Weather: mainly cloudy
The day began with two attacks by the Luftwaffe against convoys heading south past the coast of East Anglia. The heaviest attack was against one of the convoys heading towards the North Foreland area of the Kent coast. Four squadrons from 12 Group were scrambled to intercept the more northerly of the attacks. At the same time German aircraft were intercepted off the Scottish coast near to Aberdeen. However, the city suffered 26 casualties as a result of the bombing. Then, later that morning an interception of an He111 was made off the coast of the Isle of Wight with the German aircraft being shot down.
It was a day when interception was made difficult by the persistence of fog over much of the North Sea and Channel. However, the day yielded 8 victories for the RAF whilst 6 RAF fighters were lost. The RAF flew 670 sorties.
74 Squadron Operational Record Book, 12 July, Hornchurch
At 16:30 hours Red Section left to investigate a raid 15 miles NE of Margate. AA fire was sighted from a ship which was being bombed by a He 111/ Flt Lt Malan DFC leading Red Section gave order to attack line eastern and opened attack closing to 300yds range. Heavy fire from the enemy aircraft’s rear gunner and silenced by Red Leader. Sgt Mould and PO Stevenson also attacked in turn and enemy aircraft seen to crash into the sea.
Today’s theme: The Squadrons – 54 Squadron
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 12, 2010 at 7:08 am
Tweets that mention Day 3 – July 12th 1940 « Battle of Britain Day by Day -- Topsy.com
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Brett Holman, Tony Rudd. Tony Rudd said: Day 3 – July 12th 1940: Weather: mainly cloudy The day began with two attacks by the Luftwaffe against convoys hea… http://bit.ly/91T9PD [...]
July 12, 2010 at 11:03 am
Airminded · Post-blogging 1940
[...] of Britain Day by Day – 12 July 1940 Duxford Operations Blog – 12 July 1940 Orwell Diaries – 10 July 1940 Spitfire Site [...]
July 12, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Pat Barnard
In the mid-1980′s I published a series of WWII fighter pilot profiles. These were written individually by the pilots and each included a first hand reports about a single combat that remained vividly in the mind of the pilot decades after the event. Contributing to the series were Bob Stanford-Tuck, Johnnie Johnson, Peter Townsend, ‘Cocky’ Dundas, Brian Kingcome, Pete Brothers and many others.
Among these is a first hand combat report written by the famous New Zealand Battle of Britain ace, Alan Deere, describing what was confirmed to be the first one-on-one combat between a Spitfire and a Messercchmitt Me 109. I will be happy to send a copy of this brief, un-edited combat report describing the dog-fight to anyone interested.
There are biographies of a large number of WWII pilots and aircrew at http://WWW.arttofly.org a non-profit website that supports the Douglas Bader Foundation’s Disabled Children’s Flying Days programme.
July 13, 2010 at 10:34 am
Tony Rudd
Thank you so much for your comment about the biographies of fighter pilots which you prepared. We would be fascinated to see the Alan Deere’s combat report. Is your book still in print?
Kind regards,
Tony Rudd
July 13, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Pat Barnard
Tony,
I published the Profiles as individual items and each copy was signed by the pilot or aircrew profiled. These were arranged in sets comprising, in most cases, 25 individual profiles which were bound into special albums custom made for the purpose.
If you will give me an email address I will scan and send a copy of Al Deere’s profile which includes his description of the first combat between Spitfire and Me109.
Regards,
Pat Barnard