Leaning Into France

 

Leaning Into France - Early 1941

No sooner had the defensive victory of the Battle of Britain been won then the more ardent spirits in and around Fighter Command began looking for new laurels. Lord Trenchard had said that the time had come for Fighter Command to go on to the offensive. He thought that we should now “lean towards France” and he advocated a system of offensive sweeps of fighters across the Channel which was along the same lines as that used by us in our operations over the Western Front in the First World War.

So the institution of "Rhubarbs" – which were sweeps of massed fighters - began; the Germans were largely unimpressed. However they paid far more attention and often reacted when the fighters were accompanied by bombers. Bomber Command it must be said did not greatly care for their role as bait. These joint operations became known as "Circuses". Between January and June 1941 they involved 190 bomber sorties and the "Rhubarbs" and "Circuses" together involved 2,700 sorties by fighters.

 

The theatre of this struggle became an air space over Belgium and northern France, contained within the arch stretching from Ostend, through Lille, Lens, Amiens, Rouen and through to Le Havre. That was the arch denoting the maximum range of British fighters. Numerous units of Luftwaffe fighters, located mainly near St. Omer and Amiens were engaged almost daily with Allied fighters over their own territory. They cooperated extremely well with German AA artillery, which in 1941 became very potent being great in numbers and very accurate at all ceilings. The "deck" was littered with machine guns. Thus the scene is set on 9th January 1941, a freezing cold day. The RAF fueled and armed their fighters and sent off the first fighter sweep to mark the return of Offensive Operations to France...

SETTINGS: