One question which must be asked is why did they keep on using such a vulnerable airfield like Manston? One reply came from Jeffrey Quill in Scramble, Norman Gelb's oral history of BoB
Flying Officer Jeffrey Quill
I didn't want to stay at being a Spitfire test pilot when the war began hotting up. I went to see Air Vice Marshal Keith Park and persuaded him to post me to 65 Squadron. The squadron commander was killed the day I arrived. We were based at Rochford, but went every day to Manston, right down on the south-eastern tip of England, so close to the Germans across the Channel that we never spent the night at Manston. It would have been easy for them to pull a surprise raid on us. We'd fly to Rochford. But we operated out of Manston and sometimes got beaten up there, often on take-off.
When the bloody great bombing raids started forming up over northern France, with their fighter escorts taking off from different fields to join them, our Controllers would know what was happenŽing. The radar would pick them up. We'd sit at dispersal at Manston and the telephone would ring. The Controller - they were usually very chatty - would say, 'There's something big brewing up over Abbeville, so be ready.1 sometimes they'd tell us to get into our cockpits. We'd get all strapped in and be ready to take off. Taking off from Manston, we were too close to the incoming raids to go climbing out to sea for a direct interception. We'd never have been able to get enough height. So we'd take off and climb inland before we could get into position to turn back and attack from above. We got fed up with this. We used to ask, 'Why the bloody hell do we have to start from here?' They'd say, 'You've got to be at Manston because if we start pulling the fighters out of southeast England, local people might think we're evacuating the area.' Public morale was a big factor in keeping us there. In fact, when we went in to land at Manston around 5.30 in the morning, we were instructed to fly low over the nearby towns and give them a jolly good buzz. I don't know what people thought about being awakened by the noise at that time of day, but at least they knew we were there. If it had suddenly
ceased, with all the invasion scare going on, it would have been bad.
There was another reason why we stayed at Manston. The air force said, 'This is our airfield. We're bloody well not going to be moved from it by the ruddy Germans.' People weren't going to be pushed around. But for us, tactically, it would have been better to be based further back. This was especially true when it came to the squadron forming up after take-off, which was quite a business. It involved a lot of chatter on the R/T. Somebody might get left behind. And the squadron leader got a bit tetchy because people weren't forming up more quickly, so we thought it was much better to form up in squadron formation on the ground. When the squadron commander said go, we all went. We took off in formation and got back into combat position once we were in the air. It was quicker and neater -when we had the time - but it was more unwieldy, particularly when you were on the ground.
That's how we got comprehensively dive bombed while we were still stationary one day. We were waiting there, all engines running, everybody watching the squadron commander, waiting for the whole thing to start rolling. The next thing we knew we were being bombed by 110s. We all, of course, opened up and took off and to hell with the formation! We were very lucky to survive. Everybody got up except one. He was a New Zealander called Wigg. He was a bit slow getting started. Perhaps his engine was slightly on the choke situation. A bomb dropped right behind him and the blast from the bomb, coming from behind, blew his propeller around backwards and stopped his engine. He nipped out of the cockpit and had to run like hell to get clear. Bloody bombs were dropping all over. It was funny because he was usually a deliberate, slow-moving sort of chap who'd never hurry for anything.
Another question is were the occurrences at Manston a one off or were they widespread? The following quote from the same source is interesting.
Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air, Chief of the Air Staff and Secretary to the War Cabinet 29 August 1940
I was much concerned on visiting Manston Aerodrome yesterday to find that although more than four clear days have passed since it was last raided the greater part of the craters on the landing ground remained unfilled and the aerodrome was barely serviceable. When you remember what the Germans did at the Stavanger aerodrome and the enormous rapidity with which craters were filled I must protest emphatically against this feeble method of repairing damage. Altogether there were one hundred and fifty people available to work, including those that could be provided from the Air Force personnel. These were doing their best. No effective appliances were available, and the whole process appeared disproportionate to the value of maintaining this fighting vantage ground.
All craters should be filled within twenty-four hours at most, and every case where a crater is unfilled for a longer period should be reported to higher authorities ... After the craters had been refilled
camouflage effort might be made to pretend they had not been, but this is a refinement.
Air Commodore Gerald Gibbs, Senior Staff Officer, 11 Group
We had trouble with the civilian labour employed to repair runways and so keep our vital airfields in action at this critical time. Every time there was an 'alert' at some of these airfields, the labour would go into the shelter and refuse to carry on. Victor Beamish, that fine character, killed a little later... tried everything with them - blandŽishments, exhortation, rewards, insults, all to no avail. They said this was a free country and they weren't going to work. Victor pointed out that it wouldn't be a free country much longer if we didn't get the airfield going, but no good. We put parties of our airmen on the job.