RAF NIGHT FIGHTERS

When the Luftwaffe abandoned its daylight attacks against airfields, aircraft factories and other parts of Britain’s defence infrastructure in early September 1940, turning instead against London and other cities, it was of course a relief to a beleaguered RAF Fighter Command. Yet at the same time, it was something of a bittersweet moment. While the pressure was off the fighter defences, those same defences stood all but powerless to stop the night attacks – at least in any meaningful manner.

Part of the problem lay in the fact that RAF Fighter Command had been very much geared-up as a day fighter force, with relatively scant attention paid to the question of night-time defence. In any event, pre-war preparations for the air defence of Britain were largely predicated on the notion that enemy bombers would not be able to see their military targets by night. Similarly, any defending fighter pilots would be unlikely to be able to see any attackers, either. Therefore relatively little emphasis was placed on night-fighting development. All this, of course, did not foresee the advent of radar or mass night-time attacks on British cities and commercial and industrial targets.

The thinking of planners during the 1930s was very much along the lines that British fighters would simply need to defend against daylight attackers crossing the North Sea flying from their German bases. It was considered – not unreasonably