Brooklands and the Battle of Britain

During the First World War, all motorsport and civil aviation ceased at Brooklands and the entire site was taken over by the War Office. Two main manufacturers

of military aircraft emerged during this period, the Sopwith Aviation Company, which produced fighters, and Vickers, which concentrated bombers. In the interwar years, Sopwith ceased trading but re-emerged as Hawker Engineering Ltd, maintaining its focus on single-seat aircraft, while Vickers continued to produce larger civil and military aircraft.

Brooklands played an important role in supplying aircraft for the Battle of Britain. It was also a key target in this crucial airborne conflict.

Words: Harry Sherrard Photos: Brooklands Museum Collection

German discontent with the terms on which the First World War was settled grew though the 1930s, leading to the election of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1933. Hitler began a rearmament programme and secretly re-established a military air force, the Luftwaffe. In Britain, memories of the First World War were fresh and despite growing evidence that Hitler was intent on war, there was a reluctance to rearm adequately to counter the growing German threat.

Despite Hitler’s increasing belligerence, Britain and Germany enjoyed near-normal relations through the 1930s, with German motorists and aviators regular attendees at motorsport and aviation events at Brooklands. The location and the layout of Brooklands, and the existence of the Hawker and Vickers factories, was therefore information readily available to the Luftwaffe. Indeed, pre-war reconnaissance photographs of the site were taken, enabling the Luftwaffe to produce a map of Brooklands showing the Hawker and Vickers sites. It was clear that air power would be critical in any conflict and therefore aircraft factories would be a key target.

Though lagging behind the rapid growth of the Luftwaffe, an expansion of the RAF from 75 to 116 squadrons was announced in 1934. Moreover, it was recognised that British aircraft development had slowed considerably after the end of the First World War, and the RAF’s biplane fighters and bombers of the 1930s would be no match for the technologically more advanced German aircraft that were emerging. This was recognised by the management and design teams of both Hawker and Vickers at Brooklands and they embarked on design studies of a

The aerial view of Brooklands was obscured with camouflage. New buildings both genuine and fake were built to confuse enemy bomber aircraft. This image shows the Hawker and Vickers factories.

more modern and capable monoplane fighter and bomber respectively. From these designs emerged the Hawker Hurricane and the Vickers Wellington.

Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, following the invasion of Poland. Motorsport at Brooklands stopped and there was an immediate ban on private flying. Through the winter of 1939 to 1940 production of Hurricanes and Wellingtons proceeded apace and, although this period became known as ‘The Phoney War’, due to lack of direct conflict between Britain and Germany, the breathing space given to Hawker in particular to produce Hurricanes was to prove vital in the conflict to come.

The Phoney War ended in April 1940 when the Germans invaded and occupied Norway. In May, Hitler’s armies headed west and their successful blitzkrieg tactics saw Belgium, Holland and then France surrender that month. More than 300,000 Allied troops were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk and it was clear that Britain was the next target.

The effectiveness of netting in hiding and softening the outline of Brooklands’ buildings is easy to see in this image, which was taken at position W43. A group of soldiers from 284 AA Battery based at Brooklands during World War Two to defend it. Some soldiers were from a Canadian detachment. The site was protected by a Bofors anti-aircraft gun.

In view of the seemingly unstoppable German advance, some members of the British Government were in favour of entering into talks with Hitler, who offered terms to Britain in a series of speeches. However, Sir Winston Churchill, appointed Prime Minister on 10 May, 1940 had a total commitment to defeat Nazism and successfully outmanoeuvred the appeasers amongst establishment figures.

In truth, the speed of the German advance to the northern French coastline had surprised even them. No plan and no equipment yet existed for a cross-channel invasion. So, when Hitler’s overtures were rejected, the Germans set about planning Operation Sealion, a seaborne invasion of the south coast of England. The Royal Navy substantially outnumbered the German Kriegsmarine in and around the English Channel, and German naval commanders were all too aware of this. To have any

chance of success, Operation Sealion would have to be preceded by the Luftwaffe securing air superiority over the Channel and southern England. And so, the stage was set for the Battle of Britain.

At the outset of the Battle, the RAF’s Fighter Command had 55 squadrons of which 26 were equipped with Hurricanes, 20 with Spitfires and the other 9 with various other aircraft. On 6 July, 1940 the RAF mustered a total of 871 fighters, against which the Luftwaffe launched more than 3300 aircraft of all types. The odds seemed ominous, but the RAF held several advantages. The Battle was fought over British territory, so Luftwaffe pilots who survived being shot down were taken prisoner, whereas their RAF counterparts could return to service. The Germans’ primary fighter, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, had fuel endurance of just over an hour, meaning a maximum of 20 minutes actual combat time over Britain.

However, the most important factor in the RAF’s favour was the Dowding System. Conceived by Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the Commander-inChief of Fighter Command, radar stations and observer posts along the southern coast of Britain rapidly fed information about incoming German raids to a central command and control centre. This allowed Fighter Command to marshal its forces by vectoring fighters accurately onto German aircraft. This highly effective battle management enabled the RAF to resist the numerically superior Luftwaffe.

Sir Winston Churchill’s inspirational rhetoric, in particular his speech on 20 August, 1940 when he famously proclaimed that ‘Never in the field of human conflict

was so much owed by so many to so few, shone the spotlight on the courage, skill and sacrifice of Fighter Command’s pilots. Even so, Churchill’s speeches, coupled with the dramatic and unique visibility of the aerial battle to the general population in southern England, has led to the tendency for the fighter battle to overshadow other important participants in the resistance to Operation Sealion.

