Urgent for information on the "Eagle Project" of World War II, urgent! ! !
The failure of air combat before the implementation of the "Sea Lion Project" did not dispel Hitler's ambition to annex Britain. On the contrary, he hoped that "the great air battle of the German Air Force against Britain" would be implemented immediately. On August 2, the German Air Force General Command issued an order to launch the Battle of Britain. Goering boasted that the air defense in southern Britain would collapse in four days and the British Air Force would be expelled from Britain in four weeks. On August 6th, Goering ordered his subordinate commanders to start an all-out attack on 10. This attack plan is
It's called Eagle Day. Many German pilots were very proud when they thought of this "Eagle Day" plan that would enable them to win the war. They drew a map of the British island on the fuselage, and added a very arrogant explanation of "London-August 15- finished".
Due to the weather, the plan was forced to be postponed. On August 12, Goering ordered the implementation of the "Eagle Day" plan the next day. As a prelude to the big air raid, the German Air Force made a fierce raid on the British coastal radar station at 12. Six radar stations in Britain were hit and seriously damaged, and the 1 radar station was completely destroyed. However, the Germans did not understand the importance of radar to British air defense at this time, and they also lagged far behind the British in the development and application of this electronic equipment. Adolf Galland, the German ace pilot, later said: "We realized that the Royal Fighter Squadron must be controlled by some new device on the ground, because we heard that the command to command Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft against the German fleet was very skilled and accurate. This kind of radar and its control over fighter planes surprised us. It was a very painful accident. But there is nothing we can do about it and we can't blow it up. "
From August 13 to August 23rd, the "Battle of Britain" entered the first stage. During the 10 day battle, Germany bombed Britain five times in large scale in an attempt to destroy the British air force. The tactical means adopted by the German Air Force is to concentrate superior forces, air raid the political and economic center of Britain and the areas where the main air forces are deployed, and take large groups to sail, and small groups enter the target in batches for continuous assault, which makes it impossible for the British air defense forces to carry out centralized resistance.
On August 13, the sky was overcast and the visibility was extremely poor, especially over Sussex and Kent. Thick clouds are usually as low as 4000 feet, and the weather is even less suitable for air combat than before. But Goering can't wait any longer. Hitler was impatient, even a little angry. As a result, the powerful German bomber group set out as planned.
However, the escort fighter group did not fly at the same time as planned, only a few fighters followed, and the German bombers had to attack alone with almost no fighter cover. A huge fleet of 80 "Dornier"-17 planes went to bomb the East Church Airport and the port of Hillis. A similar number of "Junk" -88 planes roared across the coast to Odihan and Farnborough, while a large group of "Stuka" planes flew along the Hampshire coastline.
Due to the deployment of early warning radar, the British fighter command soon got the information that the Germans were coming to air strike. General Parker, commander of the 8th Fighter Brigade, ordered two fire-breathing squadrons and two cyclone squadrons to protect a fleet at the mouth of the Thames and the forward airports of Hawkinger and Rothschild, and sent the fleet to patrol over Canterbury. He left two-thirds of the Spitfire and half of the whirlwind plane at hand, so as to concentrate on attacking enemy planes. Brand, commander of the 10 fighter brigade, also sent two squadrons of Tornado planes to patrol over Dorset.
The first attack on Germany was 1 the 5 th expulsion brigade of the flight training group. Twenty-three twin-engine exploration ships led by Captain Linsberger entered the southern coast of Scotland.
When Captain Rhynsburger crossed the British coastline, the last plane in the formation issued an alarm: "Spitfire aircraft was found in the rear."
This alarm made the German pilots nervous like an electric shock. They understand that the flight performance of some clumsy twin-engine "Messerschmitt" aircraft is not as good as that of the British "Spitfire" aircraft. Messerschmitt-1 10 was put into active service on 1936, with a top speed of 545 km/h and a range of 1400 km, 2 airborne 20 mm guns and 6 7.92 mm machine guns. "Spitfire" aircraft entered service at the end of 1937, with a speed of 500 km/h and eight Browning machine guns on board, with a firing rate of 1260 rounds/min. Although the speed and climb rate of "Spitfire" are slightly slower than that of Messerschmitt-1 10, it has a small turning radius, is easy to operate and is flexible in combat.
Rhynsburger immediately ordered the whole team to form a circular defensive formation to cover each other's tails. Rhynsburger took the lead in turning according to the formation deployment. Before he could turn around completely, the British fighter plane flying at high altitude suddenly caught up from the rear at high speed.
Rhynsburger's plane immediately turned right, cleverly avoiding the fire of the Spitfire fighter. That was close! The bullet passed through his left, and the Spitfire missed. Another German plane tried to dodge by diving, but it was not as lucky as Lingsberg. The German plane couldn't lift its speed at once, so it was bitten by a British plane and attacked.
