Last week and I spent a fascinating few days interviewing former Battle of Britain pilots in Germany and Austria.  As soon as they are all transcribed I shall post them up on the Oral History Archive, but I learnt much from them. 

When I first thought about doing a book about the Battle of Britain from both sides I felt certain that including the German perspective would lead to a very different overall view of the battle, and so far I have not been proved wrong.  Among the things of interest that emerged were the obvious problems of stress and battle fatigue that affected a number of the pilots, and also that the nuisance raids on their airfields by Blenheims of Bomber Command also got under their skin.  There was also a problem of aircraft shortages – one fighter pilot had to wait three weeks after joining his staffel before there was a Me 109 for him to fly. Read more…