30 kmh they broke formation to pursue 1 enemy planes The force of the twists and THE EAGLE SQUADRONS turns stressed the pilots bodies streams of enemy bullets threatened to shred their Americans who left to fight in the United Kingdom were breaking neutrality laws in the planes wings or detonate their fuel tanks United States which banned citizens from joining foreign armies But so many Americans FIGHTING IN THE SKY arrived to fight in the summer of 1940 that the The commanders of the Luftwaffe were RAF decided to form Eagle Squadrons which determined to destroy British air power would include volunteers from the United States and other countries The first such squadron The German military had already defeated formed in September 1940 British recruiters France and occupied much of Europe Now smuggled out volunteers for the squadrons the United Kingdom stood alone against through Canada Eventually approximately Hitler's forces Germany had drawn up 250 US citizens would join the RAF's Eagle Squadrons by the time the United States formally invasion plans but it knew an invasion entered the war in December 1941 would fail if the RAF still had the power to attack German forces from the sky If the German army were to invade and conquer the United Kingdom as planned the RAF had to be knocked out its planes and airfields destroyed Leaders within the Luftwaffe knew they had to act quickly An amphibious invasion across the rough waters of the English Channel would be impossible by the fa For that reason Hermann Goring the Luftwaffe commander drew up plans for Unternehmen Adlerangriff or Operation Eagle Attack This campaign would be a powerful knockout blow delivered over several days By mid August 1940 the Germans were sending huge fleets of He 111 and Junkers Ju 88
Surviving crashes in fighter planes was a matter of both luck and skill protected by screens of Bf 109 fighters across the English Channel and the North Sea to attack airfields across the United
Throughout the battle the RAF was outnumbered It brought fewer pilots and about half as many planes to the fight as the Luftwaffe British training schools could not turn out enough new pilots to replace the experienced fliers who were losing their lives defending British cities and military sites This forced many new pilots into battle before they were prepared It was common for RAF pilots to lose their planes and often their lives on their first combat missions Others flew several times a day risking a fiery death every time they took off Still with the fate of Europe in the balance pilots continued enlisting in the RAF Aerial combat during the Battle of Britain was very different from the far slower dogfights of World War I 1914 1918 By the time of World War II military planes were faster more maneuverable better armed and capable of flying to much higher altitudes They flew in tight formations and the new technologies of radio and radar aided British pilots in their search for enemy planes At the height of the battle in July and August 1940 RAF pilots were ordered up for several sorties a day as wave after wave of German bombers and fighters appeared on the southern horizon It was an exhausting and dangerous routine but it was critical in preventing a German invasion In the summer of 1940 the fate of the United Kingdom relied on a few thousand young pilots Winston Churchill the prime minister of the United Kingdom led his nation through all but the first several months of war In an August 1940 speech he recognized the critical importance of the RAF pilots to the United Kingdom s survival Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so
RAF gunners and pilots underwent ground training using models before taking off in real aircraft THE 601 SQUADRON PREPARES Hopeful recruits could not join the RAF simply by volunteering Foreigners were banned unless they came from territories of the British Empire Fiske had to pass himself off as a Canadian to enlist Once he was accepted into the
