The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

Rating:
Summary: An excellent revisionist history of the Battle of Britain
Review: Fifty years on, Stephen Bungay has taken a long hard look at the Battle of Britain, gone through all the historical material, and come to a conclusion not often mentioned in the popular myth of the Battle: The Luftwaffe high command were bungling amateurs, and the RAF staff the hardened professionals.

Bungay goes through all the usual suspects, (tactics, aircraft etc.) as well as the organisational structrures of both sides, and manages to illuminate the Battle from previously unseen angles.

This is probably the best general history of the Battle; for a slightly different perspective, read Len Deighton's "Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain".

Rating:
Summary: A very good book on the battle of Britain
Review: No, it isn't the shout of a German tourist on his way to the Indianapolis 500, enthusiastic about reaching the Indiana border. It's the shout of a German bomber or fighter pilot, spotting an approaching Spitfire or Hurricane. However, mentioning the Indianapolis 500 isn't as unrelated as it seems. Mr. Bungay compares putting a recently trained pilot into the Battle of Britain to taking someone who has just obtained their drivers license and entering them in a Grand Prix motor race. Only, imagine the other drivers have machine guns! After you read this book you will have an even healthier respect for what the pilots of the RAF and the Luftwaffe had to go through. Imagine flying at 250-300 miles per hour and trying to pick out an opponent amongst a bunch of specks around and above and below you, trying to get behind one of them and hoping to get off a 2-3 second machine gun burst while attempting to get in some quick glances to make sure no one is sneaking up on you! You had a very good chance of not surviving your first few missions. If you got past the first few missions you then had enough experience to have a pretty good chance of surviving, but it was unlikely that you would become an ace. An ace was defined as a pilot that had made 5 kills. Mr. Bungay estimates that only about 5% of the pilots on either side became aces, because it was a rare person who could be both a great pilot and an accurate marksman under the circumstances. The author asserts that the Luftwaffe never really came close to winning the Battle of Britain. German Intelligence overestimated the number of RAF planes they were shooting down and underestimated the ability of British industry to replace the aircraft that were destroyed. The Germans hoped to win a war of attrition. They thought they could shoot down 5 times as many planes as they themselves lost. The RAF actually shot down more planes, and after the first few months had both more planes and more pilots than when they had started. The main strategic failing of the Luftwaffe was that they made no serious attempt to knock out the British radar network. That meant the RAF was almost always ready for whatever the Luftwaffe would throw at them, so planes were rarely caught on the ground, as they had been in Poland. Mr. Bungay does not neglect the human element of the story. For example, he tells the tale of Patrick and Tony Woods-Scawen, two brothers who were pilots and who fell in love with the same girl, Una Lawrence. Patrick was engaged to Una but Tony "stole her away" and married her. Tony had very poor eyesight but passed the vision test for pilots by memorizing the eye chart. Both brothers were killed during the Battle of Britain. One of the more touching pages of the book contains a photo of the two brothers at the top, happy and smiling, while underneath is another photo of Una and her father-in-law, looking very sad, standing outside Buckingham Palace while photographers took a picture of the Distinguished Flying Crosses that the brothers had been awarded.....

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding account
Review: Reconsiders many aspects of the Battle without the excesses of revisionist history. The author makes the case that the British were far better prepared for the Battle(and the Germans far worse) than popular memory realises. Thorough research, excellent analysis, and enough personal stories to add the human element. Well written. I stumbled onto this in hardback from AmazonUK and took a chance on what turned out to be, I think, the best book on the Battle of Britain.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Dangerous Enemy
Review: This is a remarkable book. It is rare to read something that totally changes ones perceptions in the way that this book does. Bungay convincingly dispels the two enduring myths about the Battle of Britain - firstly, the image of the ruthlessly efficient Nazi War machine pitted against the valiant but amateurish "old school tie" RAF, and secondly the perceived wisdom that the Battle was a "close run thing".

However, even whilst dispelling the myths, Bungay succeeds in doing so without detracting in any way from the courage and heroism shown by the young men and women on both sides. On the contrary, by stripping away the fantasy and leaving us with the grim realities of the Battle, the quiet heroism of the combatants is all the more remarkable.

This is a thoroughly professional piece of historical analysis, but it is also an engaging and very readable book.

Rating:
Summary: The Most Dangerous Enemy
Review: This is a remarkable book. It is rare to read something that totally changes ones perceptions in the way that this book does. Bungay convincingly dispels the two enduring myths about the Battle of Britain - firstly, the image of the ruthlessly efficient Nazi War machine pitted against the valiant but amateurish "old school tie" RAF, and secondly the perceived wisdom that the Battle was a "close run thing".

However, even whilst dispelling the myths, Bungay succeeds in doing so without detracting in any way from the courage and heroism shown by the young men and women on both sides. On the contrary, by stripping away the fantasy and leaving us with the grim realities of the Battle, the quiet heroism of the combatants is all the more remarkable.

This is a thoroughly professional piece of historical analysis, but it is also an engaging and very readable book.

