Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain
Encyclopedia
Military history
Military history is a humanities discipline within the scope of general historical recording of armed conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, their cultures, economies and changing intra and international relationships....
book by English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
author Len Deighton
Len Deighton
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....
. First published in 1977, Fighter was Deighton's first history book, having made his name as a writer of spy fiction
Spy fiction
Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...
. Deighton was encouraged to write the book by his friend, the British historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
A.J.P. Taylor
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor, FBA was a British historian of the 20th century and renowned academic who became well known to millions through his popular television lectures.-Early life:...
, who wrote the introduction to Fighter.
Fighter covers the traditional period of the Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
and the build up to it, describing the war in the air as much from the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
point of view as the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Deighton explains both the political and personal machinations and how they influenced technical decisions and affected the efforts of both countries. There are short biographies of the major "players", from the commanders down to the pilots in the field. It covers the errors made in the strategic, tactical and technical decisions made by both sides with remarkable objectivity.
Many 'myths' about the Battle addressed are punctured by Deighton, which leaves one to conclude that the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
achieved their main aim - merely to survive as an effective fighting force - largely because they made fewer mistakes than did the German Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
.
Deighton caused controversy with ex-service personnel at the time of publication with allegations that during the repeated bombing of RAF Manston
RAF Manston
RAF Manston was an RAF station in the north-east of Kent, at on the Isle of Thanet from 1916 until 1996. The site is now split between a commercial airport Kent International Airport and a continuing military use by the Defence Fire Training and Development Centre , following on from a long...
many RAF ground crew remained in their air raid shelters and refused to come out to carry out their duties. No hard evidence was produced by the author for such allegations.
Air Chief Marshal
Air Chief Marshal
Air chief marshal is a senior 4-star air-officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force...
Hugh Dowding
Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding
Air Chief Marshal Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding GCB, GCVO, CMG was a British officer in the Royal Air Force...
is Deighton's hero in this book, being one of the few people who perceived the situation accurately. Deighton argues that his strategy prevented a German victory. Despite winning the battle, Dowding was very badly treated by the Whitehall bureaucracy and dismissed - along with Keith Park
Keith Park
Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park GCB, KBE, MC & Bar, DFC, RAF was a New Zealand soldier, First World War flying ace and Second World War Royal Air Force commander...
, commander of 11 Group
No. 11 Group RAF
No. 11 Group was a group in the Royal Air Force for various periods in the 20th century, finally disbanding in 1996. Its most famous service was during 1940 when it defended London and the south-east against the attacks of the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.-First World War:No. 11 Group was...
which had borne the brunt of the fighting - shortly after the victory.