The Spitfire plane spewed flames under the wing and made every effort to dive into the circular square. The horizontal flight of the destroyer can only capture the fighter for a short time in the range, so the eight machine guns of the Spitfire aircraft were sprayed at the German plane together. After a while, two German planes were shot down.
Captain Rhynsburger's destroyer brigade suffered more than half damage when returning to the base. Five of them were destroyed and more than 65,438+00 people were shot and injured. Two days later, the aftermath of the attack still reverberated in the hearts of Germans. Goering lost his temper. He can't tolerate this situation in his air force. This result gave Goering a loud slap. His boasting of Haikou seems impossible to realize.
The Germans in other directions are also in a bad situation. The German bomber group targeting the East Church airport obviously succeeded in bombing, but it also paid a heavy price. The bomber group whose destination is the port of Hillis is even more unlucky. Being bitten tightly by the British "whirlwind" plane, we had to throw bombs at random, so stealing chickens was not a counter-erosion. At the end of the "Eagle Day" operation, the German Air Force lost 47 aircraft and more than 80 people were injured, while the British Air Force only lost 13 aircraft. "The attack failed," General Richthofen of the German Air Force wrote sadly and helplessly in his diary.
On August 15, the weather unexpectedly began to improve, the clouds gradually dispersed, and the dark weather that lasted for several days suddenly became clear, which was a good weather for large-scale air strikes. The high command of the German Air Force didn't estimate the change of the weather at all, and the commanders of the aviation teams were summoned by Goering to the Karin Villa for a meeting.
Paul Deichmann, the staff officer of the 2nd Air Force of the German Air Force, stayed in the school at the headquarters of Boninggus in Calais and looked up at the sky for a long time. He is considering what to do. Finally, Deichmann took the risk with a sense of responsibility as a soldier. He immediately gave the order to attack the troops. Who would have expected that this day would be the most intense and spectacular day in the air war against Britain.
According to Deichmann's orders, their nested huge fleet of the German Air Force consists of more than 1800 planes, including more than 600 bombers and 1200 fighters. The whole south of England is suddenly filled with the noise of fighting: bombers rumble and roar, fighter planes soar and dive, shuttle in and out, machine guns fire wildly, and machine guns constantly spray burning warheads ..... This is an unprecedented spectacle in the history of world air combat.
The German Air Force invested such a powerful force in the south of England with deep meaning. Because the distance of the German Air Force from the base to the combat target is about 650-750 kilometers, plus about 20% of the "tactical backup" voyage, the aircraft attacking the British mainland must have a endurance of about 1800 kilometers. But at that time, the range of Messerschmitt-109 fighter was only 750 kilometers, and just after flying to the British coast, it was about to run out of fuel and crash into the sea. In this way, the German Henkel-11and Junk bombers had to attack without fighter escort. It's like a moth to a fire, very dangerous. Therefore, the flag map of the German Air Force is to clamp down the British fighters by storming the south, so as to be intercepted by enemy planes as little as possible when carrying out an assault on central England.
However, this plot of the German Air Force was discovered by Marshal Dowding of Britain. Doding transferred the 1 1 fighter brigade originally deployed outside the focus of contention between the two sides in southern England to northern Scotland, and merged with the 12 and 13 fighter brigades that had never fought in the war, and the German attempt went bankrupt again.
Just as the air battle over southern England was in full swing, there was also a fierce battle over northern England, which was another tit-for-tat battle. 13: 45, the first German attack wave ***63 "Henkel"-11The plane flew to the north of West Castle. When the fleet was about 40 kilometers away from the coast of England, the radio equipment on board suddenly became noisy, and enemy reports broke out one after another:
"Spitfire fighter found on the left!"
"The enemy plane is coming from the sun!"
"Our plane was attacked by enemy planes!"
The fleet was escorted by the 76th Expulsion Regiment of Stavangelski 1 Brigade 2 1 Ejector. This brigade has strong combat effectiveness and brilliant military achievements in history. In the air battle of Deutschland Bay in June 65438+June 0939+February 65438, more than half of the British "Wellington" aircraft that participated in the war at that time were shot down. During the occupation of Norway, it was also the brigade that braved the other side's dense air defense firepower network and took the lead in landing at the Fournib airport in Oslo. In the German Air Force, this brigade has a prominent reputation.
However, today's task seems very arduous. The British air force is not only more tenacious than them, but also has an absolute advantage in number.
