Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Please what do you think of the new book of Christer Bergström about the Battle of Britain ?

Thank you

Alain

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Not new but a translation into English from his original Swedish text if I am not much mistaken

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Have somebody read this book in the Swedish version? What is the review?

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

There is one 5-star review on amazon.co.uk for the English edition. AFAIK Christer is presenting his book at the Battle of Britain museum Hawkinge on September 15.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

I did remember it rose some controversial that Christer suggest RAF was in the verge of collapse only be saved by Hilter's order to switch target to London

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Interesting, I thought this was a common thesis, nothing new to my knowledge.

I have seen different authors give the shift to London different weight on the effect in the grand scheme of the battle, but I think there is little doubt that the squadrons on the main front benefited from the reprieve from being the concentration of daily attacks.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

No, it is not

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Indeed it is & has been a well-documented & widely-held view for decades - far from being anything new, radical, nor even controversial. The change in focus for German attacks in late August & early September brought 'intense relief' to DOWDING - greater than he could express at the time. 'I could hardly believe that the Germans would have made such a mistake.' PARK was equally relieved, writing within days of the switch in German tactics, 'Had the enemy continued his heavy attacks against Biggin Hill and the adjacent sectors ... the fighter defences of London would have been in a perilous state ...'. The Luftwaffe effectively achieved its goal of air superiority over southern England by the end of August and had it maintained its attacks on Fighter Command airfields for just one more week the outcome might well have been disastrous for Britain. This has all been very well documented over the years & all one needs do is consult the required reading.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Peter, no one deny that RAF fighter command was under very heavy pressure then, and the target changes of Luftwaffe did give RAF a breath space, but did that mean RAF was at verge of defeat at that time? Many people, me include, do not agree that, there was no noticeable changes of the number of serviceable Spitfire and Hurricane between August and September, and RAF had not exhausted their reserve either, did Group 10 and 12 suffered far less than Keith's group 11?

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Nobody can suggest that there was ever a problem with the number of fighters available to Fighter Command - BEAVERBROOK had that well under control. But there were growing concerns over the wastage rate of fighter pilots and the inexperience and/or continuing endurance of those remaining on strength. DOWDING's policy of rotating squadrons between Groups also resulted in a similar diminishing quality (though to a lesser extent) within his reserve pilot pool. Pilot attrition within RAF Fighter Command was on a knife-edge. But the continuing availability of serviceable airfields in southern England was the other major factor which brought us so close to imminent defeat in early September 1940.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Hello Peter
I agree with the airfields but in the pilot situation one must remember also the development on the other side, permanent losses of the SE fighter pilots were almost equal on the both sides and also LW was running out of combat ready 109 pilots. Near the end of Sept 40 they had more combat ready 109s than combat ready pilots to fly them. They had only 676 of them, that's only 60% of the establishment.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Peter, I read your books, I respect you as first rate historian, but still something I have to say, till early September 1940, both RAF and Luftwaffe had suffered serious losses, and both side were more or less exhausted, but as I said, while Keith's Group 11 was almost reach end of their strength, but Group 10 and 12 were in far better condition, that means RAF fighter commander HAD NOT exhausted their reserve yet, that fact combined with RAF still had enough modern fighters, it does not seem to me RAF was in the verge of IMMEDIATE defeat, see I do not exclude the possibility that Luftwaffe still would win the Bob if they did not switch their target in early September, the thing I do not agree is these claims that Germans had victory in their sight and only be taken away by some kind of Hilter's stupid order.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Thank you for your comments. I have no wish to extend the life of this thread nor broaden its scope beyond addressing the original point raised by taitbb as challenged by mars.

