In the early 1990s, two gray-haired war veterans got together to talk about old times, as they had done on several previous occasions. Both men were fit and prosperous. Ted Shipman was well-known for his work with the Red Cross. Hans Kettling had a successful business in Düsseldorf.

During their reunion, there was much talk and many reminiscences—about the war, and about what they had said and done when they were both still fairly young and foolish. Their meeting was probably not very different from any one of a thousand other such reunions, except for one detail—at their first encounter, Ted Shipman had tried to kill Hans Kettling, and had very nearly succeeded.

The first time they met was 15,000 feet over Yorkshire, in the summer of 1940. At the time, Ted Shipman was Pilot Officer Edward Shipman, Royal Air Force, of 41 Squadron; he was at the controls of a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I. Hans Kettling was an Oberleutnant in the German Luftwaffe, piloting a Messerschmitt Bf 110.

Oberleutnant Kettling’s unit, The Richthofen Geschwader, had taken off from Stavanger, Norway, as an escort to Heinkel 111 bombers that were to attack air bases in the Englsih Midlands. Before they reached the coast of England, however, Pilot Officer Shipman and the rest of 41 Squadron were up to intercept. P/O Shipman attacked two Bf 110s without any results before getting behind Oberleutnant Kettling.

Shipman fired “a long burst” at the Bf 110, saw the starboard engine begin to smoke heavily, and watched Kettling’s fighter make an “erratic” turn to port, “apparently out of control.’’ Kettling dove for the clouds, but was attacked by more Spitfires before he could make good his escape.

When his second engine was hit and his rear gunner shot, Kettling made a crash-landing in a field. He and his gunner, Obergefreiter Fritz Volk, were taken prisoner by “cut-throats with sticks, stones, and hayforks.” The cut-throats quickly surrendered their prisoners to the police, much to the relief of the two Germans.

In the police cells, Volk’s wounds were treated; both he and Kettling were given “an excellent dinner.” They spent the next few months in England. Kettling was eventually sent to Canada, where he spent the rest of the war.

Many years after the war had ended, Shipman and Kettling were re-united by a British aviation enthusiast. In their old age, the two former adversaries became good friends. But in 1940, they were deadly enemies—two young fliers at each other’s throats. “I would have shot Ted Shipman without a thought,” Kettling said. Shipman probably felt the same way about Kettling.

Britain and Nazi Germany were also at each other’s throats in the summer of 1940, as they faced each other across the narrow English Channel—or, as the Germans called it, “der Kanal.” The war had been a one-sided affair up to that point, all in favor of Germany. In six weeks, the Wehrmacht had overrun Belgium and the Netherlands; had overwhelmed France, and forced the once-magnificent French army to surrender; and had trapped the British army against the Channel on the beaches of Dunkirk. Only good luck, and bad judgment on the part of the Germans, allowed most of the British forces to escape—plucked off the French beaches and evacuated back to England by a makeshift navy of small boats and pleasure craft, in the “Miracle of Dunkirk.”

Britain now faced the enemy alone. Soon after France surrendered in June, German forces moved into position just across the Channel from southern England and waited for the order to attack. Adolf Hitler hoped that no such attack would be necessary. He thought that Britain’s position was hopeless, and was convinced that the government in London would ask for an armistice, just as the French had done. The German Chief of Staff, Alfred Jodl, predicted: “The final victory over England is now only a question of time.”

But Hitler and his General Staff had misjudged the opposition. The British made it very clear that they had no intention of surrendering. Winston Churchill, who had warned of the consequences of German re-armament during the 1930s, had become Prime Minister on 10 May—the same day that the “Phoney War” came to an abrupt end when German forces invaded the Low Countries. In a speech before the House of Commons, Churchill eloquently summarized the British position:

What General Weygand has called “The Battle of France” is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

Britain may not have thought of the time as their finest hour, but now they knew what their position was— there had been talk of an armistice in London as well. They also knew that there were some very rough times in store for them.

