The film:Battle of Britain was released 50 years ago in 1969 yet, for its subject has never been bettered by any war film, despite modern attempts, CGI and other improvements. When " Battle of Britain" was first shown on British television, on BBC1 on Battle of Britain Sunday in September 1974, it was watched by over 24 million viewers. Sales of the DVD and books of the film reached record levels and viewings of its repeats on TV and Satellite channels far exceed any other war film viewing.
The level of flying skill shown in that film will never be repeated due to health and safety reasons. Just watch the big final battle scenes of real aircraft with multiple dogfights going on and tail chases in the same bit of sky and passing very, very close to the camera plane. None of this would be allowed today for safety reasons. In order to accomplish this task, the production team with help from Group Captain Hamish McHaddie, a wartime bomber pilot put together the largest fleet of aircraft ever used for a feature film. The large number of aircraft, collected for this film, made it the thirty-fifth largest air force in the world. Twenty-seven Spitfires, in various degrees of repair, were found for this film, twelve of which could be made airworthy. Only six Hurricanes where found, three of which were made flyable.
In the scene where the Polish training squadron breaks off to attack (the "Repeat, please" sequence), the three most distant Hurricanes were Buchons marked as Hurricanes, as there were not enough flyable Hurricanes.
The "Messerschmitt 109s" were all Hispano HA-1112 Buchons. Basically a Bf 109 with a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the nose of the plane looks completely different that of a German Bf 109. from the Spanish Air Force. The production company bought them all, from the Spanish Air Force about fifty of them, and put seventeen of them back into flying condition. They are in the film, flown by Spanish Air Force pilots, and members of the Confederate Air Force. Connie Edwards and other American and British pilots flew the Allied and Enemy fighters also.
The thirty-two Heinkels, with crews, were on loan from the Spanish Air Force, where they still were used for transport and target towing. Two of them were eventually bought by the production company and flown together with the seventeen "Messerschmitts" to England, for further shooting. The two Junkers 52 were also on loan from the Spanish Air Force.There were so many actual aircraft used in the flying sequences that many films since have used the stock footage from this film to complete their aerial footage in films and documentaries( such as Finest Hour, Battle of Britain, Spitfire Ace and Fighting the Blue).There were simultaneous World Premieres of this film on the evening of Monday, September 15th 1969 in London, and several other U.K. cities, including Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, and Glasgow.
The skill of pilots such as the low flypast strafing scene of a French Airfield, of a group attacking, I am always struck by a Messerschmitt pilot (Buchon) just clearing the barbed wire fence at waist height . He was the Spanish Air Force Group Leader, Sanchez? How low these stunt pilots were prepared to go to give the Director just what was needed!. Some Spitfire and Hurricane film pilots also were chastised by the Director for slow turns and for not coming close enough to the camera, when on the ground or in the air and these pilots tried to almost ram the camera or film camera plane in an effort to "Show Him" just what they could do! The white smoke from damaged engines, was made by injecting cooking oil into the exhaust manifold.The model aircraft used were rigged to set fire, blow up and come apart in the air as seen in clips showing the Buchons streaming oil then coming apart, or the Spinning Spitfire striking the beach, many times you see a charge fall away from the model then the thing falls apart.
The Junkers 87 Stuka dive bombers used in this film, were model airplanes filmed in Malta, the only ones not real (the Percival Proctor aircraft, which had been modified to represent Junkers 87 aircraft, were found to be too dangerous to use). Their dive-bombing technique is not very realistic. Stukas will usually dive sixty to ninety percent, and release their bombs while diving (not pulling up).
Majors Foehn and Falke, the two German squadron commanders, were based on Adolf Galland and Werner Molders, two of the most famous German fighter aces of the war. Galland was on the film set as an advisor. He walked out at one point because he was angry at how the Germans were being portrayed in a stereotypical manner. Many scenes were re-written and re-shot at his insistence. He objected to the Nazi salute made by a Luftwaffe officer to Goring, which would not have happened he said it would have been a salute. Michael Cain remarked in his book the many arguments Galland had with the director over many points in the film and he would not have it that Germany lost the Battle of Britain just admitted it was a draw and that they changed to attacking Russia in 1941.
During principal photography, the real Lord Hugh Dowding, ill and confined to a wheelchair, visited the set representing his office, and met Sir Lawrence Olivier who played him. Olivier said to the great man:You probably think I am making a mess of the whole thing, to which Lord Dowding humorously agreed.The scenes at Fighter Command, were filmed on-location at R.A.F. Bentley Priory, the headquarters of Fighter Command, during World War II. Air Chief Marshall Dowding's original office, complete with the original furniture, was used. Dowding met and was filmed sat in his wheelchair among aces of 1940 with some such as Peter Townsend, Alan Deere, Tom Gleave, Geoffrey Page, Robert Stanford Tuck and others who visited the set.
The character of Section Officer Maggie Harvey was based on Air Commodore Dame Felicity Peake, who was a young section officer at R.A.F. Biggin Hill in 1940. The scene of Harvey being ordered to put her cigarette out, and Harvey yelling back at Warrant Officer Warrick, was based on a real event.
