Messerschmitts Were Not ULEZ Compliant (with Al Murray!) | The Battle of Britain (Part 2)

9:43Al Murray:you can find Buried Evidence wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. Subscribe at thecrimedesk.com and get episodes a week before anyone else. I'm sure he's right. Don't doubt it.

9:54Fint Taylor:Don't doubt it. I just like watching it like a supernova exploding. It's awake. Can you talk about something else, please? Now, the Battle of Britain, would you say, begins in June, July 40?

10:07Al Murray:Well, really, it's what follows Dunkirk. So Dunkirk's done and dusted in June, the evacuation. So it's the air battles that follow that. Because the Germans don't know what they're doing. They're making up as they go along. But they do pretty well. Well, yeah, but that's the interesting thing, is they did not expect to be in the situation they were in. They didn't expect the French to fold. I mean, you know, a billion Freedom Fry jokes follow there. They didn't expect the French to fold. They don't expect the British to have bugged out. So they're improvising and it becomes clear to them that what they've got, if they're going to invade Britain or knock Britain out politically, they've got to take control of the skies over England.

10:47Al Murray:But they haven't thought, they've not thought that far ahead at all. No one has.

10:51Fint Taylor:They sniffed up on gear and they've been winning so much. They must have a confidence where it's like, I reckon we take the fucking lot of that. Next club. Let's do it. And there's that film of,

11:01Al Murray:there's the film of Hitler taking the French surrender at the railway carriage campaign where he dances a little jig because he's so excited about it. Of course he is. Because he can't believe what's happened. And then the film of him when he goes to Paris. We've seen that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've never seen anyone so high on their supply. I mean, it's kind of amazing.

11:20Fint Taylor:Yeah. It's just like, this is fucking brilliant.

11:22Al Murray:Yeah. Yeah, we did it. We did it. And we never imagined that we ever, because they're gearing up to fight another First World War, really, they think. Yeah. Another, like, great long struggle. Yeah. And they turn everyone over in, they basically turn the French army over in two weeks. It's amazing. They don't do it themselves.

11:39Fint Taylor:So what we normally do on this podcast, Alice, we place where the events take place. And we do this by referencing something that happened before and after. Yeah. Because the listeners are not like yours. Could be anything. Could be anything. Right. Our listeners are very, very thick. Stupid. They live in sheltered accommodation. They do not smell good. They have toilets with big red cords. They have helmets even when they're not on a bicycle. They wear headphones and they're not listening to music. So it's the opposite of your audience in many ways. So June 1940, would you like to have a go at placing this as a historian?

12:16Al Murray:In June 1940, the British army has fled northern France at Dunkirk. Something like 330 ,000 men have been evacuated, along with a lot of French soldiers as well.

12:26Fint Taylor:We don't like to talk about that. So it's after Dunkirk. After Dunkirk. And it's before...

12:31Al Murray:I mean, the Germans can't defeat you if you're not there, is what the British army are thinking.

12:35Fint Taylor:Very clever. Smart.

12:36Al Murray:Yeah, very smart. It's not stupid, but they leave all their stuff. Yes. So they've left all their stuff. And then, so that's what happens immediately before the Battle of Britain.

12:44Fint Taylor:And then immediately, I mean, it didn't have to be immediately after, could be just to get just for our listeners get a grip on it the blitz happens next okay very historically couched do you want to give us a you want to place it yeah so it's five years before leslie bowls is born who's leslie bowls the fastest baby in let's have a look here he is oh here he is wow and it's four it's pride of britain there's 32 years wait it's five years after right five years after that and then 32 years before he died in a crane accident at work A crane accident at work. Interesting. Now, was he the boulder?

13:18Fint Taylor:Was he the wrecking ball at the end of the crane? How did he die? I think maybe that's how he was moving. Right, yeah. I think you actually confused him with the way you placed that. I don't think our listeners have any idea what you're talking about. I think it needs to be in reference to Leslie Bowles' life. We do the fattest baby at different periods. Okay, fine. Okay, so Leslie Bowles is how old? He's five. Five years old. And it's 32 years before he died in a crane incident at work. Okay, can we find out more about the crane incident? But let's get into the Battle of Britain. We're going to think of all sorts of reasons the crane might fail.

13:51Al Murray:Exactly, of course.

13:52Fint Taylor:If Leslie Bowles was older, would he have been too heavy to fly? Yes. Or could he have been one of those barrage balloons just hanging in the air that Britain used to defend? So, now, in 1936, our three groups are set up. Yep. Bomber command, fighter command, coastal command. Yes. The dads are ejaculating in their sheds. Helmets are on. Wives are ignored. Yeah, these are great for ignoring your family, actually. That's why I think they're designed that way. And that's why we like the Battle of Christian. Christmas Day, I'm just going to eat my roast dinner in 10 minutes, get back to the shed. Huh?

14:31Fint Taylor:But Al, you do a lot of walking the ground, don't you? Yes. I love it. In fact, you were meant to come to this podcast earlier, and yet you then said to me that you'd spent too long on battlegrounds and your wife was annoyed. Yes, that's absolutely true.

14:42Al Murray:Yeah, interesting. Yeah, because Jim and I would go and visit places and we'd say that happened there and this happened there and it's quite time consuming.

14:51Fint Taylor:Yeah, it's a brilliant hobby. Yeah. In the mid to late 30s, Britain are preparing for some kind of air war, is it fair to say?

15:00Al Murray:Yeah, most definitely. So the RAF is formed on April 1st, 1918, towards the end of the First World War. There's been the raw flying coach of the army before that And the RAF then has to, like, basically after the First World War, has to find a purpose. And so what they use it for is basically bombing colonial villages and colonies to bring the locals into line. Keep it light. This is when we're the good guys. Well, this is one of the great – but this is, I think, one of the –

15:28Fint Taylor:We're practising to take on the bad guys. Well, exactly.

15:30Al Murray:And this is also one of the things that's the Second World War, because we do defeat the cartoon villain and people wearing black with skulls on. is if we get to write off, I think, a load of the spicy stuff that precedes it.

15:43Fint Taylor:Yeah, that's why our history lessons are Henry VIII, then World War II. Yeah. That's it. You skip everything in between. You skip the intervening. Some of us are like, can we go back to the phrenology bit, please, when you were measuring people's heads? Some of us. Sir, get the calipers out. I want science from the 1890s, please. That's my favourite area. Vienna in the 1890s. So get Charles Darwin. What about social Darwinism? What about Francis Galton?

16:06Al Murray:but anyway so then the RAF after the war it's trying to like have a purpose but it's also because aeroplanes are new it's like seen as the absolute like cutting it's like super cutting edge even though it's like biplanes and they look old now it's super cutting edge like air fryers basically it's like flying an air fryer exactly like the royal air fryer you've got air fryers with a single draw and the heavies of the two drawer air fryer. What have you got? I've only got the single drawer. I'm a fighter guy, not a bomber guy. Yeah, I'm a single drawer. I've got a outdoor barbecue air fryer. So I have a big green egg.

