Why German Bomber Crews Couldn't Explain How Britain Knew They Were Coming Before Takeoff
British Bastion
63,879 views
How did 749 Royal Air Force Fighter Command aircraft defeat a Luftwaffe force of 2,550 in the summer of 1940? Why could German bomber crews never explain how British Spitfires and Hurricanes were always waiting at the right altitude, on the right bearing, at the right minute over Kent? The answer is not a fighter aircraft. It is not a single radar set. It is an architecture.
This long-form documentary tells the story of the Dowding System, the world's first integrated air defence network, built quietly through the 1930s by Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the Tizard Committee, the Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt, and a small group of civilian scientists. It was the silent system that won the Battle of Britain.
In the summer of 1940, the Royal Air Force faced a Luftwaffe that had defeated the Polish, French, Dutch, Belgian and Norwegian air services in less than a year. By every conventional measure, RAF Fighter Command should have been overwhelmed. The Germans had more than three times the aircraft, deeper combat experience, and what was widely considered the most professional air arm in the world. Their intelligence chief, Major Josef "Beppo" Schmid, told the German General Staff that Fighter Command would collapse within four days.
It did not collapse. This is the story of why.
The video follows the chain from the Chain Home radar masts on the Channel coast, to the Filter Room at Bentley Priory, to the 30,000 volunteers of the Royal Observer Corps, to the sector control rooms at Uxbridge, Biggin Hill, Hornchurch and Tangmere, to the scramble of 11 Group Spitfires and Hurricanes into the morning sun over southern England. We meet Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson VC, the only Fighter Command Victoria Cross of the entire Second World War. We meet Group Captain "Sailor" Malan, Squadron Leader Robert Stanford Tuck, and Flight Sergeant "Ginger" Lacey. We meet Hazel Gregory, the WAAF plotter on duty at Uxbridge on Battle of Britain Day, and Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park inside the underground bunker on 15 September 1940 when Churchill asked his famous question — "What other reserves have we?"
We follow the German side of the story. Adolf Galland and his famous request for a squadron of Spitfires. Hermann Goering at his hunting lodge. General Wolfgang Martini and the Graf Zeppelin reconnaissance flights that searched the British coast for the truth about the strange steel masts on the cliffs.
And we return, at the end, to the man who built it all. Stuffy Dowding. The Air Chief Marshal who saved Britain in September 1940 and was quietly removed from Fighter Command by his own Air Ministry in November of the same year.
This is the story behind the legend of "The Few." Not the fighter aircraft. Not even the fighter pilots. The system that flew them.
If your father, grandfather, great-grandfather, or any relative served in the Royal Air Force, the Royal Observer Corps, the WAAF, or the General Post Office engineering branch that laid the cables of the Dowding System, we would be honoured to read their name and unit in the comments. These stories are how the memory survives.
Subscribe for more long-form British military history. Upcoming videos cover the Royal Navy, Bomber Command, the Special Operations Executive, the Special Air Service, the Royal Marines Commandos, the Burma campaign, the Falklands War of 1982, and the great deception operations of the Second World War. Every video is researched from primary sources, official histories, and the records of the Imperial War Museum and the National Archives at Kew.
A like helps the channel reach the next viewer who has never heard the story of how Britain built the world's first integrated air defence network, and then sacked the man who built it.
Topics covered include the Battle of Britain 1940, the Dowding System, Chain Home radar, the Filter Room at Bentley Priory, the Royal Observer Corps, RAF Fighter Command structure, the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane in service, the Luftwaffe in 1940, the Schmid intelligence assessment, Adlertag, Battle of Britain Day on 15 September 1940, the Big Wing controversy, the removal of Dowding and Park, the Tizard Committee, Robert Watson-Watt and the Daventry Experiment, the Tizard Mission to the United States, the cavity magnetron, and the role of the WAAF in Fighter Command operations rooms.
Sources include Basil Collier's official history, Stephen Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy, James Holland's The Battle of Britain, Patrick Bishop's Fighter Boys, Richard Overy's The Battle of Britain, the Imperial War Museum, the Royal Air Force Museum, the Bentley Priory Museum, and the National Archives at Kew. Some scenes are reconstructed for narrative pacing, and the script identifies where this is the case.
#BattleOfBritain #WW2 #RAF #Spitfire #DowdingSystem #ChainHome #FighterCommand #SecondWorldWar #BritishMilitaryHistory #1940 #TheFew #Luftwaffe #MilitaryHistory #WorldWarTwo #HughDowding
20 Comments
However, for the British to overestimate the strength of the opposition lead to the development of systems that made better use of what they hadn't, whereas for the Germans to underestimate the stength of an enemy they were trying to invade, extremely dangerous.
laying cable and telephone lines. He was awarded the Imperial Service Medal for 35 years dedicated service.
