yet the two men got along well together.

Sperrle was far more experienced in air force matters than any other senior officer. He had been a military flyer in the First World War, had commanded the Condor Legion in Spain, and had spent a long period in his present job of Air Fleet commander. But he was a forbidding man, with no taste for the techniques of the propaganda units with their writers, cameramen, and film crews. Sperrle, a large man with heavy jowls, is invariably pictured with a scowl that was perhaps necessary to hold his monocle in place. Not only was Sperrle's physical girth comparable with that of Göring but so was his life-style. Sperrle took as his HQ the fabulous Palais du Luxembourg, one-time palace of Marie de Medicis. Of him Albert Speer said, "The Field Marshal's craving for luxury and public display ran a close second to that of his superior, Göring."

When in July 1940, the Luftwaffe's one Field Marshal (Göring) was increased to three (with Göring raised to a newly created rank even higher), it was these men — Milch, Kesselring and Sperrle — who were so honoured. Kesselring later said that these promotions took place only because Hitler believed that the war in the west was virtually ended. In fact it was about to begin, and it was a daunting prospect by any standard. Not only were the Luftwaffe chiefs attempting a form of conquest victory by bombardment that was unprecedented in the history of warfare but they had to work with a time limit. Mastery of the air must be German before the coming of the autumn storms that would make seaborne invasion virtually impossible. And in spite of the high morale that had been a product of the German victories, the Luftwaffe had suffered serious losses. If aircraft lost in flying accidents are included in the total, the months of May and June cost the Luftwaffe no less than 1,469 aircraft. Now the Air Fleets needed time to replenish and reorganize, but no time was to be granted.