Fighter Command squadrons held in immediate reserve were mainly based in adjoining Groups as you say. But many of these units had already been rotated in and out of the main battle area in No.11 Group over preceding weeks, until casualties prompted their withdrawal, and this movement inevitably created a cumulative debilitating effect on the fighting efficiency of Fighter Command as a whole. It is not simply a question of the number of pilots available at any point in time, it is also their relative experience & combat readiness. This qualitative factor, difficult to measure with any accuracy, was a source of growing concern amongst RAF Commanders. So, while they had not yet exhausted their reserve of pilots in terms of numbers, they were only too well aware, just how thin this finite resource was stretched. By the start of the critical two-week phase of the BoB commencing 24 August 1940 at least one in three of all No.11 Group pilots was deemed ‘inexperienced’ and even the balance included many pilots still relatively fresh from OTUs with little or no combat experience. Adoption of the ‘Stabilisation Scheme’ reluctantly effected by DOWDING on 8 September 1940 is ‘best proof of the seriousness which the outlook was viewed at HQ Fighter Command’. Furthermore, the strength of Category A squadrons was to be maintained by intakes from Category C squadrons - officially ‘considered unfit to meet German fighters’. (Cf. Chapters XIII & XV of the official history The Defence of the United Kingdom by Basil Collier: HMSO 1957). This would inevitably result in even further dilution in the quality of the British air defences. Fighter Command was on its knees, the Germans had the advantage, but they failed to exploit it by prematurely switching the main thrust of their attacks away from RAF airfields to London. These are well-documented and long-established facts as mentioned by taitbb in post #6.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Perhaps what you gentlemen are not in agreement upon is not whether the RAF was on the verge of defeat, but rather what is meant by the term “on the verge of defeat”?

If local air superiority over the south-east of England was the key objective, then if it was achieved by the Luftwaffe sufficiently for airborne landings to take place; this would have been a big game changer. Once this scenario occurs, then the RAF are no longer fighting a defensive fighter-oriented battle, but the RAF light bombers (Battles, Blenheims, Hudsons, etc) would be thrown into the fight as well as the Spitfires and Hurricanes***. The lack of available airfields (even for a week) in the south-east, would require the RAF fighters and light bombers to deploy from further afield in 10 Group and 12 Group. The Luftwaffe Bf109s and 110s would still be operating from French bases, but over the parts of the south-east of England where they had a reasonable time over target. Thus the effectiveness of the Jagdwaffe would still be reasonable high, but the RAF fighter and light bomber forces would have taken a significant reduction in effectiveness.

Although, under these circumstances, the overall Battle of Britain and the invasion of the British Isles was not a foregone conclusion, the RAF could be considered to have suffered a defeat in losing local air superiority over the invasion zones.

I think it not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that had the Luftwaffe attacks on 11 Group airfields not been curtailed in favour of bombing raids on London, then local air superiority may have been achieved by the Luftwaffe over the south-east sufficiently for airborne landings to have taken place.

Regards,
...geoff




***Before anyone mentions it, I am aware that the Battle, Blenheim and Hudson light bomber squadrons were already in action with night raids on barge harbours, convoys and bomber airfields. However, the rate of loss would take a step-change upwards, if it were necessary to throw them in to daylight raids on airborne drop zones and landing beaches.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Peter, I understand the problems RAF faced in the early September 1940 (Luftwaffe was suffering too though), as Mr bearoutwest said, the difference opinion of us is about "how far RAF was from defeat", your opinion I guess was matters of one or two weeks if not matter of days, my opinion is RAF had the ability to put up an effective fight for much longer times despite the situations they were in, because neither of us could go back time and see a "else if" , we will never know, so we have to agree to disagree.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

BoB as it was was an attrition campaign, and so one must look the situation on both sides, Jagdwaffen had also lost many experienced leaders from May 40 onwards and was badly under establishment in pilots, so it also had bad problems in replacing its losses.

Airborne attack alone would have been madness, airborne troops didn't have firepower and staying power of normal troops. Even on Crete Germans needed seaborne troops to complete the conquest of the island. And seaborne invasion to England would probably have been a failure. Germans would have lost some of its best troops. Of course also RN would have suffered significant losses and KM, too. What effects that would have had to the war at sea is anyone's guess.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Yes, it is true, the purpose of BoB from German perspective was NOT about an airborn attack, it was about to destroy RAF so that in the case Hilter decided to launch operation Sea lion, the German convoy would not need to air attack from RAF and Luftwaffe could concentrated to provide air cover for German ships

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

I think you misunderstand my comment. Perhaps I should have used the phrase "initial invasion phase" rather than specifying the airborne landings. Local air superiority would need to be achieved by the Luftwaffe before any invasion operations could be initiated.

