I`ve made a few posts like this over the years, but this is a slightly different take on it.

After six years of extremely intense research into aviation engineering before, and during the Second World War, what six things surprised me the most ?

1) Technical Intelligence.

I couldn't believe the pages of fuel chemists at I.C.I. and their peers discussing spectrographic analysis of German fighter aircraft fuels, and correctly deducing extremely complex engine combustion issues in their enemy`s engines, which I only knew about myself because 75 years later - I had copies of the German internal reports detailing the problems from the other side. Its amazing having both sets of paperwork and comparing what one side THINKS it knows compared to what the other is ACTUALLY doing in parallel.

2) The engineering standard in the aviation design offices of all combatants.

So much mathematics, so little guesswork. These were astonishing people, I`m not sure people like that are still alive today, certainly not in enough numbers to do that again without computers.

3) How many questions which to quote one reviewer of my book had been "bouncing around the aviation community for decades", which were answered right there in the archive files, and even more so, how much of what is generally considered "accepted" about that period in history, was either not supported by the original files, or was even flatly contradicted by it.

Its obvious that hundreds of extraordinary history books remain to be written, because the notion that the available files have all been picked clean is a nonsense. I suspect many researchers know many of these things, but are possibly not people who write books. There are lots of web forums where the top contributors (who get these files and read them in their own time) are far more knowledgeable than many quite famous historians you`ll see on TV talking about WW2.

4) Some legends really ARE true, not everything is there to be picked apart and debunked. On many topics what is often talked about today is just exactly as it was then, and in fact sometimes it is UNDER credited today.

The applies in the main to the De Havilland Mosquito, and also the P-51 Mustang, which both really were THAT good.

5) How organized the British military and industrial machine was. As far as I can tell the entire "muddling though" thing, and the "fighting alone" stuff, was really just propaganda designed to amplify the British achievements (of having won against "all odds"). In reality its amazing that Germany got as far as they did.

6) The Chamberlain "appeasement" stuff falls apart once you read the Committee of Imperial Defence (C.I.D.) files from 1935, where they state it is of the utmost importance to British defence to keep Hitler on friendly terms for the maximum possible duration. I`ve posted EXTENSIVELY about this before, but whilst Chamberlain certainly wanted to avoid a war, this was very much his personal opinion, and had not a great deal to do with what he was actually doing, which was funding the rebuilding of the RAF and the Royal Navy (against strong opposition!), and prioritising defence of the British homeland (as opposed to the empire).

Its literally impossible to watch films like DARKEST HOUR after you`ve read the C.I.D. files without throwing your popcorn at the screen in rage.


The R.A.F. which Churchill found himself with had mostly been planned and built under Chamberlains tenure. Who had fought with virtually no resources, carefully and cleverly to sacrifice expenses in the Far East to use the money to build the RAF at home.

The part of his plan (which was hardly one he invented, and which was the doctrine) was that the Army could be cut to fund the RAF and Navy, because France (who had a huge army and impressive land defences) would do the job of attacking future German advances on the ground.

It was a cataclysmic shock to everyone that France fell so easily. His idea in principle was sound, and was one shared by all opinion in the mid 30`s.

When you`re such a prodigy that its almost embarrasing.

A Battle of Britain Spitfire, modified to have the boost level set to +12 lbs supercharger boost on 100 octane fuel could reach a level top speed of about 360 mph, which it was allowed to do for a few minuites.

The final WW2 PR version of the De Havilland Mosquito, reached that SAME speed - but with its engines set to maximum ecomony cruise.

If the Mosquito pilot actually pushed the throttles fully forward, it vanished into the distance at 420mph.

If they kept their altitude up, it was almost impossible to intercept a Mosquito over Germany. The only real sucesses of any kind were by Messerschmitt 262 turbojet fighters, but even they struggled sometimes as the Jumo 004 jet engine power began to drop off quite fast well below the service ceiling of the PR Mosquito.

In my view clearly the best overall piston powered twin engine aircraft of WW2. With close runners up being the He 219 Uhu, Mitsubishi Ki-46 Dinah, Junkers 388, Beufighter and A-26 Invader. The lightning I feel misses out as it suffered from fundamental aerodynamic design flaws which made it unsafe in high speed dives, and were never totally resolved.

