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The fat sausages, flown on steel cables strong enough to smash the wings of any plane striking them, looked like a herd of docile elephants high in the sky, protecting the home of the famed Dover Patrol. A squadron of 50 or 60 dive bombers circled at 30,000 ft., coming down singly in steep power dives out of the sun's eye to pot at the elephants with 37-mm. cannon. Observers saw two bags fall before anti-aircraft fire got the raiders' range and drove them off. British fighters "ambushed" the Stukas on their way home, when their ammunition was spent.
Later that morning, the day's main attack developed at Britain's naval base on Portland Isle, off Weymouth. First about 30 Stukas came, heavily escorted overhead by Messerschmitt fighters, to draw off and engage as many British fighters as possible. Then in waves came 150 more Nazis, mostly dive bombers, trying to plaster everything in sight: oil tanks, wharves, drydocks, boiler-repair shops, warships in harbor, the causeway connecting the island with the mainland. For two hours, sending civilians scurrying underground from Sun day school and church, the attackers dived, unloaded and zoomed through red-hot anti-aircraft barrages. As the defenders counterattacked, smashed and burning planes spun down out of the sky by the dozen. German reconnaissance planes reporting the action by radio announced enormous damage to the naval base and the sinking of virtually all the warships in harbor. British observers on the ground reported differently. They said 40 German planes were sacrificed over Portland, that the only military damage was the firing of an oil tank on the causeway, splinter wounds to two warships, minor damage to naval buildings, a hospital, two churches, a Sunday school. Inland, at Weymouth, the British admitted 40 houses were demolished and 140 others damaged in one 15-minute bomb shower.
That afternoon the Nazis went after Dover again and swooped on what they described as a convoy of 70 merchantmen escorted by 14 warships, entering the Thames Estuary between Margate and Harwich. The Germans claimed three ships sunk, a destroyer and three merchantmen damaged. For the day's total the British reported 26 of their own planes lost in combat against 400 of the Luftwaffe, of which they and the ground batteries destroyed 65. (German claim: 93 British planes downed, 21 of their own.)
All that night under the half-moon and all next day German planes swarmed over England. The number of bombers sent was nowhere near what might be expected from Luftwaffe in a full-out attack, but its fighter fleets were disproportionately heavy. They attacked Dover again but concentrated on Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, Southampton and the important fighter air base at Manston, inland from Weymouth. They accused the R. A. F. fighters of refusing to accept battle with them, of running away—perhaps to make R. A. F. get mad, take foolish chances.
Some of the pilots shot down from the German air armada proved to be Italians, suggesting severe inroads on Germany's trained personnel. R. A. F. continued pouring explosives back across the Channel, on the enemy's air bases in France, on his new air field in the Channel Islands, on his oil tanks and refineries. Neither side gave the other rest. Britain, a nation of tough people, was convinced that "The Finals" had begun.