Battle of Britain

Air Ministry, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (London Public Record Office, 2001), pp. 79-95 T. C.G. James, The Battle of Britain, ed. Sebastian Cox (London Frank Cass, 2000) Murray, Lujtwajfe pp. 43-59. 

August, at the suggestion of the GIGS, Dill, the War Cabinet agreed to send 154 infantry tanks - about half the total available - to Egypt, although the outcome of the Battle of Britain was uncertain. 

Addison, Paul, and Jeremy Crang (eds.). The Burning Blue A New History of the Battle of Britain, London Pimlico, 2000. 

Airbandit C3I and strategic air defence during the first Battle of Britain, 1915-18 , in Dockrill and French (eds.). Strategy and Intelligence (1996), pp. 23-66. 

James, T. C. G., The Battle of Britain, ed. Sebastian Cox, London Frank Cass, 2000. 

Wood, Derek, and Derek Dempster, The Narrow Margin The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power 1930-1940, London Hutchinson, 1961. 

To comprehend the value of fundamental scientific work one must look back and weave the strands together. Sometimes the threads are very evident. For example, the battle of Britain was won in considerable part by the use of planes which were products of combustion research. The interrelationships of supercharging, compression, and fuel properties and composition in the reciprocating engine had been partially explored at that time. The Germans seemed to apply these principles but slowly at first. The British put this knowledge to work immediately as did the petroleum industry in the United States in those frantic days of producing tremendous quantities of fuel. 

The importance of the isomerization reaction for the production of high-performance fuels was demonstrated during World War II, in the Battle of Britain, when British Spitfires and Hurricanes, using American 100 octane fuel, were able to out-perform German Messerschmidt 109s, that used lower standard and synthetic fuels with an octane rating of only 87.1 Indeed, the first commercial plant to produce aviation fuel was built by... 

Meanwhile, the plants making both phosgene and mustard gas went into overdrive. In response to Churchill s constant demands, the output of gas increased markedly. Once manufactured, the gas was stored in underground mines in North Wales. The statistics available show a steady increase and indeed by the middle of 1944 Britain had stockpiled more than five million gas-carrying shells and bombs. In the event, of course, the phosgene and mustard gas were never needed. The RAF stopped the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain and in October 1940 Hitler called off Operation Sealion (the invasion of Britain) and turned his attention to Soviet Russia. 

If ethene is compressed to about 1000 atm pressure with a trace of oxygen present as a catalyst, it polymerises to poly(ethene), or Polythene (the trade name). This discovery was made by accident just before the Second World War. Pofythene was for some years a secret, as it was the only material capable of insulating the very high voltage cables used in the early radar systems which helped to win the Battle of Britain. 

The Houdry units greatly increased both the quality and the yield of gasoline per barrel of crude, and during World War II high octane Houdry gasoline propelled the Royal Air Force to victory in the battle of Britain. 

Large-scale production commenced on Christmas Day 1940 and rose eventually to an output of about 500 L of culture fluid per week, from which around 100-200,000 units of penicillin activity could be obtained. By the end of January 1941, enough penicillin had been accumulated to initiate a small-scale clinical trial. It is worth noting that these gargantuan efforts had been carried out while Britain struggled to survive following the evacuation from Dunkirk (in May 1940), the Battle of Britain (September) and the everpresent fear of invasion. 

The initial German air attack, the Battle of Britain, began in mid-August a month of ferocious daylight contests between the Luftwaffe and British Fighter Command for air supremacy in advance of Operation Sea Lion, Germany s planned cross-Channel invasion. It was not yet an attack on cities. British airfields and aircraft factories were primary targets. Hitler... 

The submarine telephone cable application was the justification for the commercial PE plant, but in fact—with the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939—almost all the 4000 t of PE produced between 1939 and 1945 was used to insulate high-frequency radar cables. Commercial distribution of PE in the UK was suspended, secrecy was imposed, whilst PE was used to produce insulation for the coaxial cables of radar sets. Airborne radar, possible because of the compact cables available now with PE insulation, proved to be a critical advantage in the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic, helping British supply ships to avoid German submarines. German Admiral Karl Donitz told Adolf Hitler in May 1943 What is now decisive is that enemy aircraft have been equipped with a new location apparatus. .. which enables them to detect submarines and to attack them unexpectedly in low cloud, bad visibility or at night [10]. 

Mullen, W. Unlikely Hero. A Polish Immigrant s High-Octane Role in Winning the Battle of Britain, Chicago Tribune Magazine, July 15, 1990, Section 10. 

The increased performance meant that Allied planes were better than Axis planes by a factor of 15 percent to 30 percent in engine power for take-off and climbing 25 percent in payload 10 percent in maximum speed and 12 percent in operational altitude. In the first six months of 1940, at the time of the Battle of Britain, 1.1 million barrels per month of 100-octane aviation gasoline was shipped to the Allies. Houdry plants produced 90 percent of this catalytically cracked gasoline during the first two years of the war. (12)... 

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