Stream of single raiders on London and the south-east.
Night: Continuing raids on London. Liverpool also bombed.
Weather: Mist, rain and poor visibility throughout the day. Fog at night.
Main Activity:
Seelöwe was still very much in Hitler’s mind, but he was reluctant to come to a decision despite Army and Navy recommendations to call it off altogether. Holding troops on the Channel coast ‘under constant British air attack’, they pointed out, ‘led to continual casualties’.
Remarked the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzi Ciano, in his diary, after the Hitler-Mussolini meeting at the Brenner Pass on October 4th, ‘there is no longer any talk about a landing in the British Isles’.
After two attacks on convoys at 9 a.m. German fighters and fighter-bombers flying singly for the most part headed for London in an almost continuous stream. Altogether sixty to seventy crossed the coast, and at 1 p.m. twelve penetrated the inner artillery zone to drop bombs on London. Canterbury, Folkestone, Hythe and Reigate were also hit. Later in the afternoon RAF fighters made interceptions and brought down two Ju 88s, making a total of twelve for the day against three British machines lost.
Excerpt from The Narrow Margin by Derek Wood & Derek Dempster
German Losses
Airmen: 32 | Aircraft: 15
British Losses
Airmen: 1 | Aircraft: 1
Spitfire X4320, No. 66 Squadron
F/Lt. K. McL Gillies killed. Failed to return from an interception of a He 111 over the coast in the Hastings/Dungeness area.
http://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/GilliesKM.htm
Photo Descriptions:
- Bombs dropping on the port of Tilbury, on 4 October 1940. The first group of bombs will hit the ships lying in the Thames, the second will strike the docks.
- Undaunted by a night of German air raids in which his store front was blasted, a shopkeeper opens up the morning after for “business as usual” in London.