In any case, all this is now moving away from the discussion of Mr Bergstrom's book, so I shall return to my cave and allow you all to continue discussing the semantics to your wholehearted contentment.

Genuine regards,
...geoff

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

But what do you think of the book ?

Thank you

Alain

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Fanair:
I'll tell you next week after I've had a good look through it.

As for the other comments of posters, I'll give my simple views (Peter C. will disagree with some of them - Hi Peter!)
I agree with Peter re the quality of pilots as the Battle wore on. But one must also balance that with the quality of replacement pilots/aircrew with the Luftwaffe units ranged against Fighter Command. Allied to that is the manning levels of Lw units, and their aircraft complement, as the Battle wore on. Erhard Milch did a round of units starting on 20th August 1940 and highlighted shortages on both fronts (30 pilots short at JG 26, for example). He did another round between 27th August and 4th September and found things had become even worse. Chapter 23 (page 285 et seq.) of Stephen Bungay's excellent 'The Most Dangerous enemy' covers it all.
Also, when talking of pilot strength in Fighter Command, Dowding's view was that a Squadron was up to strength when it had 16 pilots. Now that is a sensible approach given the need to factor in losses, but the plain fact is that I do not know of one example where all 16 pilots from one squadron were up at the same time. What Dowding was doing was building in 'slippage' in the classic manner of running a 'Project' (for want of a better word). The net result being, as Bungay points out, that Fighter Command had more pilots on charge in October 1940 than when they entered the Battle in July!
Airfields? We had already pulled back from Manston by 24th August. That did not materially affect the prosecution of the Battle, and it was always considered that if more airfields were reduced to the state of Manston, then squadrons would operate from slightly further back. Some might say that moving back would lead one into the 'Big Wing' scenario of getting up too late - I would counter by saying go read Laddie Lucas's book on Bader. The whole Big Wing idea is explained in great clarity, and shows that over many, many, decades, most people have got hold of the wrong end of the strick completely (might get grief over this, but go read the book first and then come back to me). Fact is, there were enough airfields to maintain the presence of RAF fighter squadrons in the air even if more were put in the same state as Manston, even if those squadrons were based further back.
As for any airborne invasion, go check out the losses during the Western Campaign in the Ju52/3 units to see just what their capacity/capability was for an airborne invasion. If you can get hold of a copy, read Johannes Kaufmann's book (the title of which escapes me, but it might be 'Mein Fliegerleben') in which he describe the situation post-Western campaign (he flew Ju52/3s, later transferring to SKG 210). Not going to happen.
Seaborne invasion? In the light of what we know now, and the enormous planning and logistics required for D-Day 6th June 1944, barges ploughing across the Channel at 2 mph would have little realistic chance even BEFORE any interdiction by the RAF or Royal Navy.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it DOES feed in to objective critical thinking and re-evaluation of events. And I say this full in the knowledge that in 1940, the defenders of our Island could not 'see over the other side of the hill' as much as they wanted to, or needed to...

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

John, you are right. IIRC, Bletchly Park were just getting started, in any useful sense, with ULTRA, so any info on "the other side of the hill" was VERY sketchy.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

They had a major break into Enigma just before Dunkirk (and then some retrospective breaks into older material) and were getting quite a volume of Luftwaffe material throughout the BoB. BP seems to have been constrained by staff shortages and lack of Bombe machines, so they were only breaking into a few networks. They did however manage to put together a pretty good order of battle and locate a large number of the units on it, with detailed strengths for some. With a typical 24-hour delay in deciphering, there weren't too many dramatic warnings but a lot of individual items that accumulated into a bigger picture. And the ULTRA material shouldn't be taken in isolation — take the case of Knickebein and X-Gerät where it was the combination if decrypts, prisoner intelligence, wreck investigation and signals intelligence that enabled the RAF quickly to understand how the beams worked, on what frequencies and where they were being directed each day.

