Seventy-nine years ago today one of the turning point battles of World War II began in the skies over Britain.

Enemy Ace: Eagle Day

During Nazi Germany’s rearmament in the 1930s Hans von Hammer flew fighter aircraft again as a squadron commander in the newly-expanded Luftwaffe. In the early campaigns of World War II Hammer became one of a tiny handful of pilots to fly combat missions in both World Wars.

On August 13, 1940—codenamed “Adlertag”—Eagle Day—the much-anticipated Battle of Britain began. In this excerpt from his memoir, The Hammer of Hell, Hammer describes his short-lived experience of the Battle of Britain campaign.


Eagle Day did not go as we had planned. Poor weather conditions necessitated the postponement of our main strikes until afternoon. Various failures of communication and other mishaps caused several of our attacks to go awry. Our squadron was fortunate to have no part in any of these fiascos and semi-fiascos.

In the early evening everything at last fell into place. Our hunter-wing, escorting a wing of dive bombers, approached the RAF station at Detling in a well-executed mass attack. We caught the base without substantial defenses. The Junkers delivered an excellent pasting. We Messerschmitt pilots were then able to sweep low over the smoking field in a mass punishment attack. Vehicles, aircraft, and buildings alike were torn to shreds by our machine guns and cannon.

I have the most vivid memory of one parked aircraft, a twin-engine Anson patrol craft, all but disintegrating under the fire of my guns. I have no memory of seeing any men on the field. Perhaps they had all by now taken shelter; or possibly I simply overlooked them in my concentration upon material targets. I recall wondering what a patrol craft was doing at a field for hunter aircraft—but then it was hardly unprecedented to have more than one type based at a single air station.

We left Detling absolutely devastated. Our radio trumpeted the destruction of an RAF Fighter Command base. Only much later did I learn that Detling had not, in fact, been under Fighter Command. It was, rather, under RAF Coastal Command. Detling flew patrol aircraft such as my Anson, not hunters. While certainly a worthwhile military target, Detling was a far cry from the key Fighter Command bases upon which our attacks were supposed to concentrate.

On Eagle Day we flew nearly 1,500 sorties altogether. Two days later, on the Fifteenth of August, we added about three hundred to that total. This was due to the participation of Stumpf’s Air Fleet 5, based in Norway. As our previous strikes had already drawn Fighter Command down into the southern part of Britain—and, we supposed, inflicted grievous losses upon them—our High Command supposed it safe to send Air Fleet 5’s bombers on the long flight across the North Sea with no single-engine Messerschmitts for escort. Instead the bombers were accompanied only by long-range, but far less maneuverable, twin-engine Messerschmitt aircraft.

The decision proved a disastrous miscalculation. The RAF had sufficient hunter squadrons to intercept both Air Fleet 5’s attacks from the north and our own renewed attacks in the south. Messerschmitt’s so-called “destroyers” had all they could do to protect themselves. The bombers in their charge were little better than sitting ducks. They lost some twenty percent of their force in one fell swoop. Air Fleet 5 was so roughly handled that it played little role in the later stages of the campaign.

To the south Air Fleets 2 and 3 were again heavily engaged. I caught a Hurricane unawares and am reasonably certain I inflicted fatal damage upon it, though the victory was not later confirmed. I know that I saw the aircraft begin to smoke, and believe that I glimpsed the pilot attempted to slide back his canopy to bail out.

But all is fair in war, and turnabout is fair play. As I was attempting to make certain of finishing off my victim, a second Hurricane caught me unawares in turn. I attempted to take evasive action. Too late! A hail of bullets tore through my wings and fuselage.

A heavy blow struck me in my left leg. I scarcely noticed it as I maneuvered desperately to escape my pursuer. In a few moments I succeeded in getting clear of him.

I then became aware of a pain in my leg. I glanced down—and saw blood. I was wounded, in the air, over enemy territory, on the wrong side of the English Channel from home.

The pain worsened, making it difficult for my mind to focus. Clearly I could not attempt to exercise command or re-form my unit in this condition. I would have all I could do to get back to base, if I started immediately.

The pain grew still worse. I could see more blood on my leg. How badly was I bleeding? Would I lose consciousness before getting to safety? Making matters worse, it seemed that my engine was now missing on several cylinders. It too had been damaged. I had never used my inflatable swim-vest before, and did not care to test it in the Channel.

Battling pain, a balky engine, and, in the latter stages, a growing light-headedness, I and my aircraft limped back toward the French coast. I executed what was, in the circumstances, a reasonably good landing. I did not walk away from it.

The flight surgeon who treated me cheerfully informed me that my wound was really quite minor. I had not, strictly speaking, been shot. An enemy bullet had merely caused some debris to nick my leg badly. On the ground the wound would hardly have been enough to justify evacuating a man to the rear. In the air, of course, it very nearly proved deadly.

The flight surgeon assured me that I would soon be as good as new and back in the air. The higher-ups had other ideas. They had come to the conclusion that we veterans of the Great War who were still flying had grown too long in the tooth for the young man’s game of aerial hunter combat. I was not, after all, to be returned to a combat posting.

I complained much in my injured pride. Secretly, however, a part of me—and a rather large part, I must admit—was far from displeased. The previous months of combat had brought back the nightmares and nerves that I recalled all too well from the latter stages of my Great War combat flying career. This latest close call made the nerves all the more acute.

Had I been sent back into combat I would no doubt have found myself able to master my nerves for a time. Sooner or later—and likely sooner, rather than later—the law of averages would have caught up with me. Almost without doubt my grounding at this stage saved my life.

But my combat career was far from over.