War comes to the RAF in Sussex

Despite its designated role as a second line of defence, Sussex got off to a flying start when the war actually broke out. Within hours of the news breaking that Germany had invaded Poland, the head of Fighter Command, Sir Hugh Dowding, was in Tangmere. He had come to see squadron Leader P.  “Bull” Halahan, the commander of No.1 Squadron and he had a lot to say.

No.1 Squadron was one of those Hurricane squadrons earmarked for service in France. Preparations had been made weeks before to transport the squadron staff and all its ground equipment to France. Now Dowding came to give Bull Halahan some very specific instructions personally. He was not, Dowding said, to risk his aircraft or men unnecessarily. There was to be no fancy flying, just workmanlike missions. Above all, Halahan should expect no reinforcements. He had his 12 aircraft and 12 pilots which was what Dowding had been forced to promise the French. No more would go to France. Every fighter was going to be needed at home to protect British cities and British bases from attack.

Halahan did not record his reactions to this news. He led his squadron out to France to await the German onslaught. That left only No.43 Squadron at Tangmere, though they were soon joined by No.92 Squadron.




 

The Luftwaffe's Steinbock Offensive on Britain in 1944

As 1944 opened the long-planned invasion of France by combined British, Empire and American armies was becoming close to reality. England was groaning under the weight of men, tanks, guns and supplies – a contemporary joke had it that southern England might soon sink.

By January 1944 Fighter Command had achieved a clear superiority over the Luftwaffe in the skies over Britain, the North Sea, the Low Countries and northern France. That superiority had not yet become the total control of the skies that the planners of D-Day demanded had to be achieved, at least temporarily, but things were moving in the right direction. Yet even as the Luftwaffe was being defeated in the skies, Fighter Command was broken up.

On 15 November 1943 RAF Fighter Command was divided into two. The nightfighter Beaufighters and Mosquitoes, plus the older models of Spitfire and other fighters were formed into the Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB) force. Their task was to defend the skies over Britain from attack by German bombers by day or night.

The increasingly effective ground attack Typhoons and Hurribombers were allocated to the 2nd Tactical Air Force (TAF), along with some lighter bombers from Bomber Command. Their role was to attack those targets on the Continent that it was necessary to destroy before the invasion could take pale. These were chiefly transport links, but also coastal defences and supply depots.

The commander of Fighter Command, Leigh-Mallory, was transferred to take over the 2nd TAF, while the ADGB was given to Air Marshal Sir Roderic Hill. He would soon be very busy.

Soon after dusk on 17th January British radar station began to pick up large formations of German aircraft taking off from the Low Countries and Denmark. Then everything suddenly went blank. The Germans had developed a new and highly effective method of jamming radar, which they named düppel. Behind that mask a total of 227 bombers flew towards London.

Fortunately for the British, the jamming affected only the ground based radar, not the air-to-air radar sets carried by the Beaufighter and Mosquito nightfighters. In all 25 German aircraft were brought down by anti-aircraft guns or nightfighters. This loss rate of over 10% could not be sustained, but the new assault had been ordered personally by Hitler.

This Steinbock offensive was designed to damage cities and towns in England in the hope that this would somehow delay the expected Allied invasion of France. In fact it caused the deaths of 1556 civilians, and seriously injured more than 3,000. The losses to the Luftwaffe were heavy, around 300 bombers shot down out of 700 employed. The offensive petered out in early May.





 

Bomber Harris and Dambuster Gibson in Lincolnshire in 1939

Bomber Command’s 5 Group, based in Lincolnshire, was lucky in 1939 that it had two of the finest airmen of the war on its strength. Throughout the conflict, the thinking of these two men would have a profound impact on the bomber force based in Lincolnshire, and on how it was to perform.

The first was Arthur Travers Harris who, when war broke out, was the commanding officer of 5 Group, which was based in Lincolnshire. Although he was later to be widely known as “Bomber” Harris, the tough, taciturn officer was at this point rather better known for his enthusiasm for mine-laying.

Born in 1892, Harris had moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1910 in search of adventure and a fortune. He tried his hand at gold mining, wagon driving and cattle driving before getting a job on a remote tobacco farm. When news arrived at his settlement in 1914 that war had broken out, Harris at once volunteered to serve in the 1st Rhodesian Regiment as a bugler. He spent the following months footslogging through the African bush as the British colonies went to war against the German colonies.

When the colonial campaigns were over, Harris volunteered for service outside Africa. Determined never again to march to war, he transferred to the fledgling Royal Flying Corps. He proved to be a natural pilot: his instructor passing him fit for a solo flight after just 30 minutes in the air. Harris spent the remainder of the war as a fighter pilot guarding London from Zeppelin raids, interspersed with spells on the Western Front. After the war, Harris gained a promotion to Squadron Leader, which involved changing to flying bombers and to being stationed in India. After some years in India, Harris returned to Britain to take command of 58 Squadron which he trained so well that they won the RAF bombing championship and logged more night-flying hours than the rest of the RAF put together.

