The Battle of Britain !

[gruffy]

Hiya! I'm a BA History student and have decided to do my dissertation on the Battle of Britain.

I'm struggling to find books on the Italian participation in the battle. Can anyone recommend some good books on this subject?

thanks

Gareth

[CCC]

Try these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Regia-Aeronautica-.../ref=pd_sim_b_2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Courage-Alone-Ital.../ref=pd_sim_b_3

Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain - Len Deighton

Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II - Len Deighton

not all about BofB but some good source of info

will look good in your referencing though

[Mark M]

why dont you check oout some of the forgotten voices books, they include log book info and testiments form pilots and aircrew of all countries

[maltadefender]

Two good sources are Fighter by Len Deighton and Invasion 1940 by Derek Robinson.

[Super Aereo]

I have heard of "The Chianti Raiders" but it never got good reviews ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chianti-Raiders-Ex...n/dp/1861058292 )

Håkan Gustafsson website, on the other hand, provides excellent references, even if it is mainly concerned with the Fiat Cr.42: http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/falco_bob.htm

[Giorgio N]

I bough The chianti raiders a couple of yeas ago, but haven't read it yet..

I have quite some info on magazines and others, but it's all in italian language. If there's any particular aspect you'd be interested in I can try and translate some info for you. Coming from the italian side might be interesting in a history dissertation !

[Super Aereo]

Talking of Håkan Gustafsson, his Osprey book with Ludovico Slongo about Fiat Cr.42 aces is also well worth a read.

[AnonymousFO98]

There was a SAM or MAM article

drpo me a PM if interested Gruffy

[FalkeEins]

Coming from the italian side might be interesting in a history dissertation !

..surely their participation didn't amount to much of anything ..more interesting perhaps might be an examination of the German 'view' of the 'battle'

[Wolfpack]

Be very careful of the Len dieghton book, there are a lot of innaccuracies in it. As a basic reference guide, you really can't do better that After the Battle's Battle of Brtain Then and Now,link John Vasco's Bombsights over England is a superb book about EpGr 210 link 2.

Bear in mind also, that the Germans do not use the same dates as we do, June to November is their equivalent period, I believe.

Good luck with your project in any event.

W

[snowen250]

Are you doing the entire Battle for your dissertation, because and this is the voice of experience, that’s waaay to broader a subject! Even just the Italian involvement would be a hefty subject and would have gotten me well over my 15,000 word limit.

Simon

[tango98]

Hi Gareth,

Although the November 11 action took place eleven days after the British official end date for the Battle of Britain of 31 October (the Germans had no such date and considered that the battle for England continued until shortly before the onset of Barbarossa), if you'd care to contact me via PM I can send you verbatim transcripts of a couple of interrogation reports of Italian airman made P/W during the November 11th action.

According to surviving records the first operation carried out over the UK by the RA was against Harwich on the night of 24/25 October by twelve Fiat BR 20Ms.

This was followed by a second raid on 29 October when fifteen bombers set off to attack Ramsgate & Margate.

While operating against the UK, the CAI (Corpo Aereo Italiano) as it was known, was placed under the command of Luftflotte 2. Its headquarters being established at St Genesius-Rode near Waterloo and a technical supply element was based on the airfield at Evere.

As Wolfpack mentions, avoid Deighton's book but vol 2 of The Blitz - Then & Now gives some interesting information on the November 11 action and you might also, even though it contains some suspect content for November 11th, might want to consult John Foreman's 'The Forgotten Months'.

Likewise, the website at http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/falco_bob.htm provides some fairly decent information.

HTH

Dave

Edited May 25, 2010 by tango98

[gruffy]

Are you doing the entire Battle for your dissertation, because and this is the voice of experience, that’s waaay to broader a subject! Even just the Italian involvement would be a hefty subject and would have gotten me well over my 15,000 word limit.

Simon

hiya!

I'm doing my dissertation question 15,000 words on either "Did the RAF actually win the Battle of Britain" or "Was it due to Luftwaffe( i.e Goring) mistakes that led to the postponing of the invasion?".

