Opening
moves. Attacks on coastal shipping, airfields and radar
stations.
August 13th
Adler Tag (Eagle
Day) – the first day of the Main German offensive attacking
inland airbases in force
September 7th
First German
bombing raids on London
September 15th
Height of the air
battle over London and the South East of England
September
17th
Operation Sealion cancelled.
"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is
over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this
battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our
own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our
Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on
us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the
war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the
world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands, but, if we fail, then the
whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known
and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more
sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if
the British Empire and it's Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will
still say, "This was their finest hour". ..............
Winston
Churchill (June
18th 1940)
What Winston Churchill described as
“The Battle of Britain” took place during August and September 1940.
Following the surrender of France and the evacuation of the British
Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, Britain faced the German Wehrmacht on her
own without an effective army to oppose them. The only thing preventing the
German army from occupying Britain was the English Channel.
The
Germans needed to secure air superiority over the English Channel to invade
Britain otherwise the Royal Navy would be allowed to attack and sink the
invasion fleet. The code name the Germans used for the invasion was
Operation Sealion.
To
control the air the German Luftwaffe had to defeat the RAF’s Fighter Command
led by Sir Hugh Dowding. The RAF had lost over 900 aircraft during the
Battle of France roughly half being fighters. There had also been a
considerable loss of aircrew. Dowding had replacement aircraft available but
the loss of trained pilots was a devastating blow.
Before
the war Dowding had ordered that a special high-octane fuel pioneered by RAF
Air Commodore Rod Banks in the 1930s, that gave his fighters a
higher top speed, be stockpiled for use when the expected war finally came.
The Luftwaffe had around 3,500 aircraft based in Norway, the Low
Countries and France, of which about 2,200 would be serviceable on
any given day. Around 1,300 of these were twin-engine bombers and
single engine
Stuka dive-bombers. The other 900 or so were single
engine Messerschmitt
bf109’s and twin engine Messerschmitt
bf110’s.
The single engine aircraft had only a short range, which was to be a
significant factor in the coming battle.
The RAF
had around 660 single engine fighters to oppose the Luftwaffe. Of these 400
were Hurricane and 200 were
Spitfire fighters. The others included
Boulton-Paul Defiants, that had a turret mounted behind the pilot, and old
Gloster Gladiator biplanes; these were withdrawn from the battle early on as
the were quite unsuitable for this type of combat.
Contrary to popular belief, Hurricanes actually
achieved a greater number of kills than
Spitfires during the Battle of Britain.
Despite
having fewer aircraft the RAF still had a number of important advantages
over the Luftwaffe. The RAF could monitor British airspace using RADAR, an
early warning system that could detect approaching aircraft using radio
waves. RADAR was supplemented by the Royal Observer Corps (ROC), a network
of posts manned by civilian volunteers equipped with binoculars. This
information was all co-ordinated by the various sector commands of the RAF
Fighter Groups so that Fighter Command had a very good picture of what was
actually happening over Britain and the Channel. This meant that the RAF
only had to put aircraft into the air when they were needed and did not have
to waste materials and effort in maintaining constant patrols. Because they
were operating close to home, British fighters could spend more time in
combat than the German fighters, which were operating at the limit of their
range. When the Luftwaffe attacked targets further inland, and in particular
London, the bombers lost a lot of their fighter cover and became very
exposed to attack by British fighters. Many British pilots that bailed out
landed in friendly territory and could return to duty; Luftwaffe aircrew
were captured and ended up as prisoners of war.
The
first phase of the battle took place during June and July 1940 when the
Luftwaffe tried to establish dominance over the Straits of Dover in the
English Channel. The German strategy was to attack shipping, airfields and
Radar stations along the coast in an attempt to entice the RAF into battle
where their advantages would be minimised.
The
Luftwaffe lost more aircraft than the RAF, many of which were Junkers 87 ‘Stuka’ dive-bombers that were
easy prey for the faster British fighters.
During
August the Luftwaffe switched the attack to Fighter Commands airfields and
installations. The airfields of No 11 Group, responsible for the defence of
the South East of England, were the primary targets. The intention was to
deny fighter command the use of airfields close to the battle zone so that
they too would have only sufficient fuel for a short time in combat. Without
the command infrastructure to process information from Radar and the Royal Observer
Corps the RAF would find it difficult to maintain an efficient air defence.
At this time Hermann Göring,
the Luftwaffe commander in chief, made the decision to call off attacks on
the Radar stations in the mistaken belief that they were not contributing to
the defence of Britain. This was a critical decision that enabled the RAF to
continue to monitor the German bombers assembling over the Channel,
providing the necessary time to scramble fighters to intercept them.
Never
the less the RAF was in serious trouble. Despite shooting down more German
aircraft than they had lost they were still losing the battle of attrition;
the rate of destruction favoured the Luftwaffe. However, the German
commanders didn’t appreciate this and, based on the unforeseen high losses
of German aircraft, concluded that they were actually losing. Consequently
the Germans started to bomb during the night and, during one raid,
accidentally dropped bombs on London. The British retaliated immediately
with an air raid on Berlin. This infuriated Hitler so much that he ordered
the Luftwaffe to attack London in force and flatten it. The first raid took
place on September 7th and caught Fighter Command completely by
surprise; raids on the airfields diminished immediately giving a grateful
RAF time to recover its losses.
By
September 15th it was clear that the RAF were not going to be
beaten and on September 17th Hitler postponed Operation Sealion
effectively ending the Battle of Britain.
The
Luftwaffe now switched to night bombing the cities of Britain in a campaign
that was to become known as “The Blitz”. London suffered nightly raids,
especially around the dock area and the East end. Other British cities were
also hit, one in particular being Coventry, which was the subject of
repeated mass attacks by over 500 bombers on the night of November 14th
that turned the city into a blazing inferno killing around 600 and injuring
over 1,000.
The
‘Blitz’ continued on into 1941 becoming less intense as German units were
switched to the Russian front and allied resistance increased. A final
desperate attempt was made to intimidate the British people using the V1
flying bombs and V2 rockets during 1944 and 1945.
Winston
Churchill in a speech to the House of Commons on August 20th 1940
said:
“The
gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed
throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to
the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant
challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by
their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human
conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All our hearts go
out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own
eyes day after day…”
Why did the Luftwaffe suffer defeat?
The Germans lacked the right equipment. The
Luftwaffe was organised and trained to support the Army. Its
aircraft were short range and not designed to conduct a
strategic air campaign.
The Germans lacked information. The Luftwaffe
could not measure the effectiveness of its strategy and kept on
changing it in the belief that it wasn’t working, whereas in
truth it was and would have crippled the RAF if continued.
German politics dictated military operational
strategy. Hitler was infuriated when the RAF bombed Berlin in
retaliation for bombs being dropped on London. The Nazi’s had
boasted that nothing could damage Berlin and to save face Hitler
had to respond with an all out attack on London, which gave
Fighter Command a much needed break from raids on its airfields.
The Battle took place over England. German
fighters could only defend the bombers for a limited amount of
time before having to return to France for fuel and ammunition.
The RAF could attack the bombers for much longer. RAF pilots who
bailed out landed on British soil and could return to duty,
Luftwaffe pilots were taken prisoner.
Radar allowed the RAF to vector their fighters to
intercept the German bombers without wasting time and fuel
waiting for them.