Another frequent subject of the messages, incidentally, is damage inflicted (or not) by RAF bombers on airfields in France.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Hi John ..where's the 'Like' button when you need it..

..not going to contribute much except this pic of Christer and Morten (Jessen) at yesterday's book launch in Hawkinge at the Battle of Britain museum, where I picked up my copy. The book sure looks impressive and paper quality is reasonably good, artworks are very nice and there is a good selection of interesting pics, presentation is in a diary format, text very readable, not cluttered with details (WNr. etc..). Over 500 'notes' at the rear of the book. First time I'd met Christer - a very engaging and genial character!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F9VWZaTzaS...bookMorten.jpg

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Hmmmm......... a couple of rogues for sure! Would you buy a used car from them? ;)

Just teasing. They are indeed a couple of great guys.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

What an esteemed idea exchange here up and yes Neil, where is that like button;)

Actually I'm reading the Battle of Britain period of Ulf Balke's KG2 chronique. My german is good, but far from perfect and I am surely not able to pickup every single detail in the text, but I was astonished to read different times the Germans reached their target and were able to bomb it resulting in massive fires in the assigned bombing areas. Mr. Balkes describes the frequent use of radio beacon navigation methods when objectives are clouded over.
My point is that even in the later phase of the battle, results seems to be booked, even with lesser well formed or simply lesser pilots and admittedly not the most consistent objective choice.
The defense seemed to obtain lesser results than in the first period, probably due to the shift to night operations.
This is new to me as I always thought the Battle to decrease in quality from September 15th on.
OK I can imagine the horrible impact a bombing put on people, but, and it is easy to judge afterwards, knowing the facts that happened, I still esteem that the failure of the BoB for the Germans was misplanning and largely underestimation of the strenght of the ennemy and of the needed strength to archive an invasion (What preparations and how many tons of material and human resources were used for D-Day for instance)

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

The defense seemed to obtain lesser results than in the first period, probably due to the shift to night operations.

On the other hand no air force has ever switched to night operations because its day missions were going well, has it?

Britain's night defences certainly had a long way to go in 1940 but in early 1941 the RAF's night fighters were dramatically improving their kill totals, month-by-month. What's surprising is that British night defence systems were developed rapidly in 1916–18 but received so little attention in the run-up to the Second World War.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

On only two occasions during the battle (7 and 15 September) did the Luftwaffe put more than 300 bombers in the air. No chance of hoping to subdue a metropolis the size of London - over 1,000 sq kilometres in area even in 1940. A couple of HE bombs per sq km is all the Luftwaffe could hope to manage. This is all pretty minor league stuff especially in comparison with the later air battles over the Reich.

Elsewhere, Christer makes the good point that Bomber Command made a big contribution to the RAF's success in the Battle of Britain - RAF bombers operated throughout the summer over Germany and the occupied countries, kept the pressure on psychologically, directly contributing to the 'indecision' in the Luftwaffe leadership ...(London vs. the airfields)

Also in the new book, an interesting appraisal of combat losses on both sides - the RAF's being much higher for the four months July to October, while the author also continues the re-evaluation of the performance of the Bf 110 units, which enjoyed better 'kill' ratios than the 109 units " the Bf 109's alleged superiority over the Bf 110 finds no support in these statistics.."

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

"an interesting appraisal of combat losses on both sides - the RAF's being much higher for the four months July to October"

Which is interesting but in isolation doesn't tell us much. We need to factor in the respective abilities of each side to replace those losses (as well as weighing them: the resource cost of losing a medium bomber vs. a single-seat fighter, for example) and - more difficult but a real question - were the losses incurred "worth it"? I can see what Britain got in return for what it lost but what did Germany get for its?