I do want to also show that it wasn't just a British vrs Germans conflict and that others such as Italians, Americans, Poles, even a couple of Jamaicans etc were involved.

all the best

[maltadefender]

In that case you definitely need Invasion 1940 as a starting point for the argument that the Germans couldn't have invaded thanks to the Royal Navy and never really intended to!

Ducks and runs...

[AnonymousFO98]

Without wishing to create any problems, that soumds like there are two distinct theses Gareth.

If you start digging into the second part you will be distracted from the main thrust of your discussion regarding the Luftewaffe's failure to obtain air supremacy.

[gruffy]

If you start digging into the second part you will be distracted from the main thrust of your discussion regarding the Luftewaffe's failure to obtain air supremacy.

A fair comment!

I'm doing some brainstorming at the moment and still trying to sort out my dissertation title! Some tweaking is still needed though!

I have a Year before i have to hand it in so i thought i would start planning now.

On a side note did you all know that the Luftwaffe did have drop tanks available before the Battle of Britain but were considered by them as very dangerous?

Edited May 25, 2010 by gruffy

[XV107]

If you're doing the broader Battle of Britain rather than the Italians, you could do worse than starting off by looking at:

Mike Barley, Contributing to its Own Defeat: The Luftwaffe and the Battle of Britain in Defence Studies, Vol 4, No. 3 (2004), pp.387 — 411 - this was started life as a Staff College dissertation (proving something decent can be done in 15,000 words!)

Henry Probert and Sebastian Cox (eds.), The Battle Rethought (Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife 1991) - a digest of a 50th anniversary conference held at the old RAF Staff College in 1990 by the RAF Historical Society.

Sebastian Cox, ‘A Comparative Analysis of RAF and Luftwaffe Intelligence in the Battle of Britain, 1940’ in Michael Handel (ed.), Intelligence and Military Operations (London: Frank Cass 1990)

Horst Boog, ‘German Air Intelligence in the Second World War’ in Michael Handel (ed.), Intelligence and Military Operations (London: Frank Cass 1990)

John Ray, The Battle of Britain – New Perspectives (1994; London: Arms & Armour Press 1996)

Richard Overy, The Battle (2000), more recently republished as The Battle of Britain: The Myth and the Reality (2004)

Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy (now out in undergraduate budget friendly paperback, forget the publisher off hand)

If you're still doing the Italians, then AD Harvey, The Bomber Offensive that Never Took Off: Italy's Regia Aeronautica in 1940, RUSI Journal, Vol. 154, No. 6 (Dec 2009).

I'm not sure if Mike Barley's article is available as a freebie from the informaworld journal website, but most university libraries should have access to an electronic version of this and the Harvey article if they don't have the hard copies.

[drdave]

The Burning Blue has some alternative viewpoints and home front stuff of interest.

[Dad 10]

Hiya! I'm a BA History student and have decided to do my dissertation on the Battle of Britain.

I'm struggling to find books on the Italian participation in the battle. Can anyone recommend some good books on this subject?

thanks

Gareth

Chianti Raiders is an excellent book, tells the story of the Italian involvement and goes into some detail about italian pilots who escaped after capture and vanished into the Italian community in London.

Richard McC

[mhaselden]

In that case you definitely need Invasion 1940 as a starting point for the argument that the Germans couldn't have invaded thanks to the Royal Navy and never really intended to!

Ducks and runs...

Ummm...surely that was the whole point. The Germans couldn't invade due to the RN but couldn't tackle the RN without first securing at least local air superiority over the Channel and southeast England, ergo the Battle of Britain. As to the "they never really meant it" theory, it was one hell of a waste of men and machines just to find something to occupy the Luftwaffe in between conquering France and invading Russia!