16:43Al Murray:Do you? Outdoor, I've got a big green egg barbecue. I'm sorry,

16:46Fint Taylor:I thought that was completely unrelated. It's just basically like we're just one upping each other. Sorry, we've gone from, this is male bonding. I've got a fedora with a feather in it. My, I've got the ninja, I've got the ninja, they're very hard to get by the way. Yeah, they are. I've got a, what about it? I've got, I've got a ninja air fryer barbecue grill a wood fire grill and it has the heating

17:10Al Murray:this show is going well

17:11Fint Taylor:isn't it it has the heating element yes it is

17:17Fint Taylor:now we know what you spend it on I wanted an air fryer but my wife we've just killed the last woman listening to the show has just signed off she's just signed off this is the loft holding on for dear life Al mentioned some kind of bolt and she went I'll let that one slide and then we mentioned three types of air fryers in a minute and she's gone right I'm out crash the car fuck this and now we can speak freely finally um the women have turned off let's explore some ideas it's got a heating element underneath the kind of ceramic plate and then you it's got a little compartment to put wood chips in so you can kind of uh recreate a smoky flavor but with the speed of an air fryer and when you open it do you get a blast

17:57Al Murray:that's making it cry yeah yeah yeah but it doesn't that's the only time actually it doesn't it doesn't

18:02Fint Taylor:gas the entire garden, which is the problem with barbecues, is that they're actually quite antisocial.

18:06Al Murray:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's also the great thing about barbecues, is you're going to be left alone to cook in the garden.

18:12Fint Taylor:But anyway, my wife said we couldn't have an air fry because it would take up counter space, and I think that's what counter space is for. I agree. I agree. She likes empty space. Right. Apparently. I like machines on the counters.

18:22Al Murray:Okay, we're getting quite a good glimpse into your domestic situation here. Yes. The empty space required.

18:30Fint Taylor:Yes. The Leibniz. She wants Laban's round for the counter. Anyway, so there are these three Bomber Command, Fire Command, Coast Command set up in the 30s. And crucially, there is radar, which is very new technology at this point. It is a British invention.

18:50Al Murray:Well, everyone's kind of thought of it, but there's a... They've all thought of it. There's a guy called Robert Watson Watt. yes at one point basically the air ministry they need they want detection devices they've got big listening devices huge domes for listening to stuff and then there's a guy there's a guy who comes forward in the late 20s he goes I can make a death ray I can build you a death ray because it's a sci-fi idea I can build you a death ray and there's a story about a civil servant who's made to stand in front of the death ray and then they fire it And obviously he isn't killed, right?

19:32Fint Taylor:A civil servant is ordered to stand in front of a death row.

19:35Al Murray:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they flick the switch and nothing happens, right? But basically in all this sort of - Sorry, did that civil servant cry about being bullied? No, absolutely not. We're talking about a different era. Back in the day. Resilience. We were a different breed.

19:47Fint Taylor:We were different people. Yes, I'll do that. I'm a civil servant. I'm serving the country. Sounds like one of our listeners though, firing death rows at civil servants. Yeah, yeah.

19:55Al Murray:But in all that, there's someone, there's this thing, radar, basically. The idea of using radio waves for detection, reflected radio waves, becomes a thing, and they invest in it. And the British have this system, and they look like big pylons. So the Germans have got like a thing that spins, like we think of a radar, like a thing that turns around. We have these great big pylons with wires hanging between them. And before the war, in 1939, the Germans send a zeppelin to fly all the way along the English coast to check it out. And because it doesn't look like a radar to them, they think it can't be one.

20:34Al Murray:Genius. Brilliant. They're going, it's something, it's transmitting something. We don't know what it is. Just ignore that. And the British turn it off when the zeppelin comes along. So there's nothing for them to examine. Right. Yeah. So they think we don't have radar. Well, they're not sure. They think we've got something, but they don't know what it is.

20:50Fint Taylor:Do they know what radar is? Do they have a concept of it?

20:52Al Murray:Yeah, they've got their own. Right. But it's completely different. In its short range, it's not like this. Which one's better? Well, in the circumstances, the one the British has got is better. Obviously. We win here, right? We're not... Wir haben nicht diese Konversation auf Deutsch, right? Nein. Nein. Ich möchte das nicht so gut. Ich liebe Kartoffeln.

21:15Fint Taylor:That's what I don't know much German. No, do I. Is that it? Ich kann, yeah. I just don't know how I love potatoes. I know the entire downfall speech. Anyway, you played a little bit more.

21:33Fint Taylor:The last of your downfall, he's got it all down. That was my German oral exam.

21:39Fint Taylor:Genuinely, my German teacher was called Frau Hanke. Really? Wow. Nein. Frau Hanke, nein. That's why we were talking about Goering is the kind of cartoonish Nazi. It's the cartoonish German. oh, oh, Hanky, you know, it's, anyway, anyway, so, fighter command will be the most important for the battle of Britain. Yeah. Because the fighters, again, for our thick listeners, fighters are the ones. They're ugly as well. Sorry? They're ugly as well. They're very ugly and smelly. They are, the fighters are things that shoot down bombers. Yes. A bomber flying over its target will have a fighter escort. Yeah.

22:15Fint Taylor:Which is not like a small Japanese. not like a prostitute not like our listeners have escorts it'll be a what a phalanx of fighter planes that then do combat with the enemy fighters yeah and that you're trying to protect your bomber so that it can drop its payload over the yeah you get

22:33Al Murray:this is all spot on but the interesting about the battle of Britain is that's not what the British the British there's a thing called the Dowding system so there's a air chief marshal Dowding well he's not air chief marshal he's the big cheese he's the big cheese in charge of of Fighter Command Defence. And he's come up with this system using radar and using observer, people with binoculars literally seeing the planes. Because once they're over the coast, they're not detected by the radar anymore. They have to be eyes on.

22:59Fint Taylor:So we've got radar and then we've got what we call blokes with binoculars.

23:02Al Murray:Yeah, the observed core.

23:03Fint Taylor:Right, okay.

23:04Al Murray:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

23:05Fint Taylor:Sorry, and how accurate are they just going, well, that's going that way?

23:08Al Murray:They're saying there's, you know, what we think is 100 aeroplanes proceeding on this bearing at what we think is that high. And they've got like a sort of sextant theodolite thing so they can take a bearing on the aeroplanes. And they have to report kind of every five minutes. And there are five, the viewing stations are five miles apart. So they get this really complex picture of information that then gets filtered at Bentley Priory in West London where they're getting all this information, drawing it in, figuring out what to do. They're loving it though, aren't they?

