User:Arainey524/August 12th 1940

Before the main aerial armada would strike on the 13th August 1940, the radar installations along the South coast of England were targeted.

The main targets were the Chain home stations at Rye Pevency Ventnor Dunkirk

and the Chain Home low station at Dover.

To distract the RAF from the target area, 11 fighter sweeps by Bf109s commenced at 07:00. This force consisted of almost 200 German fighters.

At 08:40 16 Messerschmitt Bf 110s took off from Calais. They belonged to the elite fighter bomber unit, Erprobungsgruppe 210.

Dover was attacked first. Some destruction but the mast still operational. Dunkirk was next, again some damage but the mast remained operational. Rye had many huts destroyed and communications stopped for a time, but the mast was still standing. Pevency was last to be attacked, with minimal damage but a bomb managed to hit an electrical supply line which caused communications to be halted for a time.

Ventnor was attacked later in the day by 15 bombers who broke away from a larger attack on Portsmouth. The main force consisted of 80 Junker 88s, escorted by 120 110s and 25 109s.

At Ventnor almost every building was destroyed and the masts were damaged.

The British air defences were in chaos for the rest of the day, and the Luftwaffe tried to take maximum advantage of this.

Manston airfield was badly damaged, along with fighter stations at Hawkinge and Lynne. Stukka dive bombers attacked shipping convoys in the English Channel, sinking 2 small ships. Bf 109s shot down 4 Hurricanes.

Although some damage had been caused to the radar stations, only Ventnor was out of action for more than 6 hours. It would be several weeks before Ventnor was operational again. The Luftwaffe missed their chance to cause permanent damage to the radar installations and would pay a heavy price for this in the air battles of the coming weeks.