Rating:
Summary: A REFLECTION OF THE BATTLE ON "BATTLE OF BRITAIN DAY" 2004
Review: Though many books have been written on the Battle of Britain since the end of the Second World War, Stephen Bungay's book offers some fresh insights on the Battle.

Using material from both British and German sources, Bungay shows that the Luftwaffe, despite its impressive show of strength from Poland to the defeat of France in June 1940, was not capable of waging a strategic bombing campaign against Britain which could have defeated it. An invasion of Britain could only have succeeded through a concerted effort of the German Army, Navy, and Luftwaffe.

Furthermore, the German leadership was not wholly confident that Germany could defeat Britain. For a short time after France had fallen, it had hoped that Britain would be conciliatory to Germany and sue for peace. But when it became clear that Britain would fight, the Luftwaffe adapted a series of shifting tactics to neutralize and destroy RAF Fighter Command.

First, there were the attacks on shipping in the English Channel and radar stations. Then the Luftwaffe shifted over to attacks on RAF airbases, which, had they been more consistently carried out, might well have "neutered" RAF Fighter Command. Instead, Hitler, in a pique of anger over Britain having dropped bombs on Berlin, set the Luftwaffe to bombing London. This gave RAF Fighter Command the breathing space it needed to rest, refit, and take on the Luftwaffe in larger numbers. (Bungay shows that throughout the Battle, British aircraft production increased significantly relative to German aircraft production.)

Germany, full of hubris in the summer of 1940, made the mistake of underestimating the capacity of the RAF to challenge the Luftwaffe and Britain's will to fight for its survival.

The book is well-written, comprehensive, easy to read, and comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.


Rating:
Summary: Overconfidence is the real enemy
Review: Unlike Americans, who have an uncommon love of bragging about everything from the trivial to the terrific, the English have a fondness for understatement that tends of ignore the reality of their accomplishments.

When the Soviets asked Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt, the Wehrmacht's most senior operational commander, which battle he considered as the most decisive of the war in Europe. They expected him to cite Stalingrad, instead he said, "The Battle of Britain."

Had the Germans won the Battle of Britain, England could not have won the Battle of the North Atlantic and may well have been forced to accept peace terms similar to France. According to former War Minister Hore-Belisha, "the Tory party in the House were not very interested in the war, were afraid for their possessions and of the rise of Labour . . . . . " The Russians may well have defeated Germany, but that would have left all of Europe under Soviet control, not merely the eastern half of Europe as eventually happened.

The English myth of the Battle of Britain is similar to stories about Sir Francis Drake and the Spanish Armada in 1588, when Drake preferred to finish a game of bowls before sailing out to rout the Spanish. In 1940, the myth created by Churchill is that "Never before has so much been owed by so many to so few." Like Dunkirk, the image was one of luck, pluck and mucking through the confusion, ineptness and amateurism. Bungay shows the triumph of British planning and readiness.

The German image, reinforced by quick and easy defeats of Poland and France, was that of an impregnable military machine guided by highly experienced professionals using superior technology with the rigorous discipline of well trained and effective troops. In contrast, the British were thought to be slightly dowdy country squires lucky enough to deny victory to the superb German military. Much of this legacy is based on the image of the Munich Agreement of 1938, which has ever since been used to describe English politicians as too weak to fight and too scared to rearm.

Reality is quite different. Bungay explains the British victory was based on a superb plan of operations and aircraft development that began in earnest in 1936 and was rigorously carried out in 1940. The basic idea was developed in 1922. Instead of being unprepared and underarmed, Britain was perhaps the world's best prepared and best armed nation in terms of air defense in the 1940s. The result was a decisive British victory which left the Luftwaffe crippled.

To summarize, the British fought the Battle of Britain with a Teutonic thoroughness for organization, planning, discipline and effort; they left little to chance, planned for the worst cases and didn't rely on luck. In short, the British behaved like Germans at their best, though these qualities were tempered and restrained by the civility of traditional English life. The Germans fought with a British thoroughness for bickering, personal petty disputes and trusting in an ability to muddle through; it is hardly an accident that two of the top German commanders committed suicide as a result of the internal wrangling and bitterness within the Luftwaffe high command.

In 1940, the British knew they needed a united effort if they were to win; the Germans didn't adopt a similar attitude until mid-1945, when they realized they would need a united effort if their country was to survive in the post-war period. The British, in 1945, having won through a magnificent team effort, changed governments and embarked on an "I'm all right, Jack" philosophy backed up by union strikes designed to win the maximum benefit for their members even at the price of national economic survival.

Maybe the British should learn to boast . . . . .

However, the irony today is that the epitome of English luxury, the Rolls Royce automobile -- once a product of the same company that in 1940 built engines for Spitfires -- is now powered by engines made by the same company that built engines for the Me-109s that failed so ingloriously in 1940.

But, is that something to boast about?

Rating:
Summary: The best
Review: Yes, simply the best book about the Battle of Britain ever written.