In the aftermath of Germany's crushing victory over France, Hitler dominated the continent of Europe to an extent unmatched since the peak of Napoleon's power in the early nineteenth century. But he had not yet won the war because the British had not joined the French in seeking an armistice. Furthermore, Britain was still an island, separated from the continent by the English Channel and the North Sea and, thus, could only be invaded by a difficult amphibious assault.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT BRITAIN?
In the euphoria that prevailed in the summer of 1940, however, Hitler was convinced that the British would have to make peace, eliminating the need for an invasion. Many observers around the world shared this view. Certainly the leaders of Vichy France did not expect Britain to survive for long. During the last days before the French capitulation, Churchill had made a grandiose offer of union between Britain and France, including joint citizenship for the peoples of both countries, if the French would continue the struggle. But the proposal met with little support in the French cabinet, and General Weygand remarked that France had nothing to gain from union with a country that would soon have its neck "wrung like a chicken's."
Even in Britain, contrary to popular myth, there was considerable support for a negotiated peace, particularly during the period between the French debacle at Sedan and the successful evacuation from Dunkirk. Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, both favored such a policy, and Churchill seriously considered this approach during May and early June. But on June 4, the day the last British soldiers escaped from Dunkirk, he spoke these defiant words in Parliament: "...we shall defend out island whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." As time passed, support for a negotiated settlement faded among other British leaders, but it did not vanish for some time.
Germany put forth a number of peace feelers through neutral intermediaries, but the British ignored or rebuffed them all. Hitler finally made a personal appeal on July 19 in which he indicated that if Britain returned the German colonies it had received under the Versailles treaty and recognized Germany's domination of the continent, he would spare the British Empire. But to Churchill it appeared that Hitler visualized Britain as nothing more than a German satellite. He was not willing to consider peace on this basis.
Britain's reluctance to end the war left Hitler with no recourse but to force submission. But how was he to accomplish this? Although his fellow Germans sang the popular song "We Sail against England," it was not that easy. The Germans had failed to develop even the most rudimentary plan for an invasion. They also lacked the ships required to transport an invasion force of sufficient size, and the German navy was totally inadequate to protect such a force against the formidable British fleet. And despite the awesome power that the German army had displayed in defeating France, none of its troops possessed the training necessary to carry out such a highly specialized undertaking.
Admiral Raeder, the commander of the German navy, was highly pessimistic. The Royal Navy was greatly superior to the German fleet, and the Royal Air Force (RAF) would make an all-out effort to prevent Germany from gaining control of the air over the channel and potential landing grounds. Without air supremacy, Raeder insisted, an invasion was not feasible. The Germans generals shared these concerns.
Hitler was hesitant, too. He was essentially continental in his thinking and feared the destruction of his army by the Royal Navy and the RAF. As he confessed to Raeder in a remarkably candid observation: "On land, I am a hero. At sea, I am a coward." He would authorize an invasion only if the Luftwaffe first eliminated British air power, thus allowing unhindered German air attacks on the Royal Navy. Although for a time he directed all German resources to the task of winning control of the air and preparing for an invasion, from as early as July his mind was not focused solely on Britain. Instead, he turned his thoughts increasingly to the possibility of an attack on the Soviet Union.
PLANNING THE ATTACK
Despite all these misgivings, on July 16, Hitler authorized the OKH to draft an invasion plan, which was given the code name Operation Sea Lion and the target date of August 15. In its original form, the plan was quite unrealistic and called for landings by 500,000 men on a front over 200 miles wide along Britain's southern coast. The OKH formulated Sea Lion without sufficient coordination with the navy, and Admiral Raeder was horrified when he saw the plan. He pointed out that the navy could provide neither the ships to carry the necessary troops nor sufficient warships to protect and invasion force on this scale. It would require vigorous effort even to scrape together enough vessels to transport a much smaller force. General Halder believed that such a reduced operation would be suicidal. As he put it, "I might just as well send the troops that have landed straight through the sausage machine." But he could hardly argue with Raeder's facts. Reluctantly, he revised the plan by reducing the landing area to the extreme southeastern corner of England and sharply cutting the number of troops. Halder and Brauchitsch also agreed to delay the invasion until September 15 to enable Raeder to assemble an improvised fleet of ships, barges, and tugs.
Before an invasion could start, of course, the Luftwaffe had to gain control of the air. But could the Luftwaffe succeed, and if so, could it finish the job quickly enough to allow the invasion to take place on schedule? Goering was extremely confident and even considered it possible to bomb Britain into submission without an actual invasion. The Luftwaffe's primary mission was to destroy the RAF fighter plane force. Once it had accomplished this, German bombers could attack British naval ships, coastal installations, and troops without fear of RAF interference. All German leaders considered the destruction of the British fighter force to be the absolutely essential prerequisite for an invasion.
Despite Goering's confidence, the Luftwaffe proved inadequate for its task. Essentially a tactical air force designed to support the army, it was undertaking a strategic mission that was beyond its capabilities. Also, the superiority of the Luftwaffe over the RAF was not as great as many believed at the time. Its chief strength consisted of two air fleets under the command of Field Marshals Albert Kesselring and Hugo Sperrle. Both men had started their careers in the army and had served in World War I. Kesselring participated in secret planning for the Luftwaffe during the 1920s and, after its creation, served as chief of staff from 1936 to 1937. Sperrle led the famous Condor Legion, which fought on Franco's side in the Spanish civil war. The combined strength of their air fleets included 1,200 high-level bombers and 260 Stukas, but the latter proved so vulnerable to British fighters that Kesselring and Sperrle quickly withdrew them from combat. For the first time, the Stuka faced fighters that could take advantage of its inadequate speed, armor, and armament.