23:39Fint Taylor:Oh yeah. They're loving it. like British dads being British makes sense in this case but I think there's something particularly about the Battle of Britain where it's quite hard to visualise it's all in the air but it's a real it's like mosquitoes it's a bit like that but I think it's also it's an English summer yes and it's an English summer where we do well and so it's been romanticised like a good World Cup summer and these long days like a box of tea like that's how England looks when it's on a long days warm ale and also the pilots they're going up and fighting and then they're just going to the pub afterwards They're getting so much pussy, it's unbelievable.

24:12Fint Taylor:Unbelievable amounts of...

24:13Al Murray:Yes, they tend not to refer to it like that in their memoirs, but yes. We're trying to make it vivid for the listeners nowadays. Of course, yes, we're trying to bring it up to date now. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is they do go to the pub. They're encouraged to go to the pub in the evening afterwards to let it all out.

24:34Fint Taylor:And then apparently in the morning, if they're still a bit groggy, we have to get in the plane, they just 100 % oxygen hit. wipes them clean. Yeah. Which is now like you see those vans going around Las Vegas where people get IV drinks of like fluids. Yeah. So Britain has this Dowding system, which is sort of the, is that the most important aspect of our defence? It's something...

24:54Al Murray:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's the first ever fighter defence system, air defence system in the world. No one's done it before. Is it called the Dowding system because he designed it? Yeah, because it's this guy Dowding. It's the radar on the coast. There's a long, there's two, there's a long range one and there's a shorter range system. And basically the Germans come over the channel and they can see them, if they're coming from the Padre Calais, if they're coming from Calais, they can see them forming up over the French coast and then coming over. So they know how many are coming and they know what direction they're going in and roughly where they're headed.

25:28Al Murray:And it means they can get the fighters up and attack.

25:31Fint Taylor:So obviously there's a big home advantage because you can refuel in Britain. The Germans have to go back home. And if you're shot down, you... You get banged on your head with a teapot or something. Well, if you're German, you get banged on your head with a teapot. Yeah, you get told off. Chased around with a bridge, you get a cup of tea. Yeah, exactly.

25:47Al Murray:The two sides of Britain. But if you're a Polish pilot, you can go either way. And that's still the case today.

25:53Fint Taylor:Depending on where you land in the country. If you land in London, come and have a cup of tea. Let's go to that yellow and blue map. If it's in Lincolnshire, run. Forget about it. Run into the sea. It's your safest bet. Anyway, so yeah, Downing divides the country. into regional groups. And when he's doing this, is this like, is this post-Dunkirk? How quickly, after Dunkirk, have they got a system that they can immediately snap into? Now, this is all in place

26:16Al Murray:before the war. Right, okay. Because before the war, there's this, an Italian military theorist called... Sounds a bit of an oxymoron. Well, yeah, that's tall as war. Precisely, it's the only one they've ever had, right? And it turns out he was wrong. Called Due. You need to have sex with the most beautiful women in the world. And he says that you're going to use, what they're going to do, the future war will be won by bombers, which will bomb civilian populations to the point where they rise up against their politicians and overthrow them. Right. And it's this idea that the... Not Gino De Campo, that's someone else.

26:49Al Murray:Not Gino De Campo.

26:50Fint Taylor:But it sounds like a very similar... It's in the lineage that he's part of. Sorry. Gino De Campo would bomb runners on set with words and demands until they... Until they capitulated. Yeah, until they demanded a revolution and they got him fired. So he was right. He's part of the tradition. He was right in some ways. He was just thinking about Gino de Campo and not air warfare.

27:12Al Murray:But it's his idea that the bomber will always get through.

27:14Fint Taylor:De Campo will always be.

27:19Al Murray:And so everyone's really nervous about the effect of bombing. And the British government is really freaking out about it. And their expectation is that the population will rise against them and all this sort of thing. They're really worried, genuinely worried about that. So the fighter system to defend London is put in place well before the war. Because this is sort of

27:38Fint Taylor:the first war which is actually taken into the cities in, I mean, in British cities. Wars before that had been kind of, they'd been like abroad. They've been external things.

27:49Al Murray:Well, we don't, we don't, you know, the last time we did any fighting here was, well, it depends if you're Scottish. Yes. Yeah. More recent. Clodden. Yeah. Right. But, but, you know, the Civil War is the last time English cities were sort of smashed up. Yeah.

28:03Fint Taylor:So, that's why everyone is so scared. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All these stamp collectors and stuff. You know, gardeners. Yeah. So, Dowding is, England is divided into these groups. Eleven group is the most important region, which is around the southeast, Kent. The first line of defence against Luftwaffe raids. And I guess you know off the top of your head, when's the first full Luftwaffe raid? Is this July, is it 1940?

28:28Al Murray:Well, what happens is this thing called the Canal Camp. Yes. Now you're speaking my language. where the Germans attack English shipping along the coast. Because one of the things that's going on is, you know, at the time we're a coal economy. So you've got a lot of coalers coming down from Newcastle, for instance, coming down the east coast to London and then round to Portsmouth and onto Plymouth, bringing coal down. And the Germans attack that shipping and make a real effort to attack that shipping. So that's the sort of the first set of encounters that start the start of the Battle of Britain.

29:07Al Murray:And then they start attacking the airfields. Is it affected the coal bombing? Well, yeah, kind of.

29:12Fint Taylor:But then there's the thing about the problem the Germans have is that there's the Royal Navy as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So presumably they're in the channel defending.

29:18Al Murray:Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so if the Germans ever get around to invading, they're going to have to contend with the Royal Navy. So that's, but that's kind of like, that's, that's almost like, it's almost not worth talking about the German invasion plan, Operation Sea Lion, because it's, it was never going to work. But they kind of think that as well. Yeah, yeah. Everyone kind of thinks that. Goering thinks it's bollocks. Yeah, yeah.

29:36Fint Taylor:But I think the army think it might happen. Or at least Hitler probably thinks it might happen.

29:39Al Murray:Well, yeah, but it's politics. They're trying to, what they're really trying to do is... Bring Britain to the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the problem is, is Winston Churchill, you know, their problem actually is Winston Churchill, you know, because he's not going to do it. No. Never.

29:53Fint Taylor:Fuck off. Yeah, exactly. He would eat through his Zen pick. He would eat through his Zen pick. For sure. All day long.

29:59Al Murray:and wash it down with... Yeah, Paul Roger. I mean, his booze consumption is really like, there's something genuine. When you read what he would cut through every day, it's genuinely heroic.