Flying at the front of the destroyer's cover formation is Captain Reitman, the captain of the battalion. His task is to cooperate with the mid-team leader Hatevich, who is in charge of interception, to monitor the communication between British fighters. He wants to use this as a breakthrough to master the defense system of the British Air Force, so as to formulate the corresponding tactics and flight routes of the German bomber forces. However, before they could hear anything clearly, a British "Spitfire" plane rushed to the German command plane along the sunshine. Lestman was hit by a bullet from the other side before he could turn around and enter a state of confrontation. The plane screamed and plunged into the sea, and Captain Lestman, the battalion commander, died with the plane in the English Channel.
It was the Spitfire fighter of the British 72nd Flying Squadron that shot down the command plane. 15 minutes later, the British plane that came to intercept launched a three-dimensional offensive against the German plane from all directions, and another 1 German plane was injured. In the face of powerful opponents, the two sides launched a life-and-death battle, and several planes in Britain were destroyed or dropped out of the battle because of injuries.
16: 45, the fighting in the airspace in southern England continues. At this time, a formation of more than 200 German planes flew north across the strait.
1 hour ago, the British air force's spitfire and hurricane planes just finished fighting were on standby on the ground. In a short time, almost all squadrons issued a signal of "ready to take off". At one command, 170 planes took off at the same time to meet the invading German planes.
German pilots experienced stubborn resistance from the British. When the British coast just appeared in front of the navigator Captain Helbig, the experience began again. Almost at the same time, all the "Yongke" 88 planes at the end of each squadron formation issued an alarm: "Enemy fighters were found in the rear."
Flying from behind the German plane is a British Spitfire fighter. All their machine guns spewed revenge flames and swooped down from above the German aircraft formation. The speed is amazing. As soon as these planes crossed the effective launching position, they pulled up again, quickly rose and turned, occupied a favorable position and prepared to attack again. A beautiful arc track suddenly appeared in the sky.
Helbiger saw fighter planes escorting bombers. I am too poor to fight at an altitude of several thousand meters, and I have no time to talk to him. It seems that it is impossible to rely on their protection, so we have to rely on ourselves. The German plane did not change its original route and continued to fly to the target. In order to ensure that the tail shooters can cover each other, the German aircraft adopted a dense formation.
British Spitfire fighters have started a new round of attacks. In view of the new formation of German aircraft, British aircraft adopted the tactics of attacking bombers at the back of the house respectively. As a result, the German planes had no choice but to turn to avoid and the formation was disrupted. British warplanes took the opportunity to chase the fleeing junker plane, and a scene of chasing suddenly appeared in the sky, and the British "rabbit hunting war" began. German bombers were caught in a chaotic escape.
At that time, German aircraft did not have independent airborne navigation equipment, and mainly relied on ground radio directional beacons for navigation. In response, Britain quickly developed a series of "Maycom" radio stations to intercept the signals sent by German radio stations, then amplify them and send them from other places, thus leading German planes astray. Not long after, this confrontation has made new progress. When the Germans used radio beams to guide bombers to cross the target quite accurately, Britain also set up many radio stations to interfere with the German radio beams by "beam splitting" so that the bombs dropped by German planes could take off from the target. It was through this confrontation that Britain effectively reduced the losses caused by German air strikes. Martini, who is in charge of radio beam research in Germany, admitted after the war that he didn't realize that a high-frequency war had started early and underestimated Britain's ability to conduct electronic countermeasures.
Goering was very dissatisfied with the record of the German Air Force. 19, after reviewing the situation of Karin Manor, he ordered the Air Force to concentrate on attacking the Royal Air Force as soon as the weather improved.
From August 24th, the Germans learned the lessons from the previous stage and concentrated on bombing the areas where the British 1 1 fighter brigades were deployed. In order to achieve this goal, from August 24th to September 6th, Germany dispatched more than 1 1,000 sorties per day on average. The battle of Britain has entered a decisive stage. RAF pilots have been on high alert for a month and have to go out several times a day. They are already too tired. Although they persisted in their last hard work, the German numerical superiority began to take effect. Five frontier airports in southern England were severely damaged. To make matters worse, six of the seven key sector radar stations along the coast were violently bombed, and the whole communication and command and control system was on the verge of complete paralysis. At the same time, the fighter defense of the Royal Air Force began to weaken. In just 10 days, 446 fighters were destroyed or damaged. In addition, 103 driver died and 128 was seriously injured. These two figures add up to almost 1/4 of all drivers at that time. Britain is facing catastrophic danger, and the whole country is in panic. Prime Minister Churchill said anxiously: "If the enemy persists, the whole organization of fighter command may collapse and the country is in danger of collapse."
At this time, however, Goering made a mistake similar to Hitler's stop using tanks to attack Dunkirk on May 24th. In retaliation for the British air raid on Berlin on August 25, Goering ordered the Germans to start a large-scale air raid on London on September 7. The exhausted pilots of the British Air Force finally got a precious respite, and they recovered their combat effectiveness in a short time.