Edited May 26, 2010 by mhaselden

[FalkeEins]

As to the "they never really meant it" theory, it was one hell of a waste of men and machines just to find something to occupy the Luftwaffe

according to who you read on the German side it was about exerting & maintaining 'pressure' to bring about a political 'solution' - not unreasonably when you consider how many on our side were prepared to sue for peace. See Prien's stats on my blog for an idea of just how 'half-hearted' the Germans actually were about 'invasion'...

[mhaselden]

according to who you read on the German side it was about exerting & maintaining 'pressure' to bring about a political 'solution' - not unreasonably when you consider how many on our side were prepared to sue for peace. See Prien's stats on my blog for an idea of just how 'half-hearted' the Germans actually were about 'invasion'...

Interesting stuff but I'm afraid it all sounds a little like sour grapes - there's a degree of "victim" complex "Britain declared war on us" etc in the accounts. If the fall of France, coupled with the loss of equipment at Dunkirk, was not enough to make Britain sue for peace, then it's inconceivable that an air offensive would tip the balance UNLESS that air action achieved the annihilation of the RAF and hence opened the door for wider operations which could have included parachute landings and the establishment of some form of bridgehead.

The comparison with D-Day is also spurious. Those forces were needed to liberate a continent that had been fortified during 5 years of German occupation so comparing that against what would have been required to effect a landing against the ill-equipped and demoralized British Army is hardly matching apples to apples. A more convincing argument would be that the Luftwaffe was not equipped to undertake such an effort and that the strategy for attacking Britain failed precisely because of the switch from bombing airfields to attacking London. In short, the Nazi leadership failed to obey the first principle of warfare - selection and maintenance of the aim.

Without fighter defences, Britain lay wide open even with the RN largely intact. Look what happened to major warships when they suffered air attack without a defensive fighter umbrella - Glorious, Prince of Wales, Repulse. Without fighter aircraft, the RN was a sitting duck, whether at sea or in port, for air attack. Whether or not Germany actually had a feasible invasion plan is somewhat irrelevant. Had Britain sued for peace, Hitler would have achieved his political objective and ultimately would have had free rein to do what he wished, including keeping a militarily weak Britain firmly isolated. Think of Tirpitz, Bismark, Prinz Eugen etc with freedom to access the Atlantic under no threat of attack - there would have been no weapons shipments from the US to Britain. Fighter Command's success in the late summer of 1940 was simply one of survival - but it was still a victory.

[maltadefender]

It is pretty clear that Hitler's preferred objective was a docile Britain with a government prepared to accept peace in return for doing his bidding. The reason behind this thinking was based simple reasoning... not the least of which being the size and scale of its Empire, which would need managing when that was the last thing that an over-stretched Germany could afford to take on so soon after moving east and west. Allied to this position was the picture of Britain he had been given by the number of influential British dignitaries toadying up to him through the 1930s who reinforced Hitler's belief that we were 'racially compatible': of the same Saxon stock with plenty of common ground between us politically.

The preferred solution was for Britain to 'see sense' after Dunkirk and capitulate, overthrow the 'warmonger' Churchill's government and sue for peace. Hitler would then reinstate Edward VIII (with an American queen), keep clear of responsibility for the British Empire (while holding the purse strings) and get on with the rest of his war: Russia, 'lebensraum', the eradication of Communism and Jewry and the subjugation of the Slavs. Anything other than that, after the fall of France, was a distraction. In Hitler's view North Africa and the Med were problems brought upon him by Mussolini and Britain was hostile because of the drunken ramblings of a maverick and unelected Prime Minister against whom he confidently expected public opinion to turn.

When British opinion was galvanised behind Churchill after Dunkirk the matter was handed over to Goering to eradicate the RAF and force a defenceless Britain to surrender... but Goering failed. Fighter Command won in that sense: it kept Britain in the fight and more importantly it kept the fight in the British people. The only thing that Fighter Command did not do in the summer of 1940 was prevent an invasion. That myth - and the phrase 'Battle of Britain' - were entirely political concoctions designed to give heart to a beleagured people and encourage America into believing that a victory had been won... concoctions of which the pilots themselves were often critical.

