Weather: cloudy
Fighter Command Serviceable Aircraft as at 0900 hours:
- Blenheim – 59
- Spitfire – 219
- Hurricane – 342
- Defiant – 25
- Gladiator – 2
- Total – 647
At midday a substantial force was detected by radar building up over Calais. Escorted by a large number of fighters, bombers advanced on Dover and on airfields in Kent. Groups of Me109s and Me110 fighters flew above cloud, endeavouring to attract RAF fighters into combat. 32, 65 and 610 Squadrons were sent up and were involved in heavy fighting. The Goodwin Lightship was destroyed. Another group of aircraft took the opportunity, as usual, to attack Manston.
Luftflotte 3 sent over a number of small pockets of aircraft. Middle Wallop airfield was attacked, killing 3 men.
8 RAF fighters were lost and 19 German aircraft were destroyed.
54 Squadron Operational Record Book, 14 August
A day of absolute inactivity as far as the squadron was concerned.
Reported Casualties (RAF Campaign Diary 14th August 1940):
* Enemy: 30 confirmed, 8 unconfirmed; 9 damaged.
* Own: 5 Hurricanes, 3 Spitfires, 3 Blenheims
Todays’s theme: Top Gun Gallery – Paddy Finucane
2 comments
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August 18, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Mike Arthur
I’d be interested to see more background / a picture of how German air operations were opposed in totality (e.g. including RAF fighter & bomber operations over German held airfields). Fairly familiar with BoB story (father RAF Bombar Command ground engineer WWII, retired RAF 1973), but these daily reports raise a number of questions:
1) I’d not appreciated how quiet many of the days were, nor how quiet many of the squadrons on otherwise intense days, e.g Aug 14 report “54 Squadron. A day of absolute inactivity”. Where were they (which Group)? In retrospect, did the groups co-operate as well as they could have? Flying time would have allowed squadrons from other groups to provide cover over engaged stations, leap-frogging cover & re-location for a day from even as far as Scotland. How much was this done on a day-by-day basis?
2) Some of the reports have carried numbers of new-build aircraft:
a) generally, new-build seems to have comfortably exceeded casualty aircraft, yet the no. in-service in squadrons seems to remain almost constant, even after days of no aircraft or pilot casualties. Why? Insufficient pilots? Where did the new-builds go to – reserve (St Athan?)?
b) Why did they persevere in building the Defiant – almost useless as a day-fighter? Were the Defiants even used in day fighting after Dunkirk?
c) New-build Beaufighters are reported, but no Blenheims, but Fighter Command is shown as having Blenheims, but no Beaufighters. Are these facts correct? Who was getting the Beaufighters (Coastal Command?). Were any of the Beaufighters (or Blenheims) yet being equipped with airborne radar and then employed as night-fighters?
3) What was the armament and crew (presumably pilot & top gunner, like Me 110) of Blenheim day fighters? Were they any use as day fighters?
Otherwise, what did the Blenheims reported as fighters (I thought they were only bombers) do? Were any (or Beaufighters) employed on fighter-intruder operations over the German airfilelds at this time?
4) What was done in the way of bombing (Battles (if still so employed), Hampdens, Blenheims, Wellingtons, etc) the German airfilelds?
5) At this stage German night operations were not large, yet existed, and these reports show night fighting training for the Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons, but no reports of actual night operations by them. Were any night defensive operations carried out by the RAF fighters at this time? If so, which types?
August 29, 2010 at 11:20 am
Tony Rudd
Hi Mike – you’ve raised alot of interesting points, but I am afraid it will take us a little while to be able to answer them – if at all! As for Defiants, they were switched to night fighting, and as commented on elsewhere, they continued to be built for the reason that to take them out of production was not an overnight operation.
As for airborne radar, development was proceeding apace, but was not at a stage that it could be used on ‘ops’. Beaufighters only came into use in the latter part of the battle – they took a while to come into service. They were used for shipping strikes in particular, and they were the precursor of the Mosquito, which I flew.
Finally, Bomber Command’s main effort was to counter the prepartions for Sealion, which meant bombing the canals and barges in the coastal ports. Finally of course there was the bombing of Berlin which started in mid August, and which infuriated Hitler, contributing to the switch by the Germans to bombing London from September 7th.