Unternehmen
Adlerangriff – Adlertag !
“Never in the field of
human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”
Winston
Churchill
20 August 1940
On Thursday 13 August Spitfires from the RAF
Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight were joined by several
privately owned Spitfires to commemorate the 75th
Anniversary of Unternehmen Adlerangriff , the German operation
to destroy the Royal Air Force in the Second World War .
A total of thirteen Spitfires took off from
Humberside Airport and split into three sections ; Section 2
comprising of 5 Spitfires flew across Lincolnshire,
Section 3 with four Spitfires overflew the Midlands with Section
1 flying north . Firstly towards York and then up the Vale of
York over-flying both RAF Linton On Ouse and RAF Leeming , but
strangely not Church Fenton which actually
was a fighter command
airfield as was Catterick but again – omitted , before reaching
Teesside Airport . It was here that I was waiting for them as
were , surprisingly to me , quite a crowd of both aviation
enthusiasts and members of the public and of all ages with
several youngsters in the crowd , including my own ! The
Spitfires flew in from the west , line abreast , slightly north
of the main 05-24 runway and right over the top of the control
tower , hangars and the gathered spectators as well as the
resident flying club , parachute and cargo centres who all
seemed to turn out to watch the Spitfires fly over . The only
slight blight on the flypast was the dark and threatening rain
clouds which made photographing the quartet challenging to say
the least ! The Spitfires stayed low and in a
looser formation as they made their way across the urban
Teesside sprawl , reports and photographs of which were posted
up on The Evening Gazette website , gazettelive ;
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/spitfires-fly-over-teesside-part-9852820
. The northern section was finished off by following the coast
south and returning to Humberside via Whitby , Scarborough and
Bridlington .
The
Spitfires completing Section 1 were ;
Spitfire IIa P7350/EB-G
Spitfire Vb AB910/SH-F
Spitfire HFIX TD314/FX-P
really G-CGYJ
Spitfire LFXVIe TE311/4D-V
The destruction of the Royal Air Force would have cleared the way for the invasion of Britain , Operation Sealion , and would have removed the last democratic obstacle to Hitler’s domination of Europe . Here in the north east of England our own Adlertag , Day of the Eagle , actually came on the 15 August but that as they say , is another story !
David
Thompson
15 August 2015