Quote:
Originally Posted by Crumpp
Good Stuff....
By July it shows ~8 Squadrons and I imagine some of those squadrons are operating Spitfire Mk II's.
August adds another 5 Squadrons and by sometime in September, a full 16 squadrons online as researched by Morgan and Shacklady.
According to the RAF estabilishment by September there were 33 squadrons of Hurricanes and 19 Squadrons of Spitfires.
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Morgan and Shacklady's quoting of the pre-war meeting is just that. A quote from a pre war meeting. There are a few things mentioned in that meeting which simply didn't happen. Most obviously the projected consumption figure of 10,000 tons per annum. This must have changed between the meeting and the BoB. Records from the time show that there were 5,000 tons of 100 oct in France as part of the BEF. They only operated Hurricanes in France so why the need for the fuel?
The other obvious 'thing that changed' is the reserve figure of 800,000. If you read the Oil Position meeting notes that I posted you'll notice that this figure was projected for 1943.
Add into that the fact that nobody thought war was going to happen until at least 1941 when the M&S quote was written, and you begin to see how unreliable a document written in March '39 is when trying to use it as proof for something that happened 10 months later. So if the reserve figure and the consumption figure are incorrect, what makes you think that the 16 squadrons is correct?
Happily I've requested the full set of these meeting notes from the National Archive from '38 to '41. That should clear this 16 squadrons thing up. Then you can go back to the pilots notes.