30:11Fint Taylor:But then you see what he wrote and the precision of his writing. Yeah, yeah. Having had two bottles of Paul Roger before 10 a.m. Yeah. It's like Antros Thompson. This is the greatest writer that's ever lived. I don't understand how you can write that well, that hammered. right so as we've said there's an advanced system of command and control they've got the radar now the Dowding system is all these different nodes are centered in is it Stanmore is that where Bentley Park is

30:40Al Murray:and this is where

30:41Fint Taylor:they get apparently the most attractive women Hugh Dowding can find to move stuff around lean over the table and everything yeah exactly and then there's a gallery of men going ooh so what they're doing is this is the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, nicknamed the Beauty Chorus. They're in the filter room. And they're just, it's a bit of blue for the dads, I guess. Let the dog see the rabbit. Keep morale up. So they're getting information from the blokes on the coast with binoculars and the radar. But obviously, planes are moving quite fast. So they just, how fast are they moving? There's a clock.

31:21Fint Taylor:There's a clock.

31:23Al Murray:And the information on the sort of map, you know, and they are literally doing that. It's colour coded for how long ago it came on the clock in quarters of an hour. So there's this blue, red, yellow clock layout on the clock face. And so they know how old the information is as it progresses. Because the Germans will change course as well. Because one of the things, you know, they're heading one direction to make you think they're going to Norwich or whatever. And then they'll tack into London or whatever. so so the but who's generally falling for like oh no they're going for norwich yeah no no because the point is to get the fight the get the fighters up because not lincoln you need to be higher up than like negging london yeah less attractive friends yeah where are you going come back they're attacking airfield so it's very hard actually to tell to tell really this is the big

32:14Fint Taylor:this is the this is the big point we need to get to in the the sort of the main uh the story about of Britain is that initially Goering has said to Hitler, he will knock out the RAF by the middle of September. Yeah. And so either British... Actually, he says originally,

32:28Al Murray:he says we can do it in four or five days. Do it in a week. Fuck it. Yeah, yeah. And he's got this intelligence guy, Beppo Schmidt, who writes... Beppo Schmidt's like a pool boy. Beppo Schmidt. And he really is like... He writes this case blue, I think it's called, this intelligence report about the state of Britain. And he just doesn't know. He's going, maybe there's 300 fighters or 600. He's just making up. Yeah. And he's going, he doesn't know about, he doesn't even know Fighter Command exists.

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34:36Al Murray:there's no mention of fire to come under the german uh uh intelligence whereas a modern war now

34:42Fint Taylor:your intelligence would be a far far better right well yeah i mean the rf would have said they've

34:47Al Murray:got to fight come on on twitter yeah you know because it is interesting how blind that obviously

34:51Fint Taylor:it's easy with hindsight yes in my head i'd be like i'd always know that yeah i would have just known that yeah but you really don't know any of this stuff but a modern wars be very different

35:01Al Murray:right yeah probably yeah i mean yeah but but you wouldn't be this much in the dark about someone's

35:05Fint Taylor:is this the first time world war ii where the germans are actually like was it that they were really good on the western front or in poland or was it that oh well but as in you know obviously the france i know quite bad the france club listen no the french take politics out of this

35:21Al Murray:The French are dog shit in May of 1940s is what it really comes down to. They really make, they kind of do everything the Germans could possibly want them to do.

35:30Fint Taylor:It's because they've got a 95-year-old.

35:31Al Murray:Yes, all that.

35:33Fint Taylor:And they have a Michelin-star restaurant underneath the Michelin. The Magno line is just a restaurant. And they won't use radios.

35:39Al Murray:They use guys on bikes. Pigeons. It's really bad. Then they eat the pigeons. Then they put corn down the neck of the pigeon. And it's the same place where the Germans attacked in 1870 and they were attacked in 1914 and 1940. It's the same. What, through the Ardennes? Through the Sudan. It's exactly the same crossing on the river and everything, yeah.

36:01Fint Taylor:So they went lightning, won't strike three times. No, they're not going through the pig forest again.

36:05Al Murray:Same place three times. There's no way they're coming over. How would we have known? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've done it again.

36:10Fint Taylor:But what I mean is the failure of intelligence that the Göring and his guy have about Britain. is this the first time that they're basically are they not doing that intelligence but it's a mark

36:20Al Murray:of the fact they're in a situation they're simply not expecting to be in whereas Poland they've been sizing Poland up for ages France they think long and hard about what to do about France Poland is my garden

36:30Fint Taylor:for my air fryer I know exactly where it's going to go yeah yeah exactly it's going there in the corner exactly I have to face away from guests

36:37Al Murray:exactly and there's going to be

36:40Fint Taylor:a lot of smoke coming out but anyway

36:42Al Murray:they're making it up as they go along for the Battle of Britain They don't know what to do. This is why they haven't thought about it at all.

36:48Fint Taylor:Yeah. So the initial plan is that they're going to knock out the RAF, which means, as you say, bombing airfields. And how, I mean, how many airfields have Britain got? 50-odd, something like this?

36:58Al Murray:It's hundreds of air stations. And the thing is, like in modern fighter planes, in fact, most planes at that point are designed to be able, they can take off on grass fields, on grass landing strips. So it's not even like, if you can bomb a concrete strip, you put a boulder in it. it's more of a problem. So what the British have is they have, because the idea of the advantage of a grass strip is the wind can be blowing in any direction.

37:22Fint Taylor:The women aren't listening, Al. You can't wait. Come on. Don't feel bad. Don't hold back.

37:28Al Murray:The advantage of a grass airstrip is you could take off into the wind in whichever direction it's in. Whereas a concrete one is like a straight line that you take a guess on which way the wind's going to be blowing, right? So you could go in any direction, get your planes off any old howl. But it also means if it's bombed, you've got like, They literally have mounds of dirt and bulldozers. And they just fill it in.

37:46Fint Taylor:So grass landing strips were better during the Battle of Britain.

37:49Al Murray:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a really resilient, and they can withstand the punishment the Germans are dishing out. Also, the Germans, they don't know which stations are which. So they bomb the stations. Because they literally don't know anything about.

38:04Fint Taylor:And am I right in thinking this is where they have, their system of navigation is that they've sent out two, is it radio beams or waves? and the bombers will follow one and then when they pick up the other one, that's their point. Yeah, yeah. But the Brits start just sending up other radio waves.

38:20Al Murray:Yeah, bending, literally bending the beams. Bending like Beckham. And that's RV Jones and Watson Watt are involved in that. He's back, Watson Watt's back. But yeah, I mean, basically, because the Germans have literally no idea what there is in Britain in terms of any of it. So they're bombing airfields, but not the right ones. they smash big in hill up properly but you're speaking quite defeatist about the Germans well they basically they do lose I mean

38:49Fint Taylor:it's a fight that's going on underground isn't it Finn sorry it's a fight that's still going on underground some of us are still carrying the torch

38:56Al Murray:I was wondering if I was on the right podcast for a moment

39:01Fint Taylor:yeah it's not a sister podcast it's a sister that you don't you've had a falling out a strange sister A strange sister. So the Germans are trying to knock out airfields and they only have a what? They have, when they start coming over, this is every day, July 1940, they're having these long days of aerial combat in the sky. So if you're a British civilian, you're looking up, you're in the southeast, obviously if you're in Wales, just carry on as normal, I guess. Yeah, it's not happening there. Not happening there, but you're hearing the noise of the terrifying noise. Are Stuckers involved in the Battle of Britain?

