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

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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.

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.....

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.

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?

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".

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.

Having read numerous works on the Battle of Britain, I can now advise the reader where to begin: Stephen Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy. It will be regarded by WWII enthusiasts as the starting point in one's quest to discover the facts behing this pivotal event. This is the main course after which the accounts of Churchill and those who led Fighter Command and flew with it will be as dessert and coffee. Buy it now and enjoy!

The most exhaustive accout of the Battle of Britain I have read to date and there are many excellent accounts. This book does the best job of recording the contribution of Keith Park and finally puts the "big wing" theory in perspective.

A very well writtten book about not only the Battle itself but also its implications at the time and its pivotal role in shaping the world as we now know it. Few people fought this battle, compared to others of similar importance, but the outcome was to define the world for the rest of the century.
In analyzing both adversaries, their strategies, weaknesses and virtues it comes to set aside some time honored myths about the Battle that makes this book worth reading. The author took part on a BBC documentary Ace of Spitfire. Also worth viewing.

"The Most Dangerous Enemy" is a quote from Oberst Beppo Schmid, head of Luftwaffe intelligence in 1939 expressing his considered opinion that Britain's RAF would be the most dangerous enemy the Lutfwaffe might face in the future and that war should be avoided if possible. Schmid's assessment turned out to be prophetic and far-sighted.

Stephen Bungay is a successful business strategist and in this book he brings his professional skills to the examination the air conflict over Britain in 1940. The leadership abilities of the various commanders on both sides and their understanding and use of the new technologies, structures and equipment available to them are examined. His conclusion explodes popular myths of "the few" muddling through with guts and optimism to reveal that the British side was characterised by hard-headed professionalism, thoroughness, realism and forward planning, the far-sighted use of new technologies like RDF and the husbanding of limited resources with skill and intelligence. The German side on the other hand was characterised by incompetence, infighting, lack of clarity about objectives, failure to understand the strengths of their opponents and a misuse of aircraft resources in ways which were mostly wasteful and ineffective.

Bungay's analysis reveals that by the summer of 1940 RAF Fighter Command had built up the most modern and effective air defence network on Earth, with an understanding of all the elements necessary to conduct a long and successful campaign against a would-be invader. In particular Fighter Command's organisation into four regional groups, with squadrons rotated to rebuild and recover after spells of heavy fighting, was a modern and far-sighted policy. The RDF and Observer Corps network fed live information into a robust command and control system then able to rapidly assess the strength of the oncoming enemy and direct operations effectively. This model had its roots in the WW1 defence of London and in its refined form was to prove lethal to the Luftwaffe in 1940. The Germans failed to appreciate the importance of the RDF (later called radar) stations, which being located on the coast made easy targets for precision bombing and never-carried-out commando raids. Bungay is not the first writer to identify these factors but he does bring fresh perspectives and a lot of detail.

Hugh Dowding (unsurprisingly) and Keith Park (more controversially, but good case made) are together credited with being the chief contributors winning the battle. Bungay demonstrates for example that Park's strategy of throwing 11 Group squadrons in ones or twos at the invading German bomber forces to ensure they were continually engaged all the time they were in UK airspace was incomparably more effective than Leigh-Mallory's "big wing" idea championed in 12 Group. With Park's philosophy the enemy was continuously harassed and could never relax, the attacking RAF fighter pilots were always in a "target-rich environment" and had consistently higher kill ratios. The "big wing" idea was unsuited to air defence and never effective for a number of reasons. Park was also a very modern leader, visiting airfields in 11 Group personally in his Hurricane on a daily basis, listening to his pilots' accounts of the battle and encouraging his men face-to-face, respected by everyone in 11 Group but with little time for playing the politics game. Interestingly I was in Trafalgar Square yesterday (April 2010) and was astounded and delighted to see a new, twice-as-large-as-life statue of Keith Park occupying the controversial fourth plinth, with a plaque commemorating him as "The Defender of London".

In addition to being crammed with facts and forensic historical detail about the air fighting the book is lively, interesting and occasionally poetic. Here whilst describing the relative strengths of the three main fighter aircraft he introduces the Spitfire:

"The Hurricane... was very good, but a somewhat plain and homely country girl, well-behaved and reliable. Her time in the limelight was to be cut brutally short by the appearance on stage of a real glamour-puss, a lady of such refined and curvaceous beauty and class that she instantly seduced every young man who climbed into her cockpit, and with such charisma that the public as a whole just stopped and stared every time she passed. They still do." This is inspired writing, and makes a fine complement to the factual analysis at the core of the book.

There is interesting detail about the relative strengths of the different aircraft, the most effective air fighting tactics, the differing motivations of the pilots on each side and the air-sea rescue services. The contribution of Bomber Command, flying against great odds (and suffering great losses) over Germany and France throughout 1940 to attack airfields, factories and invasion barges is not neglected. There are maps, charts, tables and photographs. The human side of the story is not ignored and many survivors from both sides are interviewed. Some of the stories are genuinely poignant and moving, but never sentimental.

History records that a non-aggression pact was on offer by Hitler to Britain in the summer of 1940, and a strong faction in Parliament supported a peaceful settlement right up to 1942. The author concludes the book with informed speculation as to what might have been had Churchill been voted down or removed and Britain chosen to make such an accommodation, or indeed lost the battle. Without Britain opposing Hitler and remaining a base for Anglo-American forces to re-invade Western Europe in 1944, Nazi or more likely eventual Soviet hegemony from the Chinese border to the Atlantic coast would have been the result by 1947 or 1948, and world history very different.

Overall "The Most Dangerous Enemy" is a scholarly and informative book which would be interesting to any serious student of history and at the same time it's a lively, engrossing and page-turning read. It's in every way excellent and deserves its reputation as probably the best-ever study of this important historic milestone in 20th century history.