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  I attended a conference on the Battle of Britain in Edinburgh on Friday.  Some 
highlights:


	- Klaus Maier (Mil.-geschicht. Forsungsampt) gave an excellent talk on German 
air doctrine leading up to the BoB.  Apparently a 1935 study on the Luftwaffe indicated 
terrible performance due to a very muddled command structure, from which it was 
concluded that the Luftwaffe must be primarily a tactical support force, with a secondary 
strategic mission - I gather this was to simplify the mission orientation and get everyone 
playing the same tune.

	The British cave in at Munich in part because of fear of the Luftwaffe bombing 
the UK.  The Luftwaffe at the same time concludes that it cannot beat the British in an air 
war!  The Luftwaffe changed its mind by 1939 - but (jumping ahead to Malcolm Smith's 
talk briefly) the British were spurred to invest in fighters and to separate out the fighters 
into Fighter Command (a decision beginning in 1937) -  a precondition for the intergrated 
air defense system that proved key to winning the BoB.

	Maier supports the notion that Sea Lion was in fact largely a bluff; had the 
Luftwaffe won the BoB then it would probably have been seriously considered, but he 
believes the primary focus was already on Russia.


	- Malcolm Smith (Uni Wales) pointed out that radar was as much amatter of faith 
as the faith in strategic bombing was.  Radar was first shown to be workjable in the UK 
in 1935.  The first station was built in 1937, and it was a very finicky and unreliable piece 
of work!  Investing in radar was thus rather speculative.  Dowding got credit for seeing 
that the key link was good communications, and establishing centralized command and 
control for the air defense.  (Jumping ahead to Sebastian cox's talk: He was a butthead 
about many other things, especially night fighter defense, which was the cause of his 
dismissal.  Night fighter defense would require Ground Controlled Intercept - which 
actually required *decentralization* of C2.)

	Move to fighter production in 1938 occurs because British conclude they cannot 
keep up with German bomber production (in British theory, the best antidote to enemy 
bombers was friendly bombers striking back.)

	Ironically, fighter Command exists because of the focus on the bomber:  Fighter 
Command exists to combat enemy bombers; would not have been built except that the 
bomber threat is taken very seriously ("otherwise would not have gotten 10 million 
pounds!")  Thus thinking that "the bomber will always get through" leads to a defeat for 
the bombers.

	It took 18 months to build the pilot training establishments up to full speed from 
the outbreak of war.

	Sebastian Cox pointed out in the discussion that a radar network was deployed 
into France as well, but functioned quite poorly.

	- Horst Boog (retired from Mil.-geschicht. Forsungsampt) described the German 
planning for the BoB: which was haphazard at best.  Overconfident from its recent 
successes, and probably (supporting Maier's thesis here) seen as a secondary effort at 
times, the plan was not very tightly wound.  Added that the Army was apparently 
instructed in July 1940 to build a force of 180 divisions by May 1941 (presumably for 
invading Russia, the planning for which began at the same time) - not exactly an order to 
prep for an amphibious invasion in any event.  

	German intel in the battle was weak - in part because Goring chose to believe 
what he wanted to hear and ignored the SigInt people who had quite accurate info - 
especialy regarding the state of the RAF, whose strength the Germans seriously 
underestimated.

	German fighters used drop tanks in Spain, but the idea was dropped - he did not 
know why, but they would have been rather useful!

	- Sebastian Cox (MOD Air Historical Branch) in a general discussion of quirky 
aspects of the British side of the battle, noted that at the worst of the fighting, the British 
reduced their pilot training cycle to 2 weeks (all flight training!) including a total of 10 
hours in fighters and no gunnery practice at all.  Other fighters units were stripped bare to 
keep the 11th's squadrons (in Kent (SE England)) in pilots able to fly.  Delivered in his 
usual breezy, dryly witty style.  8)

	-  Happened to talk to a Spitfire pilot during a break (Ian Brown).  He was one of 
the 10-hour wonders - and in fact had only gotten 9 hours before being posted to a unit.  
He was in northern England for about 3 flights and then sent into the maelstrom with the 
11th as a replacement.  His flight training had included one live fire exercise, strafing a 
floating target.  There was no tactics training at all; only a small bit of "useless" 3-ship 
formation training.  RAF units relearnt WWI finger-4 tactics in the field; he and other 
rookie pilots were trained by the pilots with more experience, normally by the method of 
"don't you ever do that again!"  On attacking a group of bombers, it was easy to go 
blasting through, guns blazing, pull up and out, and then sit there wondering where 
everybody was.  Then orange balls start flying about your plane and you knew you had 
been quite stupid to sit there flying straight and level!  He wished that training had 
included one mock dogfight in which they could have "really thrown the plane about" to 
give an opportunity to learn tactics (and, I presume, the aircraft's envelope).  He was soon 
(within 1-2 weeks) hurt badly enough to be discharged from the RAF (injury not 
specified and not obvious disability).  In what is a common pattern for combat aircrew, 
he has had nothing at all to do with aviation since the war.  Usually this is due to too 
many bad memories and that was implied here too; he mentioned that he also intentionlly 
forgot all about until found by a pilot's veteran's group about 6 months ago.  Given that 
his face displayed signs of (past?) heavy drinking, and his discharge, I assume his final 
flight (and the rest too?) was pretty unpleasant.  I didn't ask about it.  Offered thanks from 
a younger generation which he seemed to appreciate, and then we discussed the impact of 
the recent Scottish summer on the fishing. 

