A narrow escape at Manston

12th August 1940: The Battle of Britain enters a new stage as massed bombers supported by fighters target RAF bases

Scramble at Manston, 12 August 1940. Looking to the right and behind: 'They were inches in front of a huge cascading wall of black smoke and dust which reared up like some huge tidal wave about to catch up, crash down and engulf us all. I knew just one of those bombs in front of us now would kill us all' Gordon Olive’s later painting of the view from his cockpit.

Hermann Goering had promised Hitler that he could break the will of the British simply by destroying the RAF. There were good grounds for believing him. The Luftwaffe had successfully knocked out the air forces of Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France within the last year, creating the alarm and despondency that had led to the eventual surrender of these countries. Even though the RAF had two capable fighters, the Hurricane and the Spitfire, they were massively outnumbered - by at least ten to one - by the Luftwaffe. Now, German propaganda was promising that it would be all over for the RAF “within days”.

The black crosses of Prussia were quite unnecessary to tell us they were hostile; their bomb bays were open and the bombs were right there in front of us …