9.1 Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff.
July Tenth,
“Day, convoy raids off North Foreland and Dover.
Night The east coast, home counties and western Scotland attacked.
Weather. Showery in south-east England and Channel. Continuous rain elsewhere.” (1)
Since the declaration of war Sir Phillip had made a habit of making the first business of the day a revue of the briefing papers prepared by each of the RAF’s commands summarising the previous days activities. Included after a very brief summary of the last twenty four hours activity were figures for losses, Crew Numbers and current aircraft availability, having read and digested this information and any attached note Sir Phillip would then have a short telephone conference with Newall as CAS regarding the latest information.
Looking through the reports for the 10th two things that stood out for Sir Phillip were firstly the sheer number of sorties flown by Fighter Command, six hundred and nine on this single day and the second notable fact was the number of enemy aircraft claimed destroyed. If they were correct then yesterday had been a very damaging day as far as the Luftwaffe was concerned. However Sir Phillip was well aware that what was claimed in the after action intelligence reports and how many aircraft were actually destroyed were not necessarily the same. Just take the counter claims by the Luftwaffe.
Lord Haw Haw was claiming that no less than 16 RAF fighters were shot down by the Luftwaffe on the 4th of July. This was no less that four times the actual losses suffered by the RAF. So If this was taken as a benchmark then claims by the British Broadcasting Corporation regarding the German losses would have to divided by four as well. This was one reason why The AM had issued instructions to every Police station, ARP Post, as well as the Observer corps and via the War office to every military formation in Britain that all downed aircraft whether RAF or enemy must be both reported and guarded until examined by AM/RAF experts. Aircraft downed off the coast were to be reported by any observer, especially the coastguard and coastal artillery or any other military/naval post directly to the AM.
At the AM there was a dedicated department for the investigation of downed aircraft who worked closely with their colleagues in the MAP who were responsible for the collection of the wrecks. RAF aircraft would be sent to the appropriate repair or salvage centre. Downed enemy aircraft once they had been examined in situ by the RAF/AM would be removed to the nearest enemy aircraft dump where any usable material would be removed for recycling. By locating every possible wreck and examining what damage had brought it down the OR teams at the AM could not only ascertain as accurately as possible what brought the aircraft down but with the time of the crash recorded as closely as possible, as well hopefully information from surviving crew, multiple claims for the same aircraft could discounted from the total. How the total recorded, related to the number claimed, as to the number announced for public consumption was going to cause some intense arguments.
Whether the RAF liked it or not the individual score of enemy aircraft downed was a matter of great importance to the pilots themselves and of intense interest to the general public who at this time needed popular heroes. More importantly within the RAF the scores of each Squadron was a source of great unit pride and a boost to moral. Before he left for America Beaverbrook had had a meeting with Sir Phillip regarding the RAF’s shopping list of aircraft and other matters pertaining to the AM and MAP. At the end of the meeting Beaverbrook had stated quite bluntly to Sir Phillip that within the realms of national security his newspapers would be expecting access to Squadrons and pilots to be able to report on what would be the decisive battle of the war so far and that Sir Phillip had better find a way for the RAF to co-operate or the papers would have to resort to back channels.
The subject of PR and how the RAF was presented in the newsreels and newspapers was subsequently the subject of a discussion at the next cabinet meeting and was also discussed by Sir Phillip with all the Governments in exile as there were special circumstances regarding the safety of both the Pilots and their families in the occupied countries. RAF High Command were adamant that no individual officer should be singled out for plaudits other than reporting the gazetted award of decorations. In the Great War when pilots had been lauded as individual heroes for their prowess in aerial combat and had become popular icons and the subsequent loss of such pilots as Albert Ball had had very a negative impact upon moral both within the RFC/RAF and the population at large. Officially this experience from the earlier conflict was given as the reason for not naming individual pilots. Sir Phillip new that this policy could never be made watertight and that a compromise position had to be taken.
The AM final stance was to inform the papers that Squadrons and units could be identified (when cleared by RAF headquarters) but individual pilots could not be named. When a pilot was posted away from or withdrawn from operational flying then the media restrictions would be lifted as already done in the case of a gazetted gallantry of service medal.
The media restrictions included not identify RAF stations and operational details but of course when filming aircraft how did you avoid showing however briefly identification letters and other useful details. All in all Sir Phillip could see that this was going to be a very bumpy road and that there was no easy way to accommodate or please everybody.
There was another worry Sir Phillip had regarding the overseas pilots and that had been partially highlighted by the recent incident of the popinjay wing commander and the Czechoslovak pilot flying with the POC. That was that due to some of these pilots speaking only a little English and that with a very evident foreign accent they could be mistaken for Germans. This could have most unfortunate consequences especially considering the current fear of fifth columnists. Couple this to the the possible fear and anger raised by the bombing and strafing of civilians it could if not countered result in tragic mistakes being made. As with the reporting of downed aircraft notifications every Police Constable and every Home Guard unit was given explicit instructions that the safeguarding of all pilots and aircrew whatever their nationality was of prime importance.
Sir Phillip had this pointed out to the press and the movie news services and in early July features were printed and short news reels shown to remind the populace that there were pilots from many countries flying and fighting in their defence and in a parallel campaign the individual consequences for anyone who meted out summary justice were also highlighted. Sir Phillip could now only hope that there would be no unfortunate incidents for any such occurrence would surely sour relations with our allies. Mind you Sir Phillip thought wryly there were at least some erstwhile allies, principally French speaking, to whom the meting out summary justice would in his very private opinion see justice well served.
(1) Dailey summary quoted verbatim from the The Narrow Margin by Derek wood and Derek Dempster.