One story he recounts was of a radio operator from the Dam Busters squadron (617) having a problem the next morning with his radio, my father fixed it, and the pilot (a Wing Commander) said 'OK we will go with that. They had landed at an emergency base that had FIDO near the coast. (FIDO = Fog Intensive Dispersal Of).
I realise my histories must be replicated hundreds of times to you, but they are an imense source of pride in our family.
Why German Bomber Crews Couldn't Explain How Britain Knew They Were Coming Before Takeoff
British Bastion
63,879 views
How did 749 Royal Air Force Fighter Command aircraft defeat a Luftwaffe force of 2,550 in the summer of 1940? Why could German bomber crews never explain how British Spitfires and Hurricanes were always waiting at the right altitude, on the right bearing, at the right minute over Kent? The answer is not a fighter aircraft. It is not a single radar set. It is an architecture.
This long-form documentary tells the story of the Dowding System, the world's first integrated air defence network, built quietly through the 1930s by Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the Tizard Committee, the Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt, and a small group of civilian scientists. It was the silent system that won the Battle of Britain.
In the summer of 1940, the Royal Air Force faced a Luftwaffe that had defeated the Polish, French, Dutch, Belgian and Norwegian air services in less than a year. By every conventional measure, RAF Fighter Command should have been overwhelmed. The Germans had more than three times the aircraft, deeper combat experience, and what was widely considered the most professional air arm in the world. Their intelligence chief, Major Josef "Beppo" Schmid, told the German General Staff that Fighter Command would collapse within four days.
It did not collapse. This is the story of why.
The video follows the chain from the Chain Home radar masts on the Channel coast, to the Filter Room at Bentley Priory, to the 30,000 volunteers of the Royal Observer Corps, to the sector control rooms at Uxbridge, Biggin Hill, Hornchurch and Tangmere, to the scramble of 11 Group Spitfires and Hurricanes into the morning sun over southern England. We meet Flight Lieutenant James Brindley Nicolson VC, the only Fighter Command Victoria Cross of the entire Second World War. We meet Group Captain "Sailor" Malan, Squadron Leader Robert Stanford Tuck, and Flight Sergeant "Ginger" Lacey. We meet Hazel Gregory, the WAAF plotter on duty at Uxbridge on Battle of Britain Day, and Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park inside the underground bunker on 15 September 1940 when Churchill asked his famous question — "What other reserves have we?"
We follow the German side of the story. Adolf Galland and his famous request for a squadron of Spitfires. Hermann Goering at his hunting lodge. General Wolfgang Martini and the Graf Zeppelin reconnaissance flights that searched the British coast for the truth about the strange steel masts on the cliffs.
And we return, at the end, to the man who built it all. Stuffy Dowding. The Air Chief Marshal who saved Britain in September 1940 and was quietly removed from Fighter Command by his own Air Ministry in November of the same year.
This is the story behind the legend of "The Few." Not the fighter aircraft. Not even the fighter pilots. The system that flew them.
If your father, grandfather, great-grandfather, or any relative served in the Royal Air Force, the Royal Observer Corps, the WAAF, or the General Post Office engineering branch that laid the cables of the Dowding System, we would be honoured to read their name and unit in the comments. These stories are how the memory survives.
Subscribe for more long-form British military history. Upcoming videos cover the Royal Navy, Bomber Command, the Special Operations Executive, the Special Air Service, the Royal Marines Commandos, the Burma campaign, the Falklands War of 1982, and the great deception operations of the Second World War. Every video is researched from primary sources, official histories, and the records of the Imperial War Museum and the National Archives at Kew.
A like helps the channel reach the next viewer who has never heard the story of how Britain built the world's first integrated air defence network, and then sacked the man who built it.
Topics covered include the Battle of Britain 1940, the Dowding System, Chain Home radar, the Filter Room at Bentley Priory, the Royal Observer Corps, RAF Fighter Command structure, the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane in service, the Luftwaffe in 1940, the Schmid intelligence assessment, Adlertag, Battle of Britain Day on 15 September 1940, the Big Wing controversy, the removal of Dowding and Park, the Tizard Committee, Robert Watson-Watt and the Daventry Experiment, the Tizard Mission to the United States, the cavity magnetron, and the role of the WAAF in Fighter Command operations rooms.
Sources include Basil Collier's official history, Stephen Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy, James Holland's The Battle of Britain, Patrick Bishop's Fighter Boys, Richard Overy's The Battle of Britain, the Imperial War Museum, the Royal Air Force Museum, the Bentley Priory Museum, and the National Archives at Kew. Some scenes are reconstructed for narrative pacing, and the script identifies where this is the case.
#BattleOfBritain #WW2 #RAF #Spitfire #DowdingSystem #ChainHome #FighterCommand #SecondWorldWar #BritishMilitaryHistory #1940 #TheFew #Luftwaffe #MilitaryHistory #WorldWarTwo #HughDowding