39:34Al Murray:Yeah, well, to start with. Yeah, because the Stuka's the thing with the siren on it. The TIE fighter, yeah. A dive bomber. But their problem is they're really slow, and they're very vulnerable to spitfires and hurricanes. So they get shot down, and they withdraw them. They give up on them.

39:51Fint Taylor:Why don't you just talk to us about the actual planes? Okay, go on. Just slap us around the face with it. Go on.

39:57Al Murray:Okay, well, so what's happened is in the 30s, you've had this real revolution in aircraft design, and everything previously up to that point has been biplanes really and in comes single monoplane single wing aircraft.

40:10Fint Taylor:And that's the meh,

40:11Al Murray:that's the World War I, the two wings. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Exactly, yeah, yeah. The fut along. And what happens is there's new engines. So famously there's a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that the British have that's really powerful and the Germans have a, in the Messerschmitt 109, they have an inverted Daimler-Benz engine. Christ. Daimler-Benz? So is that anything linked to Mercedes-Benz? I don't think so, no. But basically, and it's got fuel injection, so the engine on the... Go on, go on. The engine on the Messer Spit is marginally better than the Spitfire. But basically, these are really fast planes.

40:54Al Murray:They can climb really quickly. They can dive really fast. And you have this interesting thing where there's the Hurricane, which is like we've more of those the British have made more of those than Spitfires it's a fighter it's a little bit slower but I mean any schoolboy I tell you or any schoolboy my age because that's what I am still essentially it's got like a fabric covering on it so if it's damaged they can just patch it with more linen whereas the Spitfire is made of aluminium mainly so if it's damaged it's more complex to repair but it's a better aeroplane

41:26Fint Taylor:and the podcast I was listening to it said even though the Spitfire gets most of the plaudits the Hurricanes did the most well yeah

41:32Al Murray:first of all there are more of them, so they are going to do more. And secondly, their job, they split the jobs. So the Hurricanes are sent off to the bombers and the Spitfires are sent off to the escort, the fighter escort. Although the Germans have two aircraft in their fighter escort. They have the 109, which is the little single-seat plane. They have a two-engined Messerschmitt called the 110, the digestora, the destroyer, that's slow and ponderous and can be shot down. So the Hurricanes can mix it with that. They get in with the bombers. so the Hurricanes do shoot down more aircraft because there's more of them and they're given arguably an easier job.

42:09Fint Taylor:And are the fighters, is this still a case of like World War I when there's a guy with a machine gun in the plane? No, no. They've got guns attached now.

42:14Al Murray:They've got guns in the wings, but the Germans have got heavier guns. They've got like a cannon which fires an exploding shell, so if it hits you, it'll do you more damage. We've got machine guns which in a like 1923 report, they say never fit these to fighter planes. They're like pea shooters and the war office and the air ministry thing. Well, we've already got a load of bullets left over for those from the First World War. Got to use your bullets. Got to use your bullets.

42:37Fint Taylor:How did that manifest itself? Well, who was right?

42:40Al Murray:The Germans were right about that. It just doesn't have the, the British don't have the punching power with their armament that the Germans have. Because also with the Spitfire, the wings are really thin. Okay. So the guns are spaced out across the wing. Yeah. And they have to be tuned to converge. So where the bullets would all meet. And so you'd have the arguments about how you'd have your bullets converge at 300 yards or 250. And some pilots are like, no, I need a 50. Well, you'd have to tune it up. You'd literally have to tune, they'd crank the gun so they'd all point inwards so they'd meet at a certain point.

43:13Al Murray:And there's all that going on in the aircraft, in the armament.

43:17Fint Taylor:Sorry, if you tune them to the right degree, could you shoot yourself in the cockpit? No.

43:23Al Murray:You could probably. I mean, I don't think you'd be able to persuade anyone to set that up for you. It'd be quite a funny way to go. It would be certainly a way to go. And the British don't have a, they don't have a, they don't have a fuel injection. They have a problem with a carburetor in the Merlin, Merlin engine, in the Spitfires and Hurricanes. If they turn the plane over, the fuel can cut out or the engine can cut out because it gets an extra dose of fuel. And so there's a woman called Beatrice Tilling, Beatrice Schilling rather, who invents a thing called Miss Schilling's orifice. I'm listening.

43:54Al Murray:And that's a washer that goes in the engine to stop it cutting out when they turn the plane over. Because the Spitfire can...

43:59Fint Taylor:Miss Schilling's orifice.

44:00Al Murray:Miss Schilling's orifice. Right.

44:02Fint Taylor:Wow. If we're talking brass tacks, what is the... I'm thick as well. What is the best plane?

44:07Al Murray:Spitfire.

44:09Fint Taylor:Unpatriotically. Objective.

44:11Al Murray:I'm being objective and patriotic. So it's possible.

44:15Fint Taylor:Yeah.

44:16Al Murray:Yeah. It's a Spitfire. Not these days. No, the Spitfire, because... And the reason is... At this moment in time, the Spitfire is the best plane in the world. I mean, you talked about home advantage earlier on. The Messerschmitt, when it gets to London, for instance, it's probably only really got 10, 15 minutes over London before it has to turn around and go back because it's not got the fuel capacity. Whereas a Spitfire can tool around having a proper go. So in the circumstances, the Spitfire is the best at playing.

44:42Fint Taylor:But actual design... Spitfire. Still. Yeah. Even though it's got worse guns.

44:47Al Murray:Yeah, but the other thing about the Spitfire is they're able to upgrade it more successfully as the war runs. So the more open-ended... I'm just sorry I'm getting a vision of you

44:54Fint Taylor:at a pub seeing what's on tap and it's like Peroni, Madri nah none of this shit none of this shit where's Hobgoblin I want a pint of Hobgoblin fuck off with your Peroni

45:06Al Murray:it's a Madri carling anyway isn't it rebadged carling

45:08Fint Taylor:this is exactly there we go so there we go I'll take I'll take the Madri then take the Spanish hat off it's quite a carling so now the story of the Battle of Britain Eagle Day in August 1940 this is when the Germany sort of really starts bombing tries to yeah tries to start bombing I'm trying to create suspense for the thick listeners they're on the toilet they're struggling to find the cord yeah certainly in the movie

45:36Al Murray:in the movie it's a big feature in the movie and there's a big thing in it in the film there's like they make a big play of it yeah

45:41Fint Taylor:but there is a point I mean Charlie what have you found I was just saying how many fish might have died in the Battle of Britain but there's no there's more of an air thing so I don't think birds maybe might be more how many birds died Birds would be the thing to look up. Yeah, probably. Yeah, Charlie gets confused between fish and birds sometimes. He's very, very thick. I'll produce Charlie. No, again, not recorded. What was the environmental impact of the war? Yeah, I mean, what about all the emissions?