"We had barely 7,000 feet to make as we were to act as escort to the first bomber formation to attempt a daylight raid on France since the so-called Battle of Britain. So-called, as that then-familiar phrase related to a national crisis which for us had been merely part of a sustained period of activity against the Luftwaffe, a tidy but emotive expression for a tidy fourteen-week event, conveniently terminating on 31 October 1940. As though the war for us had started in July and ended in October, which it most definitely had not!"

- Flight Lt. T. E. Neil, 249 Sqn

The logistics of invading Britain were nigh-on impossible. At the most 3000 lightly-armed paratroopers could have embarked and casualties of almost fifty per cent could be expected, based upon their record to that point. Launching 1000 flat-bottomed river barges into the Channel wasn't realistic because of the forces of nature... and suicidal given the presence of 40 destroyers, four cruisers and hundreds of other vessels capable of attacking, tipping, ramming and wreaking havoc upon them - and that's before Bomber Command or Coastal Command came into play. The Germans had to wait for Britain to lose heart and roll out the red carpet, and thanks to Fighter Command we did not.

[Nick Millman]

"That myth - and the phrase 'Battle of Britain' - were entirely political concoctions designed to give heart to a beleagured people and encourage America into believing that a victory had been won... concoctions of which the pilots themselves were often critical."

In one deft sentence is the desperate struggle in which the British had every expectation that defeat in the air would lead to invasion airily dismissed. Oh, dear. I think you need to separate the political context from the military one and understand the nature of strategic exploitation as well as the volatile mindset of the Nazi hegemony - not just Hitler.

The level of organisational and administrative preparation for Sea Lion, especially the planned inculcation of Nazi ideology in Britain, indicate this was not just some kind of elaborate bluff. The capability to succeed is no prerequisite to try but more a judgement of hindsight. Hitler may have been reluctant to invade, hoping for a political settlement, but if you believe that the outcome Goering boasted of, if achieved, would not have resulted in an invasion attempt, you must have superhuman insight. In June, 1940 the view from the South Coast of England looked very different to the hindsight presented here; the Nazis were riding the crest of a wave and very soon the concentration of barges was being photographed.

The revisionist view of the Luftwaffe does look like "sour grapes" and one might respond in the manner of Mandy Rice-Davies: "Well, they would say that wouldn't they?". The two Luftwaffe pilots quoted here sound like unreformed Nazis but even so, selective quotes from individual participants, even disaffected and disgruntled RAF types, cannot paint the true big picture and never will.

The complexities of the Battle and the propaganda war of words that followed its outcome are superbly explored in Stephen Bungay's book which, if you only ever buy one book on the Battle is the one to go for. The "We never intended to invade so we didn't lose the Battle - Hell, there was no Battle" line is unconvincing but unsurprising given the mythic reverence in which the Luftwaffe is held in some circles, especially in modelling circles.

Nick

[FalkeEins]

..entirely agree Nick ...although I think there are two 'revisionist' views going on here - the German view ..and the one that has the RN winning the BoB by default..

the point about the German 'revisionist' view of the Battle it is that it is a relatively common view on the German side. The RAF's 'successes' in the BoB are seen as being largely irrelevant - the skirmishes over Britain have little in comparison with the ordeal the German fighter pilot endured defending the Reich against the bomber fleets ...

you can hardly call JG2 pilot Jules Meimberg an 'unreformed Nazi' though for that - he was badly burnt over Germany after all. He also happens to be one of the nicest gents you could happen to meet. His memoir 'Feindberührung' ('Contact with the enemy') is published in English later this year. Another BoB 'revisionist' is JG 54 pilot Hans-Ekhard Bob - his memoir is available in English..

in addition to Bungay our BA history student should put aside some of the more hagiographic BoB works and read Adam Tooze's 'Wages of Destruction' which deals with Germany's war economy and production. Brilliant insights into Hitler's relative 'weakness' ...

Edited May 26, 2010 by FalkeEins