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Dorniers of 9/KG.76 flying low over the Channel.
British shipping viewed through the ‘glasshouse’ of a Heinkel He 111.
One Messerschmidt ‘Bf-110 drowning’ in the Channel.
The Battle of Britain can be segmented into five phases. First was the Kanalkampf , the channel battle, which lasted from 10 July to early August. This was followed by Operation Eagle, which began on Adlertag, or Eagle Day and was the main air battle between the Fighter Command and the Luftwaffe. This phase began on 13 August 1940 and lasted until 18 August. Following Adlertag, Goring decided to switch tactics and attack Fighter Command’s airfields from 24 August through 6 September. The fourth phase was the “Battle of London” in which Goring, with Hitler’s permission began the day and night bombing of the city of London. The final phase started when Goring once again switched tactics. At this point, he began the highly destructive but strategically ineffective night bombing of London in a last ditch attempt to salvage Operation Sea Lion. Finally, on 17 September 1940, Hitler decided against the invasion and postponed Operation Sea Lion “Until further notice.”
Early on Wednesday, 10 July Goring launched the Luftwaffe into their first major attack against England. At 0330 hours, the British radar stations picked up signals the Germans were on their way. Shortly after, 20 to 30 German bombers attacked the south coast towns of Plymouth, Weymouth, Falmouth, Portsmouth and Dover as well as any British convoys they came upon in the channel.
The Kanalkampf comprised a series of running fights over convoys in the English Channel and occasional attacks on the convoys by Stuka dive-bombers. It was launched partly because Kesselring and Sperrle were not sure about what else to do, and partly because it gave German aircrews some training and a chance to probe the British defenders. In general, these battles off the coast tended to favour the Germans, whose bomber escorts massively outnumbered the convoy patrols. The need for constant patrols over the convoys put a severe strain on RAF pilots and machines, wasting fuel, engine hours and exhausting the pilots, but eventually the number of ship sinkings became so great the British Admiralty cancelled all further convoys through the Channel. However, these early combat encounters provided both sides with experience. They also gave the first indications some of the aircraft, such as the Defiant and Bf 110, were not up to the intense dog-fighting that would characterise the battle.
During the Kanalkampf phase of the battle, approximately 40,000 tons of British shipping was sunk but the Royal Navy was untouched during these raids. Various estimates exist for the number of aircraft shot down on both sides, but it appears approximately 180 German aircraft were shot down to 70 British. Since approximately 100 of the German aircraft lost were bombers, the fighter to fighter destruct ratio was relatively even. Stephen Bungay in his excellent ‘The Most Dangerous Enemy’ has figures of 85 Luftwaffe aircraft written-off in accidents alone between 10th July and 11th August (for a total of 301 Luftwaffe aircraft destroyed against 162 for Fighter Command). Of the 162 destroyed planes of Fighter Command between 10th July and 10th August, 47 were lost in accidents. The disparity comes from the scope of the Kanalkampf. The number of Luftwaffe losses that Bungay points out is referring to absolutely all of Luftwaffe losses during that period, while the RAF losses are only those of Fighter command.
However, besides attacking convoys, the Luftwaffe was attacking various English port installations, and at night was making raids further inland. Those attacks were often done with inadequate or altogether missing fighter escorts (the Luftwaffe was still learning the proper tactics…). In addition to that the Luftwaffe was fending RAF bomber attacks. The losses of RAF bomber command and RAF coastal command are not included in the above comparison, but they did affect Luftwaffe losses. Luftwaffe casualties during this phase of the Battle include the nephew of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Göring, who is killed when his Messerschmidt Bf 110C twin-engined heavy fighter is shot down by a Hawker Hurricane flown by Squadron Leader J.S. Dewar of No.87 Squadron on 11 July.
Hitler became impatient with this phase of the war. He believed the British were already beaten before Kanalkampf but they would not recognize this fact. Hitler continued to insist throughout this period that he had no real desire to humiliate Britain they way he did France. He even believed that coexistence between the expanded German empire and the old British Empire was possible and might even be to their mutual advantage.” Kanalkampf , the opening phase, thus ended on or about 31 July in a stalemate.