46:08Al Murray:Oh, yeah, I mean, that's, yeah. This whole thing is a tragedy.

46:13Fint Taylor:Can you imagine Ules in the Battle of Britain? It's a Dick's London. I can't fly my Messerschmitt. It's not fucking Ules compliant. And later in the war, we have a fog dispersal thing.

46:23Al Murray:You know about this called Fido?

46:24Fint Taylor:No.

46:24Al Murray:So basically, if you're flying back from Germany, right, on a bomberade and it's foggy on the way in, they have airfields where they literally burn petrol. They just set fire to petrol and it disperses the fog. Yeah, have that, Thunberg.

46:39Fint Taylor:Have that, Greta. You like that? Fuck off.

46:43Al Murray:I know who's like cheese on. Yeah.

46:45Fint Taylor:Nazi Greta. Nazi Thunberg. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The Nuremberg rallies, the Thurmenberg rallies, it's in there somewhere. What have you found? Over 750 ,000 dogs and cats were killed in one week. Wow. In the Battle of Britain? Yes. I'll take the cats. So I'm pressing voluntary massacre of pets.

47:05Al Murray:Yes, that's quite right, yeah. People had their pets. The September Holocaust, I didn't know about this. Yeah, people had their pets put down rather than, because they couldn't, rather than evacuate them all.

47:13Fint Taylor:Oh, because dogs on firework nights. Yeah, exactly. It's firework night, you know, bonanza. Do you know what? I never thought about that. That's a lot of, I mean, I'd say that's a war crime. As a dog owner, I'd say I'm quite iffy about this. Was it just because you can't have them in the city because they'd let the Germans know where it's an unhappy, unhappy time? But what I would say is that we evacuate the women and the children to the countryside and yet we kill the dogs. Could that not have been the other way around?

47:42Fint Taylor:You're back out in the garden with your air fryer on you. Yeah. Why aren't the dogs evacuated with the women and children? Yeah, I don't know. No. They're just all killed.

47:50Al Murray:No, they put a load of them down.

47:53Fint Taylor:The vets do very well out of the battle of Britain, I guess, don't they?

47:56Al Murray:They've got no work because there's no dogs. I'm a Battle of Britain vet. Yeah. How many cats did you kill?

48:08Fint Taylor:The September Holocaust, 1939 to 1940, roughly 400 ,000 to three quarters of a million pets are euthanised in Britain in the first week of the war. So it's not even prior to the Battle of Britain. It's pretty preventive. Are they even looking over here? Bang! It's the bombing scare.

48:24Al Murray:Like I said, people are really scared about bombing. The bomber will always get through. There's this panic on. And so, yeah, that is really terrible.

48:32Fint Taylor:Really bad. Now, the story of the Battle of Britain that I'm aware of, that you may rejoice in telling me is wrong, is that, you know, looking from the German perspective, It was going, they were making, they had heavy losses and their intelligence was crap. So they thought that it inflicted many more losses on the Brits than they had. But there is a point, end of August, start of September, where the RAF supposedly is quite close to being wiped out. Or at least it's in serious trouble. Yes. How correct is that?

49:02Al Murray:Well, the problem with that way of looking at it is it's come, it's not quite right. The 11 group, who are the southeastern group, they're under a lot of pressure because it's mainly coming through 11 group. 10 group aren't, 12 group aren't. And so 11 group, and there's a point where it looks like they're entering crisis. But the whole point of the group system in the RF is you can rotate the squadrons in and out from the other groups. So they are actually, they're never short. They're never actually. Deep squad. Yeah, exactly. That's the whole way. 23-man squad. Exactly. Yeah, well, we, yeah.

49:41Al Murray:Yeah, I'll take her on four fronts. But that's the other thing, because the squadrons have more pilots than aircraft, so they can rotate within the squadrons. Oh, right, okay. So it literally is deep squads. So the Germans are running, Germans are running Staffel, and the squadrons are smaller, and everyone flies, whereas the British have a bigger squadron, and not everyone flies.

49:56Fint Taylor:And so - You can't win a World Cup with 15 people.

49:58Al Murray:No, well, exactly. And that is actually the mistake the Germans make, because the German pilots have to fly every single day, every sortie. Some of them are flying two or three times a day, and they're exhausted, and they're not going to the pub. They're in camps, in tents and, you know.

50:15Fint Taylor:It's stereotypes. We're in the pub, they're in the camps. Do you know what I mean?

50:17Al Murray:I mean, it could be more on the nose, right? But there is a moment where 11 Group are under a lot of pressure, but actually it's not really a moment of crisis. And the Germans are not really destroying airfields and they're not really, they're not having the effect they have. And also British fighter production at this point is out producing German replacements. So the Luftwaffe is like running out of planes and people and the RAF actually kind of isn't. And he's actually getting replaced with planes.

50:47Fint Taylor:But this is the Eric Hobsbawm school of thought, which the World War II, which to us is the most exciting thing that's ever happened, a kind of space opera of war, was actually a race against factories, which makes it seem a lot less exciting. It is a lot less exciting.

50:59Al Murray:A bit of a killjoy. It is a lot less exciting. I mean, he's right, but someone's still getting a fucking aeroplane and fly the thing. Well, exactly. You know, that's the bit where the adventure comes in.

51:08Fint Taylor:where like there's a slough office and the running office we're gonna have to liquidate slough so that's basically what he says that's the one more two film he wants to say that's what he wants to make it like oh no we're gonna have to fold an article into british american because their factories are better it's not as uh captivating a narrative that way around um so but there is this moment where 11 group are supposedly yeah uh on the edge and uh at the end of august german intelligence tells Goering that the RAF had lost 791 planes to the Germans 169 when in reality it was more about these sort of North Korean numbers right like we've lost 7-1 or 8-1 to the Portuguese um the total German aircraft losses was approaching 900 uh now his 11 group in the southeast is that Hell's Corner yeah which is uh the nickname given this most exciting Kent's ever been right yeah well Hell's Corner is now probably a Wetherspoons in Margate um but this is where like Biggin Hill.

52:02Fint Taylor:So Biggin Hill gets blown to shit. Yeah, yeah.

52:04Al Murray:Biggin Hill really cops it and it is really smashed up.

52:06Fint Taylor:Yeah.