Hitler and his General Staff now knew the British position, as well, and they were incredulous. They knew— better than the British public—how desperate Britain’s position was; German intelligence kept them well informed. Although the British army had been rescued from captivity at Dunkirk, the High Command knew that all of their equipment had been left behind in France. Some soldiers did not even have rifles; many who took their rifles back to England had no ammunition for them.

On 19 July, Adolf Hitler made his famous “peace offer” to Britain in a speech in Berlin’s Reichstag, an “appeal to reason and common sense” which was meant to persuade the British to end the war. The British response was quick and emphatic—in the words of William L. Shirer, “a great big No.” No specific terms were mentioned by Hitler, but Britain made it quite clear that they wanted no part of Hitler or his guarantees of peace.

Hitler realized that he would now have to prepare for war with Britain, which would mean an invasion of England. He did not want this war; he feared that it might prove long and costly, and might cost more than he could afford. But now he had no choice.

At that point in time, no invasion plans existed—which was one of the main reasons Hitler wanted to avoid war with Britain. His generals were masters of land warfare—as they had just proved in France—but had no idea of the sea or of amphibious operations. The Wehrmacht could have crushed the British army, if they had the chance to fight. But separating the German armies from their enemy—and from domination of Europe— was the English Channel. Hitler’s armies would have to cross the Channel if they intended to win the war.

The invasion of England was not something that Hitler looked forward to; he knew enough about history to realize that no one had succeeded in a cross-Channel invasion in nearly 900 years. But he had great faith in his military forces, which had perfected the blitzkrieg, “lightning war,” which combined the forces of infantry, armor, and air power to crush and overwhelm the enemy. In just six weeks, the German army and Luftwaffe had done something that the Kaiser’s armies had not been able to accomplish in more than four years during the First World War—force France to surrender.

Hitler would have preferred an armistice. But if the British wanted war, he would see to it that his Luftwaffe would give them all the war they wanted. On 16 July, the Führer’s Headquarters issued “Directive No. 16 on the Preparation of a Landing Operation against England”:

Since England, despite her militarily hopeless situation, still shows no sign of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and if necessary to carry it out.

The aim of this operation is to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the carrying on of the war against Germany and, if it should become necessary, to occupy it completely.

Britain was now Nazi Germany’s only active enemy. The United States and the Soviet Union were not yet involved. The Russians were Germany’s implicit ally—they would continue to sell oil to Germany, oil which would fuel the bombers that would attack London. The United States would remain stubbornly neutral—a growing cause of resentment among the British.

Germany and her war machine had just crushed France and the Low Countries. Now, German forces were beginning preparations for “Operation Sea Lion,” the invasion of England. During the month of July, Luftwaffe bomber and fighter units began moving to bases in northern France, a few minutes” flying time from southern England.

For Germany, the coming battle would decide the outcome of the war. Britain, however, had two battles. The first was for survival against the Luftwaffe. The second, equally desperate, was to win allies in their war against Germany.

The fight for a strong, dependable ally, especially an American ally, would become as important as the battle against Germany and the Luftwaffe. As much time and effort would be spent on the propaganda war, time and effort to convince Americans that Britain could win the battle, as was spent on the battle itself.

Even in the history of warfare, where the unusual tends to be commonplace, the Battle of Britain is unique. In previous wars, campaigns lasted for a matter of days or weeks, but the Battle of Britain went on for 114 days—the official dates are from 10 July to 31 October 1940. It was also history’s first great air battle. Its outcome was decided entirely by aircraft, and the daily fighting was carried out by a comparative handful of pilots and aircrew on either side.

Historians have divided the battle into phases, but do not always agree on how many phases, or when they began or ended—Some insist upon four phases; others say five phases. Some German historians consider the first phase of the battle, der Kanalkampf, to be a separate battle, since the Luftwaffe considered it an attack on shipping in the Channel instead of an air battle.