The Me 410 was actually quite good too, but due to the design issues (not actually caused by Messerschmitt in my view) with the 210, the 410 (which was really just a "fixed" 210) arrived about 3 years too late to do anything very useful. The Me 110 was also really quite good, but was just getting a bit dated by 1943.

After the war, a PR34 Mosquito cut the London to Capetown record to 21hours, the previous record being also held by an older De Havilland aircraft...


For the real enthusiast, note that the 4 quadrant photo of the Mosquito, is the real PR.34 version.

The RAF Bomber Command lost 55,000 airmen in WW2, although the USAAF also had losses which amount to not THAT dissimilar levels of horror, they did so in daylight and without really effective escort until quite late in the war. But arguably daylight without top class escort proved to be not much worse than bombing at night unescorted.

What always bothered me was, given how heavily armed the American heavy bombers were, WHY did we send so many pilots out armed with what were more or less pop-guns?

Luckily, an Operational Requirements War Diary gives much of the story of why Bomber Command had heavy bombers with such light weight defences.

When the British heavy bombers we all know were being planned, 303`s in power operated turrets WERE in fact pretty state of the art, and were dramatically better than the German tactic of having hand aimed guns (this is confirmed in WW2 German files also).

However, around the time of the Battle of Britain, self sealing fuel tanks, armored glass and aircraft steel armour plating generally gave the Luftwaffe quote:

"comparative immunity from small arms fire".

The British Air Staff were not surprised by this and had been planning for the day when 0.5" or 20mm cannon turrets would be needed back in 1939. After deliberations they decided that 0.5" was not enough of an improvement, and decided upon 20mm cannon turrets for the first new bomber specification issued to tender in January 1939 (B.1/39), which require EIGHT 20mm cannon.

Plans were made that the current operational and soon-to-be operational bombers could be converted to two, 20mm turrets.

However, the Air Staff had underestimated the additional equipment needed when war arrived, and the bombers rapidly became so overloaded with armour plating, new radios and suchlike that the designers stated the center of gravity of the bombers would not stand 20mm turrets whilst retaining safe flight characteristics. (a 2x20mm turret weighed 350lbs more than a 4x303 turret and had triple the drag).

At this point Lord Beaverbrook cancelled the B.1/39 programme, and also, all work on 20mm turrets (some time before mid 1940).

It was then decided that .5" guns were needed, as an improvement was required and 20mm was no longer an option. However, no 0.5" gun was being manufactured in England at the time, and the USA only promised a low volume of "export" pattern 0.5" guns (inferior to American service guns). When tested these showed only marginal gains over the .303.

Britain then entered into talks with Breda and FN, in Italy and Belgium respectively, but when Italy entered the war on the German side and Belgium was overrun, this plan floundered.

Boulton-Paul designed a 0.5" gun turret for manufacture in the USA, but trials at night showed that it was very hard to damp the 0.5" muzzle flash at night, which rapidly blinded the gunner and studies showed that such heavy turrets seriously lowered the range of the bomber, and it was inferred that the 0.5" gun at night was further rendered of low utility as the main ballastic advantage was longer range than 303, but at night, the gunner could never see far enough away to engage at the range where the 0.5" could "reach" out so much further than the .303 anyway.

The Air Staff concluded that therefore any armanent upgrade at night, was useless until the Mk II gyro gunsight was in service (letter dated 23rd Oct 1942)

Hopefully this helps explain the story of why the RAF had to endure such poor armament for so long, although it does seem that had it been given maximum priority, its possible that some more serious modifications could have been made the the bombers to apply very heavy armaments.

However, the whole reason that the Lancaster could carry so much bombload compared to American bombers, was that it was designed to carry maximum bombload so less bombers were needed, at the cost of armour and weapons when used at night.

So to have outfitted them adequately would have required material and doctrinal shifts in parallel, which was probably asking too much.

There were though, clearly many very sound and intractable reasons why larger armaments were not adopted, and so it was not just a case of wilful neglect of the Air Crew.