52:07Al Murray:But it's a, I mean, one of the other things is no one can find anywhere. There's no, you know, no one's using Waze, right? Yeah. And the Germans rely, they don't have, they don't have radar, they don't have radio within their fighter groups. So basically, they'll go up and a bloke will be reading a map when he's leaving. So then no one's talking to each other? No, they can't talk to each other because one of the German fighter races, this guy called Adolf Galland, he doesn't believe in radio. he thinks it's going to confuse everyone. They should be fighting on their instincts. But the Brits have radio.

52:36Al Murray:Brits have radio. And in your Spitfire, you're vectored, you're told where to go. You're vectored to exactly the right point and you take your, you know, you're given direction and everything. Whereas the Germans are swanning around looking for trouble, basically.

52:50Fint Taylor:So, Al, if Operation Sea Lion was kind of a non-starter, was the Battle of Britain a non-starter? Were they always going to lose that?

52:58Al Murray:Yeah, they were, yeah.

52:59Fint Taylor:There was not really...

53:00Al Murray:Yeah. I mean, one of the things about the Battle of Britain is it's an amazing, you know, it's the few, it's all that. The idea that we won by the skin of our teeth. But actually what happens is the Germans are, and it's also, it's a reverse of the Germans, you know, there's a stereotype that the Germans are super organised, super efficient. And that we're like.

53:19Fint Taylor:Beach towel on holiday. Exactly.

53:20Al Murray:And we bumble through and like mustn't grumble. And it's actually, it's completely the other way around. The Germans are improvising and we've got this system run by really, really ruthless people populated by really like dedicated, ruthless people. And, and, and they get, they feed themselves into the mincer basically.

53:38Fint Taylor:Right.

53:39Al Murray:Right. So it was always, always going to go wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

53:42Fint Taylor:So there's no, what is there any way Goering could have, uh, could he actually have knocked out the air force? No. So even, he's still fighting the war. But even, you know, even if, so there's a point where, And I can't remember whether it's a German bomber squadron accidentally drifts into London airspace and bombs or whether it was a definitive change in strategy. Because there's also this guy Kesselring, right? Yeah, yeah. Smiling Albert. Yeah. Supposedly, he is much more realistic than Goering. He's a bit of a fantasist and a theatrical guy. Goering wants big explosions. Oh, wow. Big explosions.

54:24Fint Taylor:He wants to put a mento in a Coke bottle. Wow. Bombing London. Kesselring, at least from what I've read, seems to understand that if you try and keep bombing the airfields slowly, attritionally, test cricket, you will win out. Yeah. Now, but Kesselring didn't have Hitler's ear in the way Goring did.

54:42Al Murray:No. And also Kesselring's problem is he doesn't know where, he still doesn't know where the airfields are.

54:45Fint Taylor:Because the intelligence is crap. Yeah, yeah.

54:47Al Murray:And it might be causing wear and tear on the British, but it's also, there are too many jobs the Luftwaffe have to achieve to win the Battle of Britain. They aren't capable of each of the single jobs they're trying to pull off. So, you know, they've got to destroy the airfields, destroy the fighters, bomb London. And they're bombing London, the docks militarily, but it's about political effect. It's about to make us give up.

55:12Fint Taylor:Right. So they could have done that if it wasn't Churchill.

55:14Al Murray:If they'd started doing that, if they'd started by doing that, you know, the political outcome might have been really quite different. Chamberlain was still about it. Well, no, because Churchill's in. Once Dunkirk's happened, it's very febrile. You've got people writing, you know, writing their diary. I've got the suicide pills ready for if the Germans invade. I'll go down the garden. We'll go down the bottom of the garden and kill ourselves.

55:35Fint Taylor:Even though practically, if you think about it, it would have never worked anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just the feeling.

55:39Al Murray:A bit of hindsight here.

55:41Fint Taylor:I would have known. I would have known.

55:47Fint Taylor:I just want to say I've had a real sense of what it's like sitting next to you at a wedding. Yeah.

55:51Al Murray:Oh, yeah, great.

55:53Fint Taylor:How do you know the Brian group? Well, I can talk about other shit. Well, actually, Britain would always have won the battle. Sorry.

55:56Al Murray:I can talk about other shit, but no.

55:58Fint Taylor:No, this is why you're here, Al. You're here to get into the machine. So I guess it's more of a killjoy, maybe when you know as much about it as you do. Because the popular narrative is that - Underdog. The underdog victory. It's a propaganda thing, right? That's a psychological crutch the Brits have for all their victories. Rourke Street. Even in Sudan. Dungurk. Yeah, even Gordon in Sudan. Doesn't matter. Why were we there? Doesn't matter. We're an underdog emperor, like colonialists. And what's the Churchill quote? It's never so much been owed by so many people. But how many, the Battle of Britain is what?

56:40Fint Taylor:Is it a few hundred people, a few thousand people?

56:42Al Murray:544 pilots killed flying. About 2 ,800, I think, flying total. Bomber commander also attacking the German airfields on the other side of the channel. but there's 300 ,000 people in the RAF there's about 100 ,000 people in the Reserver Corps about 100 ,000 people on the flat guns firing and the anti-aircraft thing is really interesting as well because they can't hit anything

57:03Fint Taylor:No, that's morale basically Yeah, they have to keep firing the guns

57:07Al Murray:so that people think London's being defended even though it's wearing the guns out and using ammunition up and they aren't achieving anything it's to make people feel that they're being looked after

57:18Fint Taylor:So I think now we're moving on to the big wing conspiracy So what's that? Well, this is what you want to talk about. Before you were saying this is like a load of cunts, I believe you said.

57:29Al Murray:Well, certainly there's some big personalities. So 11 Group is commanded by a guy called Keith Park, who's a First World War fighter ace. He's from New Zealand. And he's an absolutely brilliant man. And he, with Dowding, devised the Dowding system that's defending England. And 12 Group, there's a guy called Trafford Lee Mallory, whose brother is the guy who climbed Mount Everest and never came back. Right? Right. So from a... Good chaps. Men of action. And Lee Mallory was a barrister, and then he goes into the RAF. And Lee Mallory is like one of the most extraordinary intriguers. He's always doing the politics.

58:03Al Murray:He's a snake. And he thinks he should be commanding 11 Group, not this bloke from New Zealand. Yeah. And he thinks actually in the end he should be in charge of fighter command. And he intrigues really hard against, and politics against, against Dowding. And this is one of the, you know, there is the story of the underdog at the Battle of Britain, which is kind of true. Blitz spirit coming together. Yeah, but there's also everyone coming together. And that is not what's going on in fighter command at all, in the Royal Air Force, at all. And so 11 Group is sort of Norfolk, Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, and across the middle.

