Battle of Britain Anniversary – Douglas Bader's Role. "Their finest hour: Canadian valour over the skies of Britain"

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Posted By SEAN CHASE in The Canadian Daily Observer

The images on the screen presented a frightening prospect to the startled radar operators manning their station high on the Dover cliffs.

Multiple tracks revealed waves of enemy aircraft inbound from the French coast. Since the evacuation at Dunkirk in the spring, Britain held out as the beacon of freedom to an imprisoned European continent. It was an act of defiance that would no longer go unanswered by the German High Command.

The operators relayed the data to the Fighter Command operations room, where members of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, or WAAFs, plotted those tracks. The map showed a massive wall of fighters and bombers – some 2,100 planes -representing the Luftwaffe’s greatest assault to date on the besieged island. Hurricane and Spitfire were scrambled to intercept.

Climbing above the English countryside in his Hurricane fighter, Squadron Leader Ernest Archibald McNab scanned the sky in front of him from right to left. The 34-year-old engineering undergraduate from the University of Saskatchewan was already a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Before the war, he flew Gauntlet and Gladiator biplane fighters with the British No. 46 Squadron and then became trained on the newly acquired Hawker Hurricane. When Canada dispatched pilots to aid its Commonwealth cousins, he was the natural choice to command the RCAF’s first fighter squadron.

Despite this resumé, McNab still had no combat experience. That would all change on the afternoon of Aug. 15, 1940 when he and fellow Canadian Gordon McGregor augmented the RAF’s 111th Squadron. Over the Thames estuary, they engaged a formation heading for London. McNab tangled with a Dornier bomber and shot it down, notching the RCAF’s first aerial victory. For McNab, that day brought him to the sober realization that his untested pilots were not ready for combat.

With the consolidation of Nazi occupation over most of Europe, an amphibious and airborne invasion of Britain was anticipated from the moment the allies escaped France. Hitler issued directives that “Operation: Sealion” be readied for mid-September when the moon was full and the tides high. As naval ships and landing craft were assembled in major ports across northern Europe, Reich Marshal Hermann Goring, commander- in-chief of the Luftwaffe, guaranteed the Furher he would wipe the RAF from the skies and drive the Royal Navy from the English Channel. Both conditions would be necessary if German landings were to be successful.

German military leaders had every right to believe England was ripe for the pickings. The British Expeditionary Force lost or left so much equipment at Dunkirk that for a while there was only one operational infantry division on the island – the 1st Canadian Division under the command of General Andrew McNaughton. To trick German spies, the division found itself marching across southern England to give the illusion that the British had troops on the move. There was a strong belief in the German government that Britain would sue for peace, just as France had.

Meanwhile, the Home Guard was activated as volunteers armed themselves with shotguns and pikes to guard vulnerable points against sabotage. Barbed wire was laid out in front of tank ditches which lined the coast. The stubborn British people began rationing as they prepared themselves for resistence. Their backs and spirits were stiffened by the words of their new prime minister, Winston Churchill:

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour’.”

Despite Winnie’s confidence, the odds were stacked against them. German air power was at its zenith with 2,830 combat aircraft including 1,300 Messerschmitt 109s fighters and 1,350 bombers, including Heinkel 111s, Junkers 88s and Dornier 17s. The RAF’s Fighter Command had between 600 and 700 fighters comprised of Hurricanes, Spitfires, Blenheims and Defiants.

Although Churchill’s Canadian-born minister of aircraft production, Lord Beaverbrook, worked feverishly to increase the RAF’s squadron strength to 59, they were short on their most vital commod- ity -fighter pilots. Augmenting the British ranks were pilots from occupied Europe, such as Czechs and Poles, and members of the Commonwealth, including more than 80 Canadians.

The uniquely dubbed 242 “Canadian” Squadron had escaped Europe with little more than the shirts on their backs. Their new commanding officer, the legendary Douglas Bader, was told the Canadians were a wild bunch to lead. Introduced to his men, Bader found the pilots to be “a scruffy lot” who wore turtle necks instead of tunics and ties.

The campaign to save Britain would need Bader, a remarkable tactician who lost both his legs in a crash in 1931. Undaunted, he learned to fly again with two artificial legs and then successfully proved to RAF brass he belonged back in the air.

The battle for air supremacy over Britain began on July 10 with the Luftwaffe striking at merchant shipping in the Channel and strafing ports along the coast. On the second day, Canada suffered its first loss when D.A. Hewitt, from Saint John, New Brunswick, dis- abled a Dornier over Portland. His Hurricane was then hit and plunged into the sea.

The second phase, Alder Tag or “Eagle Day” began on Aug. 13 when German fighter-bombers raided coastal airfields and bombed four radar stations. How- ever, their failure to destroy infras- tructure meant the radar could be back up in six hours. Frustrated, Goring turned his attention to air- craft factories and on Aug. 23 ordered an attack on all airfields. That night London was bombed for the first time. In the next two weeks, Croydon, Debden, and North Weald were among the many airfields hit in 33 major aerial bombardments.

Canadians fall in battle. In a tangle where Squadron No. 1 took down three Dorniers and damaged four others, Flight Officer R.L. Edwards lost his life after shooting the tail assembly of a Dornier. He was buried in Surrey, a place he told friends was the prettiest place he’d seen since being in England.

Losses like this troubled Ernest McNab, who feared greatly his men were ill-prepared for combat. Those doubts were rapidly dis- missed on Aug. 19 in the squadron’s second sortie when the RCAF No. 1 destroyed three enemy fighters and damaged three more.

Nevertheless, a pilot’s greatest fear remained being trapped in a burning aircraft as it plunged to the earth. In one day, No. 1 Squadron narrowly lost three pilots this way. Attacked out of the sun by Messerschmitts over Dover, the squadron barely had time to train their guns on the marauders.

As the battle progressed the Canadians were proving to their British commanders how invalu- able they were in this crusade. For example, in one day William “Willie” McKnight, of Edmonton, scored one of the first hat tricks for the RCAF when he shot down two Messerschmitts and a Heinkel. Flying with Bader’s 242 Squadron, McKnight showed exceptional skill and courage, earning him the Distinguished Flying Cross. One of Canada’s greatest fighter pilots, Willie McK- night did not return from a combat mission in January, 1941.

Next week: Marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, Douglas Bader and the Canadians live their most critical hour as the fate of Britain and the war is decided during one decisive day -Sept. 15, 1940.

Sean Chase is a Daily Observer reporter.