ORTHOTICS &
PROSTHETICS
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Edna Brooks, UK Women's Auxillary Air Force.
The Old Order Changeth,
Yielding Place to New
by Wesley May
In 1940’s opening days of World War II,
Edna Brooks, my MOTHER-IN-LAW, decided
to volunteer for service in the UK’s Women’s
Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) as a young teenager,
while the war clouds were building. Britain was
confronting the largest and most powerful Air
Force in the world in what would be a solely air
campaign. To say Britain was a huge underdog
is a colossal understatement. But, MOM gladly
and proudly stood with the BEST to defeat the
BIGGEST,… a highly improbable outcome in
early 1940. Almost everyone living now has at
least heard about the Battle of Britain, which
was so superbly reenacted in the movie with the
same title. But as the Greatest Generation slowly
fades away, an always fruitful exercise is to recall,
with gratitude, what preceding generations have
bequeathed to us. That’s all I’m trying to do. But
whenever I think of that Battle, I presciently
recall a line from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King:
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new.”
This article is not a historical retelling of
the ebb and flow of battle. That may be more
interesting, but that is not my purpose. My
purpose is to focus on the value of MOM’s
service in WAAF and to the overall war effort,
which certainly is also a story worth telling.
NOTE: In the text, I mark WAAF responsibility
areas in which she could participate with
(WAAF).
Remember that when France fell, the
Luftwaffe was the largest and most powerful Air
Force in the world even though Germany had
been forbidden to have an air force by Article
198 in the Treaty of Versailles. Western Europe’s
indifference to this gross violation emboldened
Hitler even more as he continued planning
Operation Sealion, the British invasion.
Thankfully the RAF prevented that operation
from being executed. However, Wehrmacht’s
Blitzkrieg and Luftwaffe’s lightning victories
over Poland and France enroute to Germany’s
domination of four West European countries
in less than six weeks … made Germany the
prohibitive favorite of the Old Order, to beat
Britain!
But could the highly-publicized, powerful
Germany strategy be replicated against the UK?
Britain had some technological advantages
(neither well understood nor appreciated at
the time) that could affect the outcome: e.g.,
a modern aircraft industry that could roll out
almost 500 aircraft per month a big relative
advantage over Germany in the inevitable war
of attrition, that the Battle of Britain would be!
Although Britain would lose over 1,000 aircraft
in that Battle, its aircraft inventory would
actually increase because of Britain’s superior
industrial base-a capability that Germany could
not match. And the RAF changed from a force
of primarily British pilots into an International
Force with many pilots from: Commonwealth
countries, defeated Western European countries
(especially Polish and Czech pilots who manned
two national squadrons each, in the RAF), and
even neutral countries like US and Ireland.
Incredibly, a new Radio Direction Finding,
(RDF) system came on line, which I will refer to
by its modern name, RADAR. These advantages
would become Aces in the Hole, supporting an
ingenious Force Multiplier, also coming onto
the battlefield soon in conjunction with the New
Order, the Dowding System!
In the mid-1930’s, the central protagonist
in this article, Air Council’s Air Member for
Supply and Research, Hugh Dowding, (and
subsequently Commander-in-Chief of Fighter
Command during the Battle of Britain) who,
although impressed by the concept of early
interception of enemy aircraft, insisted on a
practical demonstration before making any
investment. That demonstration verified
the capability of detecting nearby aircraft.
Dowding immediately released funding for a
development program. By the summer of 1935,
his new RADAR system could detect bombersized
targets at ranges of 60 miles. Plans were
made to build a chain of RADAR stations at
about 25 mile intervals along the English coast
to establish the Chain Home (CH) system … the
defensive bulwark in 1940!
To increase warning time, CH stations were
built close to the shoreline, with coverage limited
to seaward only. Therefore, they could not
provide good coverage for friendly interceptors
enroute to attack enemy planes … a deficiency
countered later by the Dowding System. Nor
could they track enemy planes that had crossed
the coastline. But Dowding knew that he could get
that “over land” data by grafting his tactical data
requirements onto the existing and pervasive
Observer Corps (OC) communications system
based on some 30,000 observers manning 1,500
visual observer posts. Their stellar performance
during Battle of Britain earned OC the addition
of ROYAL to their title i.e. the Royal OC (ROC),
which later included women, but not associated
with WAAF! The volume of information supplied
by this national network was overwhelming,
but carefully filtered in Dowding’s hierarchical
networks.
The Dowding system was the world’s first
wide-area, ground-controlled interception
network controlling the airspace across the UK
from Scotland to the southern coast of England.
Its widespread, dedicated land-line telephone
network could rapidly collect information from
CH radar stations (WAAF) and visual ROC Posts
to build a single image (WAAF) of the entire UK
airspace, and then direct defensive interceptor
aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery against enemy
targets. The system was built by the RAF just
before the start of World War II, and this NEW
ORDER proved decisive in the Battle of Britain.
With RADAR providing the eyes for the
defense, the Dowding System added improved
Command and Control capabilities that
enabled the formation of the urgently needed
Force Multiplier. Dowding recognized that the
main problem was not technical but the many
sources of information, none of which had
complete coverage and none was able to react
quickly enough to report necessary tactical data
to the interceptors.
The Dowding System was developed after
tests highlighted this inability to achieve
timely relay of tactical command and control
information.
Hugh Dowding solved that problem by
implementing an efficient, hierarchical reporting
chain: FIRST by establishing FILTER ROOM
(FR) at Fighter Command HQ (FCHQ) as top of
communications hierarchy, and SECOND only
processing through the hierarchy levels (Group,
Sector, Squadron,Pilot) the data needed at each
level. This TAILORED DATA stream began with
CH reports from (WAAF “tellers”) to FR where
observers verified a formation had formed.
(WAAF plotters) placed a wooden block on
maptable showing enemy position, aircraft type,
number, altitude and unique track number that
the entire network used from radar operators
(WAAF) to pilots. Around and above the map
table were more tellers (WAAF) who controlled
the communications connecting incoming
reports to the plotters (WAAF) on the floor.
Subsequently, details of the map were relayed
(by WAAF) to Group and Sector headquarters
(WAAF). All command echelons had a visual
reference aiding them to make precise, timely
decisions in response to changing tactical
situations. Instructions to the pilots were always
relayed by RAF personnel from the squadron’s
sector control rooms, normally co-located at the
fighters’ operating bases.
Now, in my opinion, the FORCE MULTIPLIER
was poised for the coup de grâce by which Britain
would smother the poor odds postulated earlier
in this article. A FORCE MULTIPLIER so powerful
that it would overwhelm the overly-optimistic
superiority conceded to Germany in early 1940.
Victory goes to the side with superior combat
power (personnel and equipment including any
Force Multiplier effect) and executing the best
processes (Command and Control enhanced by
the ingenuity of the Dowding System … which
effectively increased the size of his force vis-àvis
the Luftwaffe.
Given the quantitative superiority of the
Luftwaffe, Dowding REALIZED his need for
such a FORCE MULTIPLIER. The RAF’s tactical
mission was interception and destruction of
attacking bombers before they actually reached
their targets. However, the record for successful
interceptor contacts to attack bombers was
No. 132 The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. p.27
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