In addition to being a source of controversy, the battle has also become the greatest source of romantic myth and legend since the fall of Troy. All sorts of words, true and otherwise, have been expended on the subject. One American writer thought the British people had found “a fearful elation” in the knowledge that “they would soon be fighting for their very survival,” and that the country exhibited “a mood of Shakespearean poetry- drama.”

An actual participant in the battle was no less rhapsodic. “They were wonderful, weird, exciting days,” said one squadron leader. “High summer, 1940—that is a time to look back upon with wonder,” wrote Hugh Dundas, a Spitfire pilot with 616 Squadron. And British writer Richard Collier could not restrain himself from going on about the “chivalrous jousting of the skies.”

Reality was a good deal less romantic, however. Britain was unprepared for Operation Sea Lion. Winston Churchill knew it; so did his war cabinet and all senior military commanders, although they tried to convince America otherwise. The fact was that only one fully-equipped division could be activated against a German landing. The Admiralty admitted that the navy would not have the strength or the numbers to prevent the crossing of a German invasion fleet. And RAF Fighter Command had lost nearly half its strength in the French campaign—one hundred aircraft had been shot down at Dunkirk alone.

German commanders realized that the Luftwaffe would have to win control of the air over the Channel if an invasion were to succeed. Otheriwise, the army and naval landing units would be mauled by the RAF before they could get anywhere near the English landing beaches.

German army High Command (OKH—Oberkommando des Heeres) originally planned to land 40 divisions on the south coast, between Ramsgate, Kent, and Lyme Bay, and advance north to Maldon, Essex. This would isolate London, which could then be taken at leisure. This plan was scaled down to a landing of nine divisions between Folkstone and Brighton, a much narrower front, which would be supported by two parachute divisions—a total of 200,000 men.

Senior naval staff officers drafted a reply to the army’s plan, suggesting a small landing force and stressing the problems that the navy would face during a large amphibious landing. Although the army and the navy did not see eye to eye, both sides agreed on one item: air supremacy would be vital to the success of any invasion.

Luftwaffe units, of both Bomber and Fighter Command, were already moving into position. On 26 July, Jagdgeschwader 26 was ordered from its bases near the Rhine to the Channel coast. (Jagdgeschwader is normally translated as ‘’Fighter Wing.”) The Geschwader’s three gruppen (squadrons) occupied three airfields near Calais: Audembert; Marquises Ost; and Caffiers. Both Caffiers and Marquises had been used by the Royal Flying Corps—the predecessor of the Royal Air Force—in 1914–18. Major Adolf Galland, soon to become almost legendary for his abilities in flying and shooting, would command III Gruppe (about 30 Messerschmitt Bf 109s).

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the Luftwaffe’s flamboyant (and drug-addicted) commander-in-chief, was confident that his air force would have absolutely no trouble in subduing the RAF. Overconfident, in fact. He predicted that the RAF wouldn’t last a month—one of several remarks that would come back to haunt him.

But Göring could be excused for having too much faith. Morale among pilots and aircrew was high—they had just destroyed France’s Armee de l’Air in just over a month, and believed that they would do the same to the RAF. The Luftwaffe’s Chief of Staff, Generaloberst Hans Jeschonnek, reflected the German air force’s optimism when he predicted, “The Luftwaffe [alone] will conquer England in a matter of weeks.”

In Britain, the mood could not have been more different. The Luftwaffe had come away from the Battle of France in triumph; the RAF escaped in tatters. At the beginning of June, in the wake of their losses in France, Fighter Command had only 413 serviceable aircraft: 79 Blenheims (used primarily as night fighters); 9 Defiants (obsolete 2-man fighters); 162 Spitfires; and 163 Hurricanes.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, said that he would not be able to guarantee air superiority for more than 48 hours if the Luftwaffe “developed a heavy air attack on this country at this moment.”

The optimistic attitude of the Luftwaffe in the spring of 1940 is evident in Oberleutnant Hans Ulrich Kettling, who joined the air force in the late 1930s. He decided to join Fighter Command, and was assigned to the Richthofen Geschwader, which flew the brand-new Messerschmitt Bf 109.

