CHAPTER 4: INVASION ALERT
As the summer of 1940 advanced, the Battle of Britain began. In July, the Luftwaffe attacked shipping in the Channel. This was followed by hit and run raids by lone German planes, flying low over southeast England. We saw the odd enemy plane, sometimes diving through cloud cover, dropping a bomb or two, and making off back to the coast. If we were out marching or on manoeuvres, the NCO in charge would shout ‘Scatter’. On this order we would spread out as fast as we could, and fling ourselves down on the ground — or into the nearest wadi or nullah (the ditches and stream-beds of rural Essex appeared in this guise to Sergeant Sawle, who often imagined himself back in Egypt or India). This was a sensible precaution. However, the lone planes never bothered to dive bomb or machine gun us, so we were not in mortal danger. The exercise had a strong appeal to the sadistic streak in Sergeant Sawle. If there weren’t any enemy planes around when we were marching over ground that was covered with thistles or stinging nettles, he would shout ‘Scatter’, just to keep us in practice. I
In late August the German raids became heavier and more systematic. At first they were directed at our airfields and radar masts. Later they made the first daylight raids on London, losing more and more of their bombers to the Spitfires and Hurricanes of the RAF. One afternoon we saw three successive flights of bombers on their way to London. Their wings glinted silver, high in the blue sky. Two or three spiralled down in flames as Spitfires shot them down. Then the bombers entered a zone that must have been earmarked for anti-aircraft fire, and the fighters kept clear. The ack-ack opened up, puffs of smoke appeared among the bombers, the planes broke formation according to a pre-arranged plan and went on to drop their bombs on London from above the barrage balloons.
The Blitz proper, the regular night raids designed to reduce the capital to ruins and shatter the morale of Londoners, began in the last days of August. At twenty miles from the centre of London we were far enough away not to be bothered by bombs. Our chief danger was from the ack-ack guns. It became evident that what goes up must come down. The shrapnel from the guns came back to earth, hot splinters of metal falling through the flimsy roof of our Nissen hut. Orders came that when the sirens sounded their mournful nightly alert, we should pick up our three ‘biscuits’ and carry them (and our rifles, of course) to the barrack hospital. This was the only building of solid construction in the camp. We bedded down in close-packed ranks on the concrete floors of the corridors until the all clear sounded in the morning. The hospital had a red cross on the roof but we couldn't have complained if we had been bombed.
On the evening of 7th September, almost the entire German bomber force, Heinkels, Dorniers, and Junkers, escorted by Messerschmidt fighters, raided the London docks. Oil tanks, timber yards, factories, were set on fire and burned for three days. The night sky to our south west was a lurid yellow. At the same time, the RAF bomber fleet was attacking concentrations of invasion barges assembling at French ports. On September 8th, I was about to be granted a day's leave to attend my brother's wedding as best man. Before I could leave Warley Barracks, the code word ‘Cromwell’ came through urgently from headquarters. Britain was on invasion alert.
At dusk my platoon set forth to take up position on a low range of hills to the north east of Brentwood.. There we formed the third and last line of London's defences. The first was on the coast, the second halfway to the capital. We were armed to the teeth. My comrades and I each had a rifle and five rounds of ammunition. Lance-Corporal Goodall had the Bren gun and twenty rounds. One unfortunate private had to carry the anti-tank rifle together with its ammunition which in his case he had not got. We hoped that the ammunition would arrive before the German Army. I wondered, with no great confidence, whether our first and second lines of defence were better equipped. We settled down in slit trenches ready to repel a dawn invasion. No-one slept.
By dawn, the expected invasion had failed to materialise. Bleary-eyed, we marched back to barracks. Leave was still cancelled. Cromwell remained in force for twelve days. I was unable to communicate with my family: every telephone exchange had been wrecked by the night's bombing. The bombers came over every night — 76 consecutive nights with one exception for bad weather. Four hundred civilians perished on an average night. Much of London was destroyed. We resumed our training, practising to throw live grenades or to fire them from rifles.
September 15th was to be known as Battle of Britain day. Wave after wave of German planes flew over in daylight. They were engaged by Fighter Command over the coast and over Essex, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire. We noticed that the skies were unusually busy. Next day we heard that over a hundred German planes had been shot down (the true figure was probably about seventy).
This was the decisive day in the Battle of Britain. Operation ‘Sealion’ had been planned by Hitler and Goering as the invasion that would subjugate Britain. After September 15th, it became clear that the Luftwaffe would not gain mastery of the skies. Hitler postponed ‘Sealion’ again and again until he finally abandoned it in favour of planning operation ‘Barbarossa’, the invasion of Russia.
Contemporary historians have studied the British and German records of the time. They have concluded, with the aid of computer simulation, that a German invasion would have failed in the face of British naval and air superiority. The enemy could have established a bridgehead in the south of England, but would have been beaten back. For myself, I am indeed sure they would have suffered heavy losses. But even if only a small proportion of their troops had landed successfully, I cannot believe we could have resisted for long. There are limits to what you can achieve with five rounds of ammunition.