The RAF’s Bomber Command, equipped with Wellingtons as their frontline aircraft, Although often overshadowed by its more glamorous stablemate, the Supermarine Spitfire, the Brooklands-designed and built Hawker Hurricane outnumbered the Spitfire in the Battle of Britain and accounted for some 55 per cent of hostile aircraft shot down.

Hawker’s designer, Sir Sydney Camm, designed the Hurricane in the early 1930s in anticipation of a requirement for a modern monoplane to replace the RAF’s obsolete biplanes. The prototype Hurricane was first flown at Brooklands in November 1935. The design was accepted by the Air Ministry and it entered service in 1937.

The deteriorating international situation led to a large order for Hurricanes and on the outbreak of war in September 1939 about 550 Hurricanes had been built and allocated to a total of 18 squadrons. A further 3500 Hurricanes were on order, with many being built over the winter of 1939 into 1940, just in time for the Battle of Britain. Hawker’s principal aircraft establishment remained Brooklands, but manufacture of the aircraft was subcontracted and dispersed to a number of other engineering businesses. The Hurricane, like the Spitfire, used the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin 12-cylinder engine, which produced just over 1000hp and could propel the Hurricane to maximum speed of about 325mph. It was armed with eight Browning .303 machine guns.

On the outbreak of the Battle of Britain in July, 1940 the RAF’s general approach was to order Hurricane squadrons to intercept hostile bombers, leaving the slightly faster and more manoeuvrable Spitfires to tackle the Messerschmitt Bf 109s. However, Hurricanes also regularly had dogfights with the German fighter aircraft and, in a remarkable accomplishment, on 7 October, 1940 RAF Hurricane pilot Archie McKellar shot down five Messerschmitts in a single day.

was also heavily engaged throughout the summer of 1940 in offensive operations against German invasion barges and ships being assembled in French and Belgian ports. At this early stage of the war, the pilots were inexperienced and their bombing techniques unsophisticated, with the result that German flak gunners exacted a heavy toll. Indeed, in the official Battle of Britain period from 10 July to 31 October 1940, Bomber Command lost 718 crew, which significantly exceeded Fighter Command’s losses of 544.

Brooklands was only 150 miles from German airfields in northern France and

it was an obvious target. To disguise the site, holes were dug in the banking and trees planted, camouflage netting held up by poles covered the track itself and both real and decoy buildings were erected. Large quantities of green paint were used to conceal the fact that this was an industrial site. A Bofors anti-aircraft gun was installed, pillboxes and air raid shelters were built and a detachment of Canadian troops was charged with the defence of Brooklands.

The Luftwaffe mounted a major raid on Brooklands on Wednesday 4 September, 1940 resulting in the death of 84 workers. This raid will be covered in more detail in a subsequent article.

In the early stages of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had primarily attacked Fighter Command stations in an

This 1939 shot shows Brooklands how it was before the Battle of Britain started. The track was popular with German racing drivers and aviators before the outbreak of war.

attempt to destroy its infrastructure on the ground. On the direct command of Hitler, in September 1940 the Luftwaffe switched its attention to bombing London and thus began the period that became known as The Blitz. It was a major strategic Wellington Vickers’ chief designer, Rex Pierson, commenced design work at Brooklands on what was to become the Wellington in 1932 in response to the Air Ministry’s invitation to tender for the design and production of a twin-engine medium daylight bomber. With Pierson responsible for the overall design, the structural engineering was assigned to Barnes Wallis. Following his previous work on airships blunder. Fighter Command had been badly damaged by the attacks on its stations and, while Londoners suffered, the respite gave Fighter Command the opportunity to rebuild. Moreover, attacking large

formations of German aircraft en route to and the single-engined Wellesley light bomber, Wallis proposed the use of a fabric covered geodesic airframe for the new bomber. Structural testing of the airframe design at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough confirmed that it was much stronger than conventional structures and the design was approved. Bristol Pegasus radial engines, producing 1050hp, were specified.

This commemorative book’s cover shows the Vickers Armstrongs factory in the condition it survived the September 1940 air raid, where 84 lives were lost and around 300 workers were injured.

London was more effective than defending numerous smaller raids across southern England.

With London continuing to be subject to bombing attacks, the Battle continued into October. As the summer of 1940 gave way to autumn, it was clear that air superiority had not been gained over Fighter Command, the Royal Navy remained in strength in the channel and Bomber Command continued to pummel the wouldbe invasion fleet in the Channel ports. With no prospect of mounting a successful invasion, Operation Sealion was cancelled and the Battle of Britain was won.

On 15 June, 1936 the maiden flight of the prototype Wellington took place at Brooklands, flown by Vickers’ chief test pilot Joseph Summers, accompanied by Wallis.

In August 1936, an initial order for 180 Wellingtons was received by Vickers from the Air Ministry and production commenced. By the late 1930s, Wellingtons were being produced at Brooklands at the rate of one per day. The Wellington had a crew of five, with forward and tail turret gun positions, along with a retractable revolving ventral turret. The turrets were power-operated in order to achieve the speed and manoeuvrability necessary to engage the new German fighters. The Wellington Mk1 had a maximum offensive bomb load of 4500 lb (2,000 kg).

In the early years of the war, the Wellington was the frontline aircraft of Bomber Command. During the Battle of Britain, it played a key role in offensive operations against the German invasion fleet being assembled in Channel ports.

The Wellington holds the twin distinctions of having been the only British bomber that was produced for the duration of the war and being produced in a greater quantity than any other Britishbuilt bomber.