Originally, young Hans had intended to join the merchant navy, but vacancies were scarce—it was the middle of the Depression, and more young men than usual were anxious to get away from an economically devastated Germany. In 1936, his school’s headmaster addressed the top class; the message was that the new Luftwaffe was looking for recruits. The Luftwaffe offered another way to get out of the Depression.

Hans listened to his headmaster’s talk, and became “desperately interested.” He had read about the pilots of the First World War, especially Manfred von Richthofen, and considered himself a “patriotic German.” He also belonged to the Nazi Youth movement, although he says that he was not an ‘’ardent Nazi.”

After he completed his training, Kettling was assigned to the Richthofen Geschwader. “Can you imagine that for a young man’s pride?” he asked—joining a unit that was named after one of Germany’s leading heroes, and one of his own personal idols.

But Kettling and his fellow pilots were not being trained to bolster their pride. By 1937, Germany was already preparing for war on a number of fronts—against Austria; against “Red” Spain; against Czechoslovakia; against France—and had drafted two Kriegsfalle (literally “war plans”) for war on two fronts. In 1938, with the Munich crisis, Germany nearly precipitated war when its forces occupied Sudeten Czechoslovakia.

Like most Germans, Kettling believed the official word from Berlin concerning these events. “We were told that we were going into other countries to protect our borders from foreign intrigue by Russia and France,” Kettling recalled. “Perhaps we wanted to believe. Perhaps we were young.”

And perhaps he really didn’t care. Adolf Hitler had transformed Germany from a weak and anxious little country into a strong and aggressive power. The means by which he had accomplished this did not concern Kettling; it also did not matter very much to millions of other Germans. It was this mentality that allowed Hitler to become absolute dictator, and to start a war that would devastate half the world.

War finally came when German troops invaded Poland on 1 September 1939; two days later, Britain declared war on Germany. But war seemed a happy adventure to a young and inexperienced Luftwaffe officer; Kettling didn’t worry. His unit was equipped with the Bf 109; pilots who had flown them in the Spanish Civil War, as part of the Fascist “Condor Legion,” said that the 109 was the best fighter in the world. Kettling had flown a few combat sorties in Czechoslovakia, where his unit met “a bit of resistance” from a few obsolete bi-planes. Most of the Czech fighters had been destroyed on the ground. “War, it seemed, was very easy,” he recalled.

Before war was declared, Kettling’s Staffel was transferred. His unit would now fly the twin-engined Messerschmitt Bf 110 Zerstörer (destroyer). Kettling was impressed with the new aircraft. “Not a fighter. A destroyer. Heavy armour. Two engines. Longer range . . . . in front, we had two cannon and four guns, all controlled by a switch on the stick. Lovely! You could break up a bomber with one squirt, clear a road, scatter a regiment.”

During the Polish campaign in the autumn of 1939, the Luftwaffe fought against obsolete airplanes, mostly bi-planes with fixed landing wheels. Kettling speaks of the campaign in Poland as “lovely days” of excitement, and of “free hunting” against targets of opportunity.

Kettling also fought in the Norwegian campaign of early 1940. His Staffel had been ordered to an airfield that was thought to have been captured by German paratroops. But when Kettling and his unit arrived, they discovered that the field was still in British hands. Their Bf 110s were attacked by obsolete Gloster Gladiator biplanes, which shot down one of the Messerschmitts.

The airplanes were low on fuel, so they had no choice but to land. On the ground, Kettling and his radioman/gunner carried the rear machine gun out of the plane, “and started fighting like infantry.” A short while later, a couple of Junkers troop carriers also landed; the troops they carried rescued the two fliers from the British army. This operation earned Kettling the Iron Cross.

But in spite of these encounters—or maybe because of them—war was still an adventure for Kettling. The Luftwaffe had not yet come up against a modern air force—airplanes that could compete with Messerschmitt fighters, flown by determined pilots. In the coming months, Kettling’s opinion that war was “very easy,” as well as the Luftwaffe’s aircraft, pilots, and methods, would face its first real test.

If Hans Kettling thought war was an easy adventure, Ted Shipman hadn’t thought about war at all. “We spent most of our time in tents, playing cards. Talking. There was no real emotion or apprehension for most of us. Awar was on, so what? That’s what we had trained for. What’s to worry about. It showed how little we know.”

Shipman had been in the Royal Air Force for ten years by the time the Battle of Britain was approaching. He joined in 1930 because he was “tired of hoeing turnips” on his father’s small farm. But memories of the First World War also influenced his decision to join. He remembered FE-2 bi-planes landing at a nearby aerodrome between 1914 and 1918, and had heard stories of two older cousins in the Royal Flying Corps.

Civilian instructors, not the RAF, taught him to fly. A fellow aircraftsman went to get a free test flight at a flying school; Shipman went along for company. When the instructor asked,

‘’How about you, too, son?” Shipman said yes. Six months later, he was awarded his “A” license.

Shipman did a bit of flying as part of his duties; he was personal fitter to an air commodore, and sometimes “took the stick” of the commodore’s personal bi-plane. But he was not taken on as a pilot until 1935, when world events began to look ominous. Benito Mussolini, dictator of Fascist Italy, had invaded Ethiopia in 1935, and Adolf Hitler was making belligerent noises in Germany. The British Air Ministry were becoming increasingly concerned (unlike their American counterparts).

“I don’t think anyone believed there was going to be another big war,” Shipman said. “But there was enough going on in Europe for someone to think we ought to have a few more pilots.” Shipman trained as a fighter pilot in obsolete bi-planes, like the Gloster Gladiator, and received instruction in obsolete tactics—flyng in tight “V” formation. The V, or ‘’vic,” formation may have looked very impressive at an air show, but would prove lethal to British pilots in combat—emphasis was placed upon keeping tight formation and watching the flight leader, instead of looking out for the enemy.

In June 1939, however, conditions took a definite turn for the better—41 Squadron was equipped with the Supermarine Spitfire Mark I. These early Spitfires had their limitations, Shipman remembers. They only had “a single wooden propeller, and you had to pump up the wheels by hand. But it was marvelous. It gave you everything you loved about flying—and ten times more. As a fighting machine? No, no, no . . . we still didn’t think we’d be using it for that. It was just a superb aeroplane to fly.”

Although the situation over on the Continent was going from bad to worse, with Hitler making threats to invade both Poland and Czechoslovakia, the pilots of 41 Squadron carried on with their training, and tried not to think about what might happen. When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September, and Britain and France declared war two days later, nothing much changed. For the first few weeks, war was “a seamless continuation of the previous not-very real training.” In October, however, reality revealed its unwanted presence in the form of a German patrol craft on the prowl.

Pilot Officer Shipman’s flight scrambled to intercept the intruder over the North Sea, and was vectored to the area by the ground controller; “Suddenly, at 10 o’clock, this distant plane.” Nobody had seen a German machine up to that time. Shipman led his section down to have a good look—”I was anxious about ID,” and did not want to shoot down a British plane by mistake.

Changing from a peacetime mentality to a war mentality was not an easy transition, even for a fighter pilot. Firing eight Browning .303 caliber machine guns at a tow target was one thing; shooting at a real airplane, with real men inside of it, was something else again. P/O Shipman wanted to make very sure of his quarry before be pressed the firing button.

And, oh God, it was! One of them! The last thing I wanted to see was there—black and white crosses. Nothing else for it; I had to go to war.

I dropped behind him and gave him a real pasting. He started to go down in a long spin. The others then had a bash. We watched him go into the sea, saw several figures get into a dinghy, and radioed the position to base.

Shipman does not identify the type of aircraft that he and his flight shot down. He only added that he asked permission to visit the three surviving German crewmen in the hospital (and was refused permission). He didn’t want to talk much about 41 Squadron’s—and his own—first kill. “It was a big shock.” he says.

