"Good, he can stay there," said Kent. "I am at angels one half."

"Apany Red Leader, increase Angels at once," said the Controller.

"Apany Red Leader to Garta to hell with that. I'm nearly out of fuel and you've already nearly had me into the balloons in this filthy weather, so I'm coming home."

On landing, Kent was called to the phone and given 'a terrific tirade from the Controller a certain Squadron Leader who never flew on operations principally because I had compromised the secret of our weather conditions to the enemy. He would not listen to any explanation so I hung up I would very much have liked to go along to the Operations Room and clouted him…"

Although the RAF were near to victory, there was no feeling of elation among the exhausted pilots. By now Fighter Command was badly mauled, and morale was at an all-time low. Sent to take over 92 Squadron, Johnny Kent sat down with his pilots at the meal table without identifying himself. His first impressions were not favourable: "Their general attitude and lack of manners indicated a lack of control and discipline." He had, he said, been sent to take over 'a disorganized, undisciplined, and demoralized collection of first-class material."

That squadron had suffered losses about double those of 303 Squadron, from which their new commander came. They had lost four Commanding Officers in short succession, three of them in the previous month. One had only lasted two days.

This demoralization was reflected by the squadron's fighting. On patrol the Hurricanes were subjected to diving passes by some small formations of Bf 109s. Their new commander, Kent, turned his formation to meet the attackers head-on. Each time the Germans turned away. But after this had happened several times Kent noticed that a number of his Hurricanes turned round and headed for home. "One-oh-nine-it is," he called it. "These pilots had lost all confidence in their ability to cope with the German fighters.

"When we returned to our airfield," said Kent, "I had all the pilots in and gave them a really good talking to and announced that if I had any more people breaking away — and by so doing exposing not only themselves to attack but the rest of the squadron I would not wait for the Germans to shoot down the offender but would do it myself."

The great battles of 15 September celebrated as Battle of Britain day gave Londoners the spectacle of nearly 200 Spitfires and Hurricanes over the capital. Twice that same day, 300 RAF fighters were in the air over the southern counties.

Kesselring sent 400 fighters to protect not much more than 100 bombers. And the fighters were put in as a high-altitude sweep ahead of the bombers too. What is never mentioned about the air activity of this day is the element of bluff that was part of the Luftwaffe's plan. It was a double bluff. Says then Oberleutnant Johannes "Macky' Steinhoff, who eventually commanded the post-war West German air force, "For demonstration purposes everything that we had in the way of bombers and fighters was thrown into the air."

However controversial Leigh-Mallory's behaviour, the resulting high concentration of fighters in the London area countered this great bluff. It convinced the Luftwaffe that Fighter Command was far from the depleted force that German intelligence described.

Bader's big wing found the enemy, and the sight of a larger RAF fighter formation than they had ever seen before did much to shatter German hopes. The fact that the RAF claimed 185 victories instead of the 60 credited after the war, or the 50 that recent German researchers record, was less important. Churchill's message to Dowding that evening was intended for German consumption: "Aided by Czech and Polish squadrons and using only a small proportion of their total strength, the Royal Air Force cut to rags and tatters separate waves of murderous assault upon the civil population of their native land."

RAF Fighter Command did not gain command of the sky. In darkness and by daylight the German Air Fleets continued to raid Britain for a long time to come. The air above the Channel and southern England was still disputed, but nothing short of German command of the air could provide security for a seaborne invasion.

Just by remaining intact, Fighter Command had won the Battle of Britain. On 16 September the weather was too poor for large-scale air fighting and on 17 September turbulent winds were predicted. On this same day, British intelligence intercepted a secret radio message that authorized the dismantling of air-transport facilities in Holland. In the absence of the 'flat calm' that the navy wanted for an invasion, it was officially decided to postpone Sea-lion until further notice. It was just as well: the Luftwaffe was also exhausted by the summer battles. The bomber units were depleted and their morale low. Many spares were in short supply, and the High Command was growing uncomfortably aware of its lack of reserves. The Luftwaffe turned its attentions to the techniques of night bombing and Hitler turned to maps of Russia.

The great battles of 7 September had begun late in the autumn afternoon. Not until teatime did the first raid develop but the waves of bombers kept coming. They came back that evening, and then kept coming through the night until daybreak.

There was no need for radio aids or target markers, the East End of London was a vast lake of flames that guided the airmen from miles away.

The next night the bombers returned. They returned every night for 76 consecutive nights (except for 2 November when the weather was too bad). Douhet's theories got a fair trial."

It was inevitable that the Luftwaffe should succumb to the temptation of London: Europe's largest city, a great port, centre of communications, seat of government, residence of the King. The radar stations, the fighter airfields, the sector stations, these must all have seemed indecisive targets to men across the Channel dazzled by this huge and ancient city. They rationalized its destruction by telling each other that it was the only target that Fighter Command would give everything to defend, but Britain's senior commanders breathed a sigh of relief when the Luftwaffe began to dump their high explosive into the lucky-dip of Greater London. As Churchill wrote in his memoirs, "London was like some huge prehistoric animal, capable of enduring terrible injuries, mangled and bleeding from many wounds, and yet preserving its life and movement." Some said that the bombing of London was the very reaction that Churchill had hoped to provoke when he sent the RAF to Berlin on Sunday 25 August. If that was his intention and Churchill was a master of strategy he never admitted it was so.

To have contrived that London was bombed, even as a war-winning master-stroke, would still have damaged his reputation.

The night bombing of London had little effect upon the progress of the war. The raids did not cause enough damage to commerce, industry, or morale to bring Britain nearer to surrender. The residents of London adapted to a new style of life that often included sleeping every night in an air-raid shelter underground. The cold and damp of such places brought a 10 per cent increase in tuberculosis statistically it was a worse danger than the Luftwaffe.

And as the long winter nights continued, British electronic experts struggled with the problem of jamming the X-Gerat. Even as early as 23 August, Kampfgruppe 100 had used the frightening new technique of giving its electronic 'pathfinder' aircraft incendiary bombs to set the target alight. This enabled other units to dump high explosive into the flames, which were visible for many miles.