	-  Richard Hallion (HQ USAF) offered a few observations on what the US learnt 
from the BoB: potentially a great deal, but most of the lessons were ignored: bombers 
need fighter cover, but the fighter cover needs to be flexible to engage enemy fighters, 
not tied close.  US may have seen the Luftwaffe attacks as a low/medium altitude 
campaign as opposed to their own exalted intentions of a high altitude campaign.  US 
impressed by Stuka losses and weaknesses and thus does not develop a dive bomber.

	- Sergei Kudryashov offered some comments on the Soviet historiography.  
Mostly nothing new, but confirmed to me that my archival access failure last summer is 
because all Air Force archives are still classified and locked up in the General Staff 
Archive (itself impenetrable).  Even the main TsGASA archive at Podolsk has only 
declassified to 1940.  (Unless you are a Somebody, with Connections.  Damn it!)    
Interesting side tale:  Stalin met with Cripps in July 1940 - third ambassador Stalin had 
ever met.  Stalin told Cripps that he believed Germany could not win the war, and asks 
Cripps to keep the conversation secret.  Cripps agrees.  3 days later, the conversation is 
all over the London papers.  Stalin was not amused!  Especially since Anglo-French plans 
to launch a strike on the Caucasus oilfields appears at about this time.  Kudryashov 
suggested this may have had a part in Stalin's distrust of British warnings of a German 
attack; also noted that archives show (access?  hmmm??) Soviets, while had numerous 
indicators of an impending German attack, did not in fact possess the entire Barbarossa 
ops plan as has been claimed at times.

	- Theodore Cook (William Paterson Uni) could not make it but a precis sheet of 
his talk concluded of the Japanese study of the BoB:  "In few cases in the history of the 
Second World War did skilled observers and intelligent analysts get the major 
implications of a battle more wrong.  (But the errors were ultimately not only Japanese, 
for when it came to the Far East, is would seem few, if any, of the lessons learned by the 
RAF were implemented by December 1941 in the Far Eastern theater...."

	- Asked Cox afterwards how many bombers people expected to "get through" in 
order to create the Apocalypse (collpase of society) in the atitude sumed up by "the 
bomber will always get through".  Answer: one in theory; though the phrase is Baldwin's 
(British politician & PM) and thus did not really have any theory about numbers, really.  
It was assumed in such thinking that the bombing of even one bomber would destroy the 
fragile social fabric and start the lower classes rioting against the government.  Was this 
in part assuming the use of toxic gas?  Yes - assumes heavy use of toxic gas.

  - They had a functional sight from a Spitfire (the Mk II sight; the Mk I was an iron 
sight) on display to fiddle with.  It's a primitive HUD; a lamp projects the sight onto a 
piece of sloped glass.  You set dials to calibrate it.  One ("you just leave that one on one 
setting the whole time" - a Spitfire pilot - did not get the name - discussing the sight with 
a couple of us) is for the range.  the second is for the wingspan of the target; you must 
memorize the wingspans of the probable aircraft you'll meet.  These sombine to make a 
gap in the middle of the horizontal hair of the sight corresponding to the given wingspan 
at the given range; you then use this information to help judge the target's actual range, 
and to judge whole or partial sight-diameters needed to lead the target or correct for 
deflection.  Same pilot:  "By the end of the war we had really advanced sights; it was 
almost impossible to miss.  All the dials were on the stick; you set them, lined up, pushed 
the teat, and boom."  This guy was built on a distinctly small frame; he noted that "They 
must have used midgets in the Bf109s.  I once had the chance to fly one, and I couldn't 
get my hips into it!"  Began flying in Jennys and Tiger Moths:  "I do much prefer a warm, 
comfortable cockpit."

- John Young (another Spitfire pilot, and adjutant in the 41st Sqdn in the BoB (same as 
Ian Brown's but John Young is both 4 years older (83 vs 79) and looks it!):  In 1942, 
serving in Scotland.  He was ordered out on a night flight to intercept a Russian 4-engine 
bomber and escort it in to Leukars airbase.  It was refuelled there with 100-octane fuel 
(more on this later) and sent to Washington.  It was carrying a Soviet delegation.  For the 
return trip, it was fuelled with 100-octane fuel and made the entire Washington-Moscow 
trip non-stop.  

  Several speakers commented that shipments of 100-octane fuel from the US were a 
secret weapon in the BoB, delivering distinctly improved performance for the RAF.  John 
Young noted that it was great in automobiles, too, but unfortunately sprayed green slime 
all over the inside of your carburetor, so the MPs caught you nicking it rather too easily.

  Finally, if the past is any guide, the talks at the conference will get published in the next 
year or so.  A previosu conference got published as _Time to Kill: The Soldier's 
Experience of War in the West 1939 - 1945_ (Paul Addison, Angus Calder, editors, 
Pimlico Press, 1997) and is worth a look.