The argument has been made here in the past that the Luftwaffe lost more aircraft in the Battle of France (to say nothing of army casualties) but France was knocked out of the war and Germany gained huge economic and strategic resources (imagine the Battle of the Atlantic without U-boat bases in France). Their "investment" in the Battle of Britain got them a big fat nothing.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

indeed! Re losses; there is a discussion along those lines in the book. Total BoB losses for the Luftwaffe exceed those of the Westfeldzug. I for one wouldn't dream of straying into the 'BoB was won by the French' territory, as suggested by the 'infamous' Michelet!

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Nick, I believe these RAF losses included RAF bomber losses over Germany and Western Europe, of course whether this part of losses should be included into RAF losses in the battle of Britain is open to discussion. My opinion is that both RAF and Luftwaffe were capable of fighter two battles at the same time in 1940.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

..they do, but they were not that significant, approx 170 machines IIRC.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

This number sound low, I read some books about RAF offensive on European mainland in the BoB period, I recall I was surprised their heavy losses, several hundred bombers were lost at least, but I do not have these books with me now. I have not read this book yet (have already ordered) But I can make a calculate guess, Christer also count RAF coast command's losses as part of BoB losses, that was another thing that could be open for discussion, I am not that sure is does he also include RAF training unit's losses and RAF fight command's non combat losses as part of RAF Bob losses, if so, does he apply the same rule on Luftwaffe?

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Intresting but I have difficulties to buy that, I haven't count the losses from Chorley's and Ross' books, but the old figures for RAF were 367 bombers, 1140 fighters and 96 other operational types = 1603 altogether and 1733 for LW, not much higher but a little lower. Hopefully Christer has not repeated his old claim that both RAF Cat. 2 and Cat. 3 mean total loss.

Juha

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

I don't know yet.. its a large book and I would have very much liked to have had a much longer chat with him about it...but his Kent Battle of Britain tour party has moved on

http://falkeeins.blogspot.co.uk/2015...chmitt-bf.html

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Well I got my copy a couple of days ago and have had a cursory glance through certain parts relating to Erprobungsgruppe 210 (no surprise there, then!).

Page 237: 27 September 1940. "...The Gruppenkommandeur, Hauptmann Martin Lutz, fell in the air over Bristol. A little further north, the ace Oberleutnant Wilhelm-Richard Rössiger perished in the flames of his burning Bf 110..."

I have a serious problem with the above two sentences. For the following reasons. It is clearly known that Martin Lutz's Bf 110 came down at Bussey Stool Farm, near Tarrant Gunville, certainly not over Bristol. Also, Rossiger was not shot down 'further north of Bristol', but was shot down into the Channel.

For the life of me, I cannot fathom out how Christer came to the conclusions in the above two quoted sentences, since the confirmed information has been 'out there' for decades... Sorry Christer, but this kind of totally incorrect information in a modern day book harks back to the errors and mistakes of books many decades ago, when far less information was known by researchers and authors.

Re: Christer Bergstrom BOB book
 

Page 129: 15 August 1940. The early evening raid on Croydon by Erprobungsgruppe 210. "...Triumphantly, Rubensdörffer led his Gruppe home to add a new great success to the unit's war diary. But he never got that far. Above Rotherfield the Messerschmitts' line of retreat was intercepted by Squadron Leader John Thompson's 111 Squadron, followed by 32 Squadron, led on this mission by Flight Lieutenant Michael Crossley..."

What? The combat reports of 111 Squadron show that they intercepted Erprobungsgruppe 210 as they finished their attack on Croydon and were climbing for height, and to reform. This was just before 32 Squadron joined in the interception. All confirmed/damaged/probables claims by 111 Sqdn. were in the vicinity of or just to the south of Croydon. 111 Sqdn. certainly did NOT commence their interception over Rotherfield. What actually happened is that Rubensdörffer's Bf 110 finally crashed at Bletchinglye Farm, Catts Hill, Rotherfield.

Again, the disappointing thing is that this information has been 'out there' for over a decade...