Many mock-ups of Spitfires and Hurricanes were made in the months prior to filming. Some had lawnmower engines fitted, and could be taxied around the airfield, but if they braked too hard, they would flip up onto their noses. This happened several times in front of the cameras, and some of the footage was eventually used in this film.The goggles used in this movie by the British pilots,were the MK VII version of the Royal Air Force issued items, however this version was not released to pilots until 1942, too late to be used during the Battle of Britain.
A B-25 Mitchell bomber, owned and piloted by Jeff Hawke and his co-pilot Duane Egli, was converted into a camera plane. Cameras were fitted into the nose, tail, dorsal and belly turrets, the nose being fitted with an optically perfect dome. The plane was painted in many bright colors so it would look different from all angles and would be easily seen by other planes. It was nicknamed the “Psychedelic Monster”. Eventually flown back to USA it sat derelict for many years in New Jersey before being restored back to flying condition in Florida. Flown in air shows for many years as “Chapter XI”, referring to the high cost of flying, but later repainted as “Lucky Lady ". In addition to the camera plane, the production also made use of a helicopter. No gimbal mounts in those days, just people like Camera Operator John Jordan who hung under the helicopter in a parachute harness. He died before this movie was released, in May 1969.
Battle of Britain was directed by Guy Hamilton for United Artists.Harry Saltzman was the Producer With S Benjamin Fisz .The film became regarded as a patriotic tribute to "the few", that many of those involved in the production, actors, and technicians, reduced their normal fees to work on this movie. Much of the large budget went toward the acquisition, restoration, modification, maintenance, and operation of the vintage aircraft.During filming, the closed, but largely intact, R.A.F. Hawkinge was refurbished to a degree, grass was tidied up, brickwork was cleaned and re-painted. Most of the site is now a housing estate, but for a few buildings and gun emplacements, some now housing a museum, are still intact.They filmed at other airfields also from 1940 and used Duxford, North Weald, Debden, and Bovingdon, a former Bomber Base, as well as Hawkinge. I felt they used Kenley also but might be wrong? They filmed a lot of the aerial scenes in good weather over in Spain and all the Heinkel scenes there and a lot of airfield scenes for the bombers and fighters of the Luftwaffe over on Tablada airfield in Spain (Now San Pablo Airfield, Spain) which represented the French occupied airfields used by the Luftwaffe in 1940.Duxford Airfield, near Cambridge, agreed for one of its hangars to be destroyed for the movie. The hangar in question, was considered unsafe for preservation. The other three hangars are still intact, and are used as an air museum.
Most of the extras in the scenes, filmed in East London and Aldwich underground station, were survivors of the Blitz. Some of the extras pulled out, because the scenes were "too real" and brought back painful memories. I knew one such extra called John from the Battle of Britain Historical Society who, as a child is the one at the end running down the tube platform, making aircraft noises! I also knew someone whose father worked on the film and bought much of the flying gear they used and Luftwaffe jackets etc and used to show me all sorts of memorabilia he owned from his father that were used in the film. Some of the replica mock ups of Hurricanes and Spitfires are in the Kent Battle of Britain Museum, which was also used in the film as a location for Hawkinge.
The 1960s had seen the closure of St. Katherine's Dock so it was used for some of the bombing scenes, the site of the warehouse, now being a hotel. At the time of filming, only that dock had closed in London, and it had been badly damaged during the blitz. Houses in Peckham Rye, South London, were used as some of the blitz scenes. These houses at the time were being cleared to make way for the North Peckham and Camden Estate housing projects that were completed during the 1970s. Many of the scenes were filmed in houses while they were being demolished.
.The Spitfires, Hurricanes, Messerschmitts, and Heinkels were repainted into authentic 1940 colors, but were so perfectly camouflaged, that they could not be seen against the ground or sky. Most of the aerial scenes were filmed with clouds in the background, so the aircraft could be seen.The Heinkel 111 bombers were in fact Spanish built CASA 2111 bombers, Heinkel 111 H constructed under license, but with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and many other modifications. The Rolls-Royce engines were more powerful than the original Junkers Jumo, and so the planes had more performance. In fact, all of the real airplanes including the Buchons used on this film, except the Junkers Ju 52 (also Spanish built CASA 352) had British-built Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.
There was a documentary, The Battle for The Battle of Britain (1969), and some books released that same year to co-incide with the film including:Battle of Britain-the making of a film by Leonard Moseley. There were other small booklets by people like William Green and others also.
Advisers to the film and pilots visiting the shooting of the film included:Bader, Deere, Tuck, Townsend, Lacey, Gleave, Page and others but only a few were credited as chief advisors including Galland, Gleave, Lacey and a few others.
In April 2017, it was announced that Ridley Scott would be directing a new version of this movie for Twentieth Century Fox, with Matthew Orton performing screenwriting duties. I have heard nothing since but would be interested to see this finally be done.
Whilst there are some very good aerial war films out there, Nothing has ever come as close to realism as this film, not least due to aircraft, the actors and the actual locations used. The film is regarded by many school children almost as the actual truth of what happened as a documentary almost-which it was not-it is that good and true to the principal of playing homage to The Few in 1940, right up to the final scene where Lord Dowding, the Chief of RAF Fighter Command, steps out of his office at Bentley Priory and looks up to a now empty sky, and the credits roll, with the losses and including Churchill`s eloquent words:Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few Paul Davies
