ON BBC1 recently there was a discussion concerning whether the RAF or the Royal Navy was the greatest deterrent to Hitler's invasion of Great Britain in 1940.
As a former member of the Royal Navy, I believe we would have been bombed into submission.
I served aboard destroyers at the time and our losses due to air attacks were considerable.
At the end of 1941, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, we tied up astern of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse in Cape Town harbour.
The next day they sailed to the Far East and two weeks later they were sunk by Japanese air attacks, simply because they had no air cover.
We escorted the Pedestal convoy to Malta and for three days we were subjected to air attacks, again without air cover, and lost about 70 per cent of the merchant ships, cruisers, destroyers, and an aircraft carrier.
After we invaded north Africa we escorted ships further east to Phillipville, Bougie and Bone, and until we could get Spitfires in the air to shoot down the Stuka dive bombers, the JU88s and the torpedo bombers, we were easy targets.
Without air cover during the war the Royal Navy would have been sunk. Don't underestimate the huge contribution the RAF played during the war.
R BROADFIELD
Sidcup
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