Historical Context for The Battle of Britain Aerial Combat Scenes
Excerpt:
The stage was set for The Battle of Britain when Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler’s German army swept through France and the low countries in May of 1940. British forces were pushed to the sea and Operation Dynamo was commenced to bring over 300,000 of them home from Dunkirk in a mismatched flotilla of Navy ships, ferries, trawlers and even civilian pleasure boats.
Fighter Planes under the command of Air Vice Marshal Keith Park covered the ships and soldiers on the beach. As portrayed in ANGELS and BANDITS, Park bravely lead his men by flying his Hurricane over Dunkirk and serving as a spotter during the evacuation.
In July, 1940, the Luftwaffe commenced aerial attacks on shipping convoys in the Channel. For the next month, attacks came daily, and Spitfires and Hurricanes were sent on patrols and scrambled to intercept enemy planes. ANGELS and BANDITS portrays a fictional convoy, Silverload, steaming towards Dover and under fierce assault from the Luftwaffe with RAF fighters coming to the rescue.
Civilians learned the gravity of the situation in the Channel from BBC reports on the wireless, like this transcript of a moving report of a German bombing attacking on a Channel convoy by correspondent Charles Gardner:
“Well now, the Germans are dive-bombing a convoy out to sea in the Channel. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven German dive-bombers—Ju 87s. There’s one going down on its target now! Bomb! No! It hasn’t hit a single ship. There are about ten ships in the convoy, but he hasn’t hit a single one. There! You can hear anti-aircraft going at them now! Now the British fighters are coming up! Here they come in an absolute steep dive, and you can see their bombs actually leave the machines and come into the water. You can hear our own guns going like anything now! Oh, here’s a Spitfire coming down now! There’s one coming down in flames! Someone’s hit a German, and he’s coming down completely out of control! There’s a long streak of smoke! The pilot’s baled out by parachute! He’s a Ju 87 and he’s going to slap into the sea! There he goes! Smash! Terrific funnel of water! Only one man has come out by parachute.…”