RAF Fighters vs Luftwaffe Bombers: Battle of Britain (Duel, 68)

Andy Saunders

In this book, Andy Saunders journeys back in time into the cockpits of RAF fighters and Luftwaffe bombers to show precisely where the Battle of Britain was won and lost. It was a savage aerial campaign: the world's first ever strategic, decisive air war on which the fate of Britain and the Allies as a whole rested. Losses were high on both sides, but the determined, and crucially, well-directed RAF fighter force began to take its toll on the overextended, under-protected Kampfgruppen of Heinkel He 111s, Ju 87s and 88s, and Dornier Do 17s. Using the famous Spitfire and Hurricane, but also the lesser known Havoc and Defiant fighters, Fighter Command could really maul the Luftwaffe bombers if they avoided falling foul of the formidable Bf 109 escorts. Both sides learned and adapted as the campaign went on, with the Luftwaffe switching from massed daylight raids to round-the-clock bombing, eventually bombing only by night, often hitting civilian tagets in the dreaded Blitz.

This lavishly-illustrated study dissects the tactics and technology of the duels in this new kind of war.