58:38Al Murray:So there's a middle swathe of the country. Brexit. Brexit, yeah. Roughly. Yeah, why not? Yeah. And one of the big fighter stations is Duxford. Yeah. Outside Cambridge. And there's still the Imperial War Museum Museum there and they fly Spitfires there and all this sort of stuff. And basically, the expectation was not that we'd be fighting over the Channel, but if the Germans were going to attack, they'd be coming over the North Sea from Germany and that Duxford would be the big station that was going to defend London, not Kent. But because the French have thrown the towel in and the Germans are going to bring it out of Calais, right, and Normandy.

59:15Al Murray:And so basically, Duxford set up as this big fighter station. Anyone who's there thinks they've got the plum gig and Lee Mallory thinks he's got the plum job and then it's all happening somewhere else. And so he's getting really, really frustrated. He's not in on the action. And he comes up with this idea that what you want to do is mass squadrons of aircraft and attack. They all form up and then they attack the Germans. He's not up to speed. He doesn't like the Dowling system. He doesn't think it's going to work. And principally because it's not his idea. Right. And there'll be no credit in it for him if it works, right?

59:46Al Murray:It's a huge ego.

59:47Fint Taylor:Yeah.

59:48Al Murray:And he wants to come up with something else so that he can go, I did that. That was me. The Mallory system. The Mallory system. Yeah. And there's Douglas Bader, who's the really famous fighter pilot with no legs. Yes. Reach for the sky.

1:00:03Fint Taylor:Oh, yeah. He gets wallowed out to the, he gets sort of helped. That's right. Yeah. Pegged legs over to the. And he lost his legs in like an acrobatic. Yeah, that's right. Showing off.

1:00:12Al Murray:In the early 30s, he loses his legs in a flying accident because he's an ace pilot. And then. It's all that Monty Python sketch, right? Yeah. You know, him trying to headbutt him with no arms or legs. Yeah, yeah. It's that spirit. Come on. It's that spirit. And he becomes, he's really famous. He's famous before the war when he was an acrobatic pilot and then he's accident. So he's really famous and he's drawing the press to him. So Lee Mallory kind of uses him as an advocate for this big wing thing. Anyway, they fly these big wing sorties out of Duxford and out of 12 group. And they're pretty ineffectual because one of the problems is if they've all got to meet up, they're burning fuel, they're wasting time, and the Dowding system operates on, there are German planes are going to be here at that point, so we need to get to there, rather than we need to gather and join up.

1:00:58Al Murray:Have a look around. Have a look around.

1:01:00Fint Taylor:Because the whole point of the Dowding system is it's saving fuel and pilots. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and time.

1:01:03Al Murray:And the idea is you shoot the Germans down before they get to London, rather than chase them back over the channel, which is what the big wing ends up doing. But basically, after the Battle of Britain, Lee Mallory is able to, Dowding ends up fired. He's exhausted. He's sort of kind of out of puff.

1:01:19Fint Taylor:But he's done an amazing job, right? He's done an amazing job.

1:01:21Al Murray:So, you know, arguably saved the world. Yeah.

1:01:25Fint Taylor:But apart from that, I think you have to go. Yeah, come on. You have to go.

1:01:28Al Murray:And Park loses his job as well. Park gets punted over to training command. And it's this kind of really weird moment. And there's a meeting where they do like a debrief, Battle of Britain debrief, where they all get up and they all say, the big wing is the big wings the future and all this sort of stuff and and park's like been ambushed like what the fuck and and doubt and bard is douglas bard is there and it's the most junior officer he's allowed to speak and basically they uh they oust um uh dowding and park and the people who've won the battle of britain and then and then there's another guy called sholto douglas who's involved with this who then becomes head of fighter command lee mallory gets 11 group and then proceeds to fight this campaign the next year where hundreds of aircraft are lost and pilots killed and it's a complete disaster.

1:02:17Al Murray:So it's consequential, this stupid argument.

1:02:20Fint Taylor:And how is it consequential? Apart from, so does it mean that RF just become less...

1:02:25Al Murray:Well, the wrong people end up in charge. And so what happens is the next year, Fire to Command have got a show like Willing. They've got... Because they've...

1:02:32Fint Taylor:It's the new chief executive. It's the new head of competition for Channel 4, not doing any of that stuff. Yeah. Made by mark. Made by legacy.

1:02:39Al Murray:100%, right? Yeah. So what they do is they do these fighter sweeps over the French coast, like what they call rhubarbs or circuses. And basically the Germans have radar and it's a reverse of the Battle of Britain. They see them coming. So they get up and they shoot them down. Pointless. Completely pointless.

1:02:54Fint Taylor:Right. Let's get to Battle of Britain Day, which Al's probably going to say is bollocks and nothing happened and the Germans just all decided to kill themselves and they never would have won. And it's all rubbish and we've got the better factories and this is really a factory race. so Al this this is a day I don't know why

1:03:13Al Murray:she's going to summarise me like that

1:03:14Fint Taylor:I'm sorry yeah I'll be about right so this is the day that now at this point the Germans have already started bombing London yeah but this is the last maximum effort the last proper day where we fight the fighters yeah hold them off this is the last this is I guess it's Leach and Stokes yeah the final partnership 100 % that sees them over the line yeah so tell us about Battle of Britain Day this is the final bit of the Battle of Britain where we decisively win yeah or do we

1:03:45Al Murray:yeah well basically it's the last big proper daylight effort by the Germans bombing London yeah it's not working I think they sent sort of 120 bombers in the morning and then kind of another 100 in the afternoon yeah and they're met and shot down and dealt with and that's kind of it

1:04:02Fint Taylor:so unlike the podcast I listened to which was it all hinged on this, this suddenly there's a huge squadron of planes over the, people are terrified. They're killing their dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's, I mean, but basically,

1:04:14Al Murray:basically whatever the Rufa offer, the fighter command essentially has an answer. And so, and so, but this then, but then the problem is, is the Germans do think, well, this daylight thing is at work. So they switched to night bombing and we have nothing. No, can't see the, can't see the aircraft at night, have no night fighters, nothing. And, and that's when the blitz, the blitz really bites is because we've got no answer to it and we're going to talk about the

1:04:39Fint Taylor:blitz in our next episode yes uh al is going to stick around thank you so much it's been it's been such an education it genuinely has uh he's going to tell us about how the blitz was bollocks actually it was all rubbish and it was just some uh just dropping some conkers on us and we were always going to win he's saying the real blitz is he can't being elected it's the real blitz it's done more damage to london than the nazis the real blitz spirit is those men who they tear down ltn cameras and they graffiti you their signs uh uh that episode's already on the patreon we're for three pounds a month uh you can get instant access uh no ads um this you can exchange ideas with other people it's marketplace marketplace and ideas fedoras all sorts uh If not, we'll see you for the next part where we will discuss the Blitz with Al Murray.

1:05:34Fint Taylor:See you then. Goodbye.