Following this somewhat violent start, P/O Shipman and 41 Squadron had a quiet winter. Over Dunkirk, they also had a rather quiet time—Shipman flew seven sorties over the beaches, thinks that he saw one German plane, and never fired a shot. After Dunkirk, 41 Squadron were transferred to Catterick, in North Yorkshire. From Catterick, they flew patrols against intruding enemy bombers, and waited to be called down to the battle over southern England.

Shipman and his fellow pilots had confidence in themselves and in their Spitfires. But they were not overly eager to go down and join the battle—they had heard all about the losses. Shipman realized that he would have to go if called. “But jumping up and down for the chance? No.”

Shipman was right about the losses suffered by Fighter Command—in July and August, the number of pilots who were killed and wounded was staggering. The RAF were pressing every pilot they could get into service to fill the vacancies. The Royal Navy transferred 75 pilots to Fighter Command. A few Army pilots, trained to fly unarmed reconnaissance aircraft, were also transferred to RAF fighter squadrons following an “accelerated”—meaning rushed—training course.

Fighter Command did manage to acquire some combat-seasoned pilots from countries that had been occupied by the Germans: Belgians, French, Czechs, and Poles. The problem was that there were so few of them—only 12 French pilots managed to escape to England, and only 29 Belgians got away.

But these pilots also had their drawbacks. Many were not accustomed to advanced fighters like the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Most had flown planes without retractable landing wheels—out-of-date bi-planes, which was one reason why the Luftwaffe enjoyed such great success. After giving an expert display of rolls, loops, and dives, these foreign pilots would sometimes wreck their planes when they forgot to put their wheels down before landing.

The language problem was another drawback. The Poles, for instance, were among the best, and most determined, pilots in Fighter Command. The only trouble was that they didn’t speak any English; they didn’t understand ground controllers, and could not be vectored to intercept an incoming flight of enemy aircraft. Before they could be classified as operational, the Poles would at least have to learn the basic rudiments of English. They would also have to learn flight jargon, such as “angels,” “vector,” ‘’bogey,” and “bandit.” Without the ability to communicate with ground control, the Poles would be as good as useless, for all their experience and determination.

Because of the desperate shortage of pilots, Fighter Command also decided to accept American volunteers. The Yanks might not have the combat experience of the Poles or the Czechs, but at least they spoke a language that was roughly similar to English. They could be vectored toward an incoming enemy bomber formation by ground control, and could sometimes even be understood when they spoke. (They might also prove useful as a propaganda device, to sway the opinion of neutral America.) The official records of the Royal Air Force list only seven Americans as having served with RAF Fighter command during the summer of 1940.

The seven “official” Americans in Fighter Command during the summer of 1940 are:

Pilot Officer Arthur Donahue: 64 Squadron;

Pilot Officer J.K. Haviland: 151 Squadron;

Pilot Officer W.M.L. Fiske: 601 Squadron;

Pilot Officer Vernon Keough: 609 Squadron;

Pilot Officer Phil Leckrone: 616 Squadron

Pilot Officer Andrew Mamedoff: 609 Squadron;

Pilot Officer Eugene Tobin: 609 Squadron

Flight Lieutenant James Davies was one American who is not included in the RAF’s official records. Jimmy Davies was born in Bernardsville, New Jersey, in 1913, and attended Morristown High School. His family moved to Connecticut before he finished high school; Jimmy then went to the Gilbert School in Winstead. When he was about 18 or 19 years old, he and his parents moved again, this time to Bridgend in South Wales.

He couldn’t quite decide what he wanted to do with himself—he studied radio at Cardiff College for a while, and “did this and that for a year or two.” In 1936, he decided to join the Royal Air Force. He took a short service commission, and was posted to a fighter squadron. Davies flew bi-planes until just before the war broke out. In 1939, his squadron, 79 Squadron, was re-equipped with Hawker Hurricanes. By this time, Davies had been promoted twice, to the rank of Flight Lieutenant. (The U.S. Army Air Force equivalent is Captain.)

