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That's the Explorers Podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to history of the Second World War, episode 227,

The Battle of Britain Part 2, The Hardest Days.

This week, a big thank you goes out to Jake, Jennifer, Eric, T, Bill,

Oberticks, I think. We're supporting the podcast by becoming members. Members get access to

ad-free versions of all of the podcast episodes, plus special member-only episodes, released

roughly once a month. Head on over to history of the second world war.com

slash members to find out more. The first day of the Luftwaffe's great offensive,

Adler Tag or Eagle Day, had occurred on August 13th, and overall it was a bit disappointing.

Poor weather during the early morning had caused confusion and some delays, which meant that

there were fewer overall sorties than delays, which meant that there were fewer

overall sorties than were otherwise planned. But there were some encouraging reports from those

sordies that did manage to make their way to their targets throughout the day. The biggest

top line item was that the Germans believed that one quarter of all British fighters were

already destroyed. A number arrived at by the mistaken estimates

of total RAF fighter strength combined with the very optimistic estimates made of the fighters

destroyed on the first day. It seemed, to the Luftwaffe leaders anyway, that they were making

...