The RAF's evasive attitude is revealed in the secret letters and instructions on the subject.1 A secret letter from Fighter Command HQ on 23 September describes the inflated RAF claims as disquieting. An accompanying analysis of the five weeks from 8 August to 11 September showed that the RAF announced that 1,631 enemy aircraft were destroyed and 584 aircraft were 'probably destroyed." If one assumes that half of the probables were downed, this makes a claim of well over 1,900 aircraft for the five weeks under review. Yet during this period a mere 316 enemy aircraft wrecks were counted. Even allowing for the fact that the pilot of a crippled German plane will head for

"For instance, Air Ministry letter to RAF Commands 30 March 1940, Air Ministry letters dated 7 May 1940 and 28 May 1940, 12 Group HQ to Fighter Command 7 October 1940, and Fighter Command letter to 74 Squadron dated 21 September 1941.

home (and so possibly fall into the sea), this is obviously highly inaccurate.

The Luftwaffe formed an Abschusskommission to investigate the individual claims of its pilots. Sometimes it took a year to reach a decision, and there was a firm rule that without a witness no claim would be even considered. Its regulations were stringent and its results conservative. Although the RAF usually awarded a half-share to all the pilots who contributed to the destruction of a downed enemy aircraft, the Germans simply credited the unit with one victory but did not allow any individuals to share it. For this reason, German unit scores do not tally with the sum of their individual pilots' victories. But German unit scores for this period come remarkably close to known RAF losses. (The average Jagdgruppe shot down fifty-five aircraft.")

Anyone reading about 'official RAF scores' should remember that there are no such things. But in the light of recent research, the scores generally accepted as the largest are seventeen aircraft shot down by Sergeant Frantisek, a Czech flying with 303 (Polish) Squadron, and sixteen destroyed by Flight Lieutenant McKellar of 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron.

The tactics of the air war as they emerged were not very much different from the lessons that had been learned from 1914 to 1918. Height was still the trump card, with attacks out of the sun the most reliable tactic. Heavier fighters, that accelerated more quickly into the dive, were often forgiven other faults. Acceleration in level flight is a quality not listed in any aircraft specification, but for a pilot coming under fire, it often meant the difference between life and death. The twin-engined Bf 110 and the Hurricane were sluggish in this respect.

The most common type of attack was a dive out of the sun, pulling out behind, and under the tail of, the enemy, and firing while in this blind spot. A cliche of the fiction inspired by the First World War, this tactic continued in use right until the end of the war in 1945.

"And by reason of continued combat, the Luftwaffe ended the war with 35 aces who had shot down 150 or more enemy aircraft. There is no reason to believe that such scores are less than authentic.

The head-on formation attacks that were invented by the pilots of 111 Squadron were abandoned during the Battle, because of the number of collisions suffered. How ever, this tactic was reintroduced by German fighter pilots and used against the big USAAF daylight formations late in the war. It became a standard tactic because it minimized the ability of the bombers to return fire during the head-on approach, while the heavy cannon of the fighters gave them a good chance of inflicting fatal damage.

The fighter pilots themselves had the same physical advantages that marked the First World War's aces: above average eyesight and the ability to see distant aircraft (not quite the same thing), coupled with very quick reaction For this reason, many of the younger pilots were more successful than their more experienced elders, although experience improved a pilot's chance to survive.

No less vital than eyesight was the ability and the willingness to fly very close to the enemy. The aces would not open fire until they were 100 yards away, while the average pilot was breaking off attacks at that distance. The design of the reflector gun-sights used by both sides did nothing to help. When the German gun-sight ring was completely filled by the wings of a Spitfire, the two aircraft were still 335 yards apart, too far away for effective shooting.

Scrutiny of Air Ministry secret records (only now released) shows the cloud-cuckoo land that the RAF High Command enjoyed at this time. Fictitious German fighter aircraft are reported in great detail, and the writers of Intelligence Summaries are obsessed with highly unlikely secret devices, such as tin boxes thrown by bomber crew at RAF fighters, and repeatedly report that the German are using captured RAF aircraft in all kinds of bizarre colour schemes.

About 3,000 RAF men flew in the Battle of Britain

The Results although this number is marginally reduced if only single-seat fighters are included. Over 80 per cent of these flyers were from the United Kingdom; the remainder included one hundred and forty-seven Poles, eighty-seven Czechs, twenty-nine Belgians, fourteen Frenchmen, seven Americans, ten Irishmen, a Palestinian, and many men from the Commonwealth nations, including ninety-four Canadians and one hundred and one New Zealanders.

But these figures do not reflect the skill, daring, and determination of this 'remainder." Poles and Czechs were not permitted to participate in the air fighting until they had mastered the rudiments of the English language and flying procedures. When they did start operations these homeless men, motivated often by a hatred bordering upon despair, fought with a terrible and merciless dedication.

The Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians, and Canadians were often men who had paid their own fare to England in order to join the peacetime RAF. Perhaps this sort of determination explains why their contribution was of an exceptional kind. The Commonwealth provided some of the best and bravest flyers and suffered disproportionate casualties. For instance, of twenty-two Australians, fourteen were killed. South Africa also contributed twenty-two flyers, and of these nine were killed during a period in which the average air-crew fatalities in Fighter Command were 17 per cent.

And the skills of this 'remainder' can be recognized among the aces of the Battle. Of the top ten fighter pilots (scoring fourteen or more victories), one was Czech, one was Polish, two were New Zealanders, and one Australian. Only five were from the UK. From such tiny samplings it would be reckless to draw any conclusions, but it is interesting to note that in this list of aces the Hurricane

"A study of air combat in the Second World War, The Fighter Pilots, by E. H. Sims (London: Cassell, 1967), listed the eight top RAF aces. Of these only two, Johnson and Duke, were English. The others were Canadian, Australian, Irish, French, and two South Africans.

and Spitfire are distributed evenly down the list from top to bottom, with one pilot flying both types of aircraft.

German fighter pilots came to the end of 1940 with considerable reservations about the Bf 109E. When the new Bf 109F arrived, some liked it even less. The difficulties with the Messerschmitt wings had now persuaded the design team to omit any kind of wing guns. A vastly improved cannon, firing through the airscrew boss, had been made to function, but this was now the sole armament, apart from two machine guns mounted on the cowling. Galland, who thought machine guns ineffective for air fighting, said that such armament was quite inadequate for the average fighter pilot. Major Walter Oesau, a Battle of Britain ace, preferred his old E model and kept it going until lack of replacement parts forced him to fly the Bf 109F. Molders, on the other hand, thought one centrally mounted cannon was worth two in the wings. Armament experts pointed out that any kind of wing gun suffered a high rate of jamming. A compromise was reached by sending a kit of parts to the front-line units, so that an extra cannon (20-mm MG 151) could be bolted under each wing. It up-gunned the Messerschmitt but it impoverished its performance and made it unwieldy in combat.