After success in Norway and during the Blitzkrieg that ran through the Low Countries and France, Kampfgeschwader 4 s III Gruppe got ready for its greatest test yet. The day after France surrendered, June 22, 1940, the units Junkers Ju 88s settled in to Schiphol, Amsterdam. Gruppenkonimandeur, Major Erich Bloedorn, prepared his men for operations against Britain. In the weeks before the sustained assault began, Luftwaffe bombers mounted small-scale attacks to probe the defences and laid mines around the British coast in to interdict coastal shipping. With what Churchill described as the Battle of Britain about to begin, the bulk of the RAF s fighter defences were concentrated under 11 and 12 Groups in southern England and the Midlands. Significant elements were based in the north under 13 Group to protect east coast ports and naval bases on the Firth of Forth and in the Orkneys. North Yorkshire was the dividing line between 13 Group and its more southerly cohorts. Among 13 Groups units was 41 Squadron, based at Catterick in "Yorkshire and flying Spitfires under 32-year-old Sqn Ldr H R L 'Robin Hood, a former cadet from the RAF College, Cranwell. A little further south at Church Fenton, was the recendy-formed, Hurricane-equipped 249 Squadron, part of 12 Group and led by Sqn Ldr John Grandy - aged 28 and a future Chief of the Air Staff.
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