Harris then moved to the Air Ministry where he was put in charge of Operations and developing new weapons. It was here that Harris began the research programme that would eventually lead to the production of the mighty four-engined bombers of the later war years. Of more immediate use he sponsored the development of a marine mine that could be dropped from an aircraft in enemy waters. In 1938 Harris was promoted to the rank of Air Vice Marshal and sent to command the RAF in Palestine and Transjordan. The dry heat had a terrible effect on Harris’s health, so he was brought back to Britain to take command of 5 Group.

Harris was a supremely capable airman who had a sound and instinctive grasp of air combat. Throughout his career he was determined that his men would have the best equipment and training that was possible, and was dismissive of new fangled ideas until they proved their worth. In part, this gave Harris a reputation for being rather old-fashioned and doctrinaire. This was far from the truth. It was simply that Harris knew the dangers and risks his men would face in enemy skies. Time and again he refused to risk men’s lives unless he was certain that the effort was in a good cause. He came close to turning down the dambuster raid, perhaps the most famous event in Lincolnshire’s war, until convinced by Barnes Wallis that the bouncing bombs would actually work.

He was not, however, a particularly chatty or approachable man. He enjoyed his food and, even in 1939, was becoming rather portly as his job kept him increasingly tied to a desk. Indeed, he was known in Lincolnshire as “Tubby” by the men he commanded and the name persisted here even when the newspapers came to call him “Bomber”. Nor was Harris one to spend time visiting stations and bases on morale-boosting duties. He was firmly of the opinion that both he and his men had more important things to be getting on with. Despite, or perhaps because of this, Harris proved to be popular with those serving under him. He trusted them to do their jobs, and they appreciated that trust.

There was a second man in 5 Group when war broke out who would later become one of the most skilled and famous squadron leaders of all time, though in September 1939 he was one pilot among many. This was Guy Gibson, flying with 83 Squadron. Like Harris, he was a gifted pilot and, again like Harris, he was a natural leader of men. While Harris toiled to get aircraft and equipment for his men to use on realistic targets, Gibson was working to improve bomb-aiming and air-gunnery at a squadron level. The partnership was one that was to last.







   

The RAF bomb Gelsenkirchen oil plant 1944

Oil was a major target for RAF Bomber Command in 1944. One oil target bombed in daylight was the refinery at Gelsenkirchen, attacked by 462 Squadron flying out of Norfolk on 12 September. The bombaimer on one of the Halifaxes was Sergeant John Gibson, who was on the 30th and final flight of his first tour of duty. The bombers had been promised partial cloud cover over the target, but they found the sky bereft of any cloud when they arrived. Naked and open to the defences though they were, the squadron went in on their bombing run. A flak shell exploded beneath Gibson’s aircraft shattering the perspex canopy through which he was peering to aim the bombs. Shards of perspex peppered his face, blinding him with blood and debris. Despite this, Gibson calmly kept counting down to the moment of release. Although unable to see what he was doing, Gibson managed to release his bombs on cue and alongside the other aircraft so that they must had landed close to if not on the target. His calm counting when in great pain was so effective that the rest of the crew did not realise anything was wrong until Gibson called them on the intercom to report that he would appreciate a bit of help.






 

The Nechtansmere Campaign, England vs Scotland 685

The Battle of Nechtansmere took place some centuries before either England or Scotland were united kingdoms. It was, nevertheless, a defining moment in the warfare between the two peoples for it set a clear limit to the extent of English settlement in what is now southern Scotland.

By the 680s, the English kingdom of Northumbria stretched from the Humber to the Forth and from the North Sea to the Pennines. It also included stretches of countryside west of the Pennines north of Chester. The kings of Northumbria were the most powerful in Britain, but they now sought to extend their control north into lands held by the Picts, Britons and Scots. At this time the Picts inhabited the lands north of the Forth and Clyde and the island of Skye. The British kingdom of Clyde occupied the lands bounded by the Solway Firth, the Clyde and the Cheviots. The Kingdom of the Scots occupied the islands and peninsulas of Argyll, Mull and the surrounding area.

In 655 King Oswy of Northumbria launched a major invasion into the territory of his northern neighbours. He defeated the Scots and Britons, and demanded regular tribute of gold and silver. The Picts were crushed and divided. The southern Picts were put under a puppet ruler and their lands opened up to extensive English settlement. The northern Picts remained free, but also had to pay tribute and they were restricted to the Highlands. When Oswy died in 670 the northern Picts took the opportunity to marry the heiress to their kingdom to Bridei mac Beli, from the royal family of the Clyde Britons, and so forge an alliance. The new King of Northumbria, Egferth, was too busy establishing his power to interfere.

In 681 Bridei, by now King of the Picts, took over the Orkneys. Feeling confident, he refused to pay tribute to Northumbria. Egferth could not ignore such a blatant challenge to his power. He gathered an army and marched north in the spring of 685. His enemies were waiting for him near the modern town of Forfar.

