Luftwaffe airplane scrap heap

German planes shot down in Battle of Britain did help the British war effort by providing the British with tons of scrap metal but unfortunately the Germans were to do the same with downed Allied planes over Europe. The difference was all in the timing:  The British were desperate for all metal scrap at this point in the war while Germany had many sources of raw resources from mines in Germany and Czechoslovakia. And do not forget that the German Luftwaffe was built up before the war was started and Britain had to catch up in a hurry.