At the time, F/Lt. Davies and the rest of 79 Squadron were stationed at Biggin Hill aerodrome in Kent. In the coming Battle of Britain, Biggin Hill would acquire the dubious distinction of being one of the most active— and most frequently attacked—RAF stations. But at the beginning of the war, it was just another fighter base; its pilots and ground crews spent most of their time waiting for something to happen. Things first began to happen for 79 Squadron on 21 November. F/Lt. Davies was leading a section of four Hurricanes near Dover on that particular day, when a Dornier Do 17 “flying pencil” bomber was spotted at 12,000 feet, about 2,000 feet below the Hurricanes. No one had seen a German airplane up to that time, so “we went down carefully to make sure.”

British fighters had already shot down other RAF aircraft on at least one occasion—on 6 September, a group of Spitfires destroyed two Hurricanes, thinking them Messerschmitts; and anti-aircraft gunners shot down a twin-engine RAF Blenheim. Nobody wanted to be responsible for another fiasco like that one.

It didn’t take very long to recognize the intruding aircraft as a Dornier; its thin pencil of a fuselage was unmistakable. Davies went after him, got close behind him “and gave him three sharp bursts of fire.” Another member of his section, a Sergeant Pilot Brown, also got in several good shots. The Dornier turned over on its back, began an inverted dive toward the Channel, and crashed into the water with a huge splash.

When Davies returned to Biggin Hill, he was handed a package—a bottle of champagne, compliments of the station commander. It had been 79 Squadron’s first fight with a German aircraft, and they had won. The Dornier had also been the first enemy airplane destroyed over British home waters of the Second World War, and had been Biggin Hill’s first German aircraft. “In those days, one German aircraft was something to celebrate,” Davies said. During the coming months, Biggin Hill and its pilots would see hundreds of German aircraft; at the end of August 1940, the station itself would be attacked almost on a daily basis.

After spending a quiet winter, Davies was sent to France when German forces invaded the Low Countries in May 1940. His second victory came on 14 May, when he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 110. His squadron was in France only for eleven days; they were withdrawn to England after covering the evacuation of British and French forces at Dunkirk. By the end of June, Davies had been credited with six enemy aircraft destroyed, and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. On the day that he was to have been presented with the DFC by George VI, 25 June 1940, Davies was himself shot down and killed.

Following the presentation ceremony at Biggin Hill that day, the King asked about the remaining DFC on the table. He was told about the expatriate American. A squadron mate of Davies thought that the King was “quite moved.”

Davies’ six enemy aircraft destroyed by the end of June 1940 would make him the first American ace of the war. American record books do not recognize him, however; his achievement, being the first American to destroy five or more enemy planes, seems to have been overlooked rather than snubbed. Which seems incredible, in light of Britain’s attempts to convince the United States that the war was America’s fight. Jimmy Davies was born in America, spent most of his life there, became the first American to win the Distinguished Flying Cross—and almost no mention was given either to him or his accomplishments. But there would be other opportunities, and other Americans, that would present themselves in the coming weeks; this time, the Ministry of Information would use their publicity value to the fullest advantage. (A great deal of time, energy, and effort—and money—has been expended over the question: Who was the first American killed in the Battle of Britain? F / Lt Davies was killed two weeks before the battle officially began, on 10 July 1940, yet very little mention is made of him.)

On 2 July 1940 OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, which is usually translated as High Command of the Armed Forces) issued this directive:

The Führer and Supreme commander has decided: That a landing in England is possible, providing that air superiority can be attained and certain other necessary conditions fulfilled. The date of commencement is still undecided. All preparations to begin immediately.

“. . . provided that air superiority can be attained . . .” The beginning of history’s first great air battle was just a week away. Its outcome would be decided by factors unheard of and undreamed of by leaders of previous wars.

John Shipman