Although records of the campaign are scanty, it is relatively easy to reconstruct the routes that brought the rival armies to the place of battle. Bridei and the northern Picts were clearly determined to free the southern Picts from the puppet rulers who did English bidding, and to conquer the English villages and farms established after Oswy’s conquests. As an opening move, Bridei marched south from his powerbase around Aberdeen. He ordered provocative raiding of Strathmore, where the native Picts outnumbered the immigrant English.

Egferth marched out of the English fortress of Edinburgh and along the southern shores of the Firth of Forth. This area had been part of English Northumbria for over a generation and Egferth was marching through friendly territory. Turning north, Egferth crossed the Forth near Stirling and marched into Strathallan. This area had seen the densest English settlements after the conquests of Oswy and the English probably outnumbered the Pictish population.

Egferth was following the old Roman road which had been built many years before to supply Roman forces on their patrols into hostile Pictish territory. Even after some generations of neglect, the road would have made for easier marching than dirt tracks. The Roman road would have taken him through Perth and then up the valley of the Isla to Inchtuthil. Here lay the Roman fortress of Pinnata Castra which, although ruined, would have provided a secure forward base for the English army.

It is unclear if the English king realised at this point that he was facing a full scale invasion rather than a larger than usual raid. Certainly, Egferth behaved as if he did not realise the true strength of his enemies. Nor did he have any real idea of where the Picts were. The Picts, on the other hand, knew exactly where the English were and how many had marched north. They set a careful ambush for the English along the route they knew Egferth would choose on his march from the ruined Roman fortress towards the west coast.

The Spanish Armada, A Campaign in Context - The Video

In this, the fourth book of Spellmount's "Campaign in Context" series, Rupert Matthews looks to the ill-fated invasion of England by King Philip II of Spain. The Armada of 22 warships and 108 converted merchant vessels sailed under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, but found itself harried by storms, fireships, and the redoubtable English fleet. In "The Spanish Armada", Rupert Matthews considers the characters of the commanders such as Francis Drake, Medina, and the opposing monarchs, and as with his previous titles in the series he carefully balances the evidence from textual sources with knowledge of the theatre and reconstructed weaponry in order to explain the events of the battle to the general reader, and the context in which it took place.

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Thermopylae, Spartans and Persians prepare for battle

Behind the Phocian Wall that blocked the pass at Thermopylae, Leonidas King of Sparta was likewise getting ready for the battle. He brought a young female goat to the wall, watched by the commanders of the other troops. The flautists who played the marching songs of the Spartans began to play sacred hymns. Leonidas called out to the skies, invoking the aid of Artemis Agrotera, who was the goddess of hunters and the forest. Then he killed the goat with a single stroke of his sword. The religious preliminaries over, he set to work ordering his forces to meet the attack that was obviously coming.

Xerxes had already decided on the plan of attack and must have discussed it at some length with his senior officers. Foremost among these were Mardonius and Hydarnes. Mardonius had commanded the army that had put down the revolt of the Ionian Greeks and had long been a supporter of war with Athens and Sparta. He was the son of Gobryas, one of the six Persian noblemen who had organised the coup that put Darius on the throne. This made Mardonius a member of one of the richest and most noble families in Persia, so it is no surprise that he was married to the daughter of Xerxes. He was now in overall command of the infantry.

Hydarnes was in command of the Immortals, the elite unit of the entire army and had responsibility for the 1,000 Royal Guards although these men were under the direct control of Xerxes and stayed with him at all times. Like Mardonius, Hydarnes was a highly placed Persian nobleman. His father, also named Hydarnes, had joined Gobryas in the coup that put Xerxes’ father on the throne. He was never far from the Great King and there are clues that he was more of a professional soldier than some others on the expedition.

The other two men who formed the high command with Xerxes were the brothers Harmamithras and Tithaeus. These noblemen commanded the cavalry, so their men were not to be heavily involved at Thermopylae. No doubt the cavalry were busy elsewhere, perhaps patrolling the surrounding areas, keeping an eye on the Thessalians to the rear or scouting the roads to the west. The brothers were sons of Datis, the commander of the Persian army at Marathon who had been killed by a Spartan executioner after the battle. They would have had a very keen and personal interest in the Spartan hoplites now facing the Persians at Thermopylae.

Of rather more immediate importance was one of the second rank commanders: Tigranes. This man was a member of the royal family, but seems to have come from a fairly junior branch as nobody bothers to record the names of his parents. Perhaps he was illegitimate. In 490bc, Tigranes was in command of the Median infantry. The Medes were tough mountain men who were counted almost as Persians within the empire, enjoying many of the honours and privileges of the ruling nation.

It was Tigranes that Xerxes now ordered to advance with his Medes to attack the Phocian Wall. The Medes had been chosen by Xerxes and his commanders as they believed these men had the best chance of success.