Figure 1.--

German pilots were incresingly frustrated that British aircraft continued to rise to intercept the bombers as the Battle of Britain progressed no matter how many Hurricans and pitfires they shot down. Some thught they must be Ameican aircraft. "The British seem to have unlimited Ameican planes. We shoot down three and five appear the next day. Where are they getting them all?" Until the Battle of Britain, opposing air forces were quickly defeated and after the first week or so, enemy air resistance ceased. Such observations were dismissed by Luftwaffe High Command, even reports from experten (aces) like Adolf. Göring accused pilots of making excuese for their failure which was affecting his relationship with Hitler.

-- Hauptmann Walter Adolf, BF-109 pilot, Jagdgeschwader 26, personal diary

The British significantly increased aircraft production during World War II, nut the onset of the War was a problem. Hitler upon seizing power launched a major rearmament program (1933). And with World War I air ace Hermann Göring as his mos important supporter, aircraft were a major part of the rearmament program. NAZI economic policies were designed to support massive defecit spending. German financier, Hjalmar Schacht, conceived MEFO bills (a system of fake money), there were no real budget constraints. The new German Luftwaffe also benefited from major advances in aviation that rendered all existing aircraft (mostly biplanes) obsolete. The British and French were slow to respond to German rearmament. Prime Ministesrs Baldwin and Chamberlain pursued a policy of appeadement and were unwilling to match massive German sprnnding. Their idea was all Britain neededvwas an air force that could damage not defeat Germany and that would deter Hitler. Furious debaes took place in Parliament about rearmament (1930s). Churchill led the debates on aircraft, although at this point he was primarily concerned with bombers. It was Chamberlain who ultimately made the the decision to give more attrentuon to fighters. As a result, the Luftwaffe by the time of the Munich Crisis had clear air superiority (1938). This meant both in the number of aircraft as well as the performance levels. (The Luftwaffe also had more plots as well as better trained and more experienced pilots.) As a result of Munich, the British and French got religion. Both Britain and France initiated crash programs to build aircraft, but when war broke out the Luftwaffe was the most powerful air force in the world. Which would be a major factor in the fall of France (June 1940). Britain was rapidly closing the production gap, but by he time of the Battle of Britain (July 1940), the Germans had a substantial advantage in both aircraft and pilots. Britain produced about 8,000 aircraft (1939) and reached a peak of over 26,000 planes (1944). There were major problems scaling up production. The primary constraint was developing mass production to aircraft construction. Lord Beaverbrook, a newspaper magnate, was put in charge. He worked on the 'Shadow Scheme' conceived (1936). The idea was to adapt the automobile industry's expertise, to aircraft construction. One innovation was setting up sub-factories. Beaverbrook set up a system focusing on fighter aircraft that managed to not only maintain but increase fighter numbers during the Battle of Britain. Dowding's problem would not aircraft, but pilots. The desperate need 1940 was for fighters to shoot down the Luftwaffe bombers. The Hawker Hurricane was easy to build. It was basically a slimmed down biplane already in production. The Supermarine Spitfire was more of a problem, The elliptical wing posed a production problem. The initial efforts to utilize the automobile industry were frustrating. Mass production of aircraft differed significantly from manufacturing automobiles. The automobile companies lacked the necessary expertise to make the transition. Lord Beaverbrook oversaw a remarkable reorganization. He helped streamlined the process. One important decision was to reduce the number of different aircraft. He focused on five key aircraft types. There was a doubling of production (1940). Fighter Command received a dubbing in France had some 770 aircraft, but only about 520 were actually battle worthy (June 1940). There were also losses protecting the Dunkirk pocket. That was insufficient given the large. The Battle of Britain began (July 1940), but attacks were at first small scale. Thanks to improvements in production an Dowding's success in convincing Churchill not to commit additional squadrons to the defense of France, the number of fighters began to increase. Fortunately the Germans after Dunkirk turned south anmdf were were busy in France (June 1940). And it took time to reposition in bases near the Channel (July 1940). By his time, British aircraft manufacturers were turning out about 500 fighters per month. By the time the Luftwaffe began large scale attacks (August 1940), Fighter Command had just about doubled its strength to over 1,000 aircraft new fightes had reached RAF swquadrons. And there were also 400 aircraft in storage. also very imprttyan, the Germanms had lost much of the summer for their offensive. Luftwaffe intelligence had worked out British fighter construction fairly accutraterly at the onset of the War, but they were not aware of the improvements the British weere making. In addition to this production capacity, the RAF had another 400 planes in storage ready for use. As a result, in the first few weeks of the campaign a regenerated Fighter Command had a fleet of some 1,400 air frames, a much larger force than the Germans expected and a force that could replace even heavy losses. Luftwaffe analysts had no idea that the British were actually outproducing Germany in aircraft. T he British were also importing aircraft from America--but not many fighters.

Created: 11:40 PM 10/6/2025
Last updated: 11:40 PM 10/6/2025