The Luftwaffe also lacked long-range heavy bombers. Instead it had to make do with aircraft that had inferior bomb-load capacity and range. This weakness was the result of a combination of accident and deliberate choice. When the Luftwaffe came into existence in 1933, its first chief of staff, General Walter Wever, was convinced that in any future war, Britain would be among Germany's enemies. He recognized that Germany would need a strategic air force using long-range heavy bombers that could successfully attack British cities, especially those in the more remote areas. But Wever died in a plane crash in 1936 before he could carry out his plans. His successor, Kesselring, and other Luftwaffe leaders did not share Wever's enthusiasm for heavy bombers and questioned their accuracy from high altitudes. They preferred instead to concentrate on production of the Stuka and medium-range bombers - the Dornier 17, Heinkel 111, and Junkers 88 - which could also serve as divebombers. These were the aircraft that the Luftwaffe unleashed against Britain in the summer of 1940. They had to depend on fighter escorts during daylight. This meant that they could not advance much beyond London because of the limited range of the best German fighter, the Messerschmitt (Me) 109. Bombers could penetrate more deeply into British air space at night, without fighter escort, but night bombing was highly inaccurate.
The two air fleets combined had 760 Messerschmitt 109s and 220 twin-engine Messerschmitt 110 fighters. Although the Me 110 had greater range than the Me 109, it proved a big disappointment because it was too heavy and unmaneuverable. All things considered, the Me 109 was superior to the British Hurricane and on even terms with the best British fighter, the Spitfire.
A third and smaller German air fleet operated from Norway and Denmark, which were too far away from Britain for this force to be effective. Its bombers depended on unwieldy Me 110s for escort because their British targets lay beyond the range of the Me 109. The RAF also received early warnings of their approach. As a result, this air fleet made only one major daylight attack, which the British repulsed with heavy losses.
DEFENDING AGAINST THE LUFTWAFFE
When the Luftwaffe launched its offensive, RAF Fighter Command possessed a total of 650 operational aircraft, mostly Hurricanes and Spitfires, but also including 100 obsolete models. The commander of this force was Air Marshal Hugh Dowding, whose reserved manner had earned him the nickname "Stuffy." Though lacking in charisma, he was popular with the fighter pilots, whom he affectionately called his "chicks." Dowding proved to be one of the major heroes of the Battle of Britain. Before the war, he had fought to increase the size of the fighter force against the opposition of strategic air power enthusiasts in the RAF who had favored concentration on the production of long-range bombers. He had also been instrumental in the development of the Hurricane and the Spitfire. But despite his efforts, Dowding was concerned about Fighter Command's numeric inferiority. He feared the destruction of his force if he committed too many planes too early. To prevent this, he insisted on keeping a large number of fighters in reserve in northern and central Britain beyond the range of the Me 109.
This policy placed primary responsibility for fending off the Luftwaffe on Air Vice Marshal Keith Park's Fighter Command Group 11, which protected southeastern England, including London. A New Zealander by birth, Park shared Dowding's insistence on conserving Fighter Command's strength. He refused to commit his entire force against German formations approaching England and kept many fighters in reserve. As a result, the British planes that intercepted the enemy were usually badly outnumbered. Not surprisingly, this approach drew strong criticism, but Dowding and Park remained adamant until mid-September, when they finally increased the number of fighters committed to combat. Despite its unpopularity at the time, their cautious policy contributed significantly to Fighter Command's salvation and ultimate victory. It also came as a surprise to the Germans who had expected the British to commit all their fighters to southern England, leaving them without a reserve force.
British aircraft production increased greatly during the summer of 1940 and actually outdistanced German output by a considerable margin. This achievement was due primarily to the unrelenting efforts of Lord Beaverbrook, whom Churchill had appointed minister for aircraft production on May 14. Born in Canada, Beaverbrook was the publisher of the London Daily Express. He antagonized some RAF leaders who criticized his single-minded emphasis on production of fighter planes. BUt Beaverbrook insisted that national survival depended on the construction of Spitfires and Hurricanes.
The British had another distinct advantage - radar (radio detection and ranging), which they had pioneered as early as 1935. Radar gave the RAF advance warning of the approach and direction of German planes. Much of its success was due to the efforts of scientist Robert Watson-Watt, who experimented with bouncing radio waves off distant planes and using the resulting echoes to detect their approach. Watson-Watt carried out his work with the help of a committee of scientists headed by Henry Tizard. Dowding recognized the importance of radar and cooperated in developing a chain of 21 radar stations along England's southern and eastern coasts.
Tizard was also active in the creation of an effective ground control system that directed fighter planes to intercept German aircraft on the basis of radar warnings. To supplement the radar stations, the British developed an observer corps, consisting of hundreds of aircraft spotters who alerted the ground control operation centers of the estimated number, altitude, speed, and bearing if incoming enemy forces. The combination of radar, observers, and ground control eliminated the need to maintain constant air patrols to detect German planes and enabled British units to avoid being caught on the ground. The Germans had developed radar, too, but they had focused on its offensive potential rather than using it in a defensive role. They failed to recognize how important it would be in the Battle of Britain.
Ultra reports were also available. They revealed that Hitler had ordered preparations for Operation Sea Lion and that the Germans encountered some problems of gathering tugs and barges for the projected invasion. The reports also provided information on the strength of the Luftwaffe and the location of its bases. But they often failed to indicate clearly actual bombing targets or exact timetables. In short, though useful during the Battle of Britain, Ultra was not of great value until considerably later.
With the threat of invasion now seemingly imminent, a significant transformation took place in the attitude of the British people, who were determined to defend their homeland. Churchill's leadership was a significant factor in this change. His masterful speeches and bulldog manner inspired confidence to a degree that Chamberlain could not remotely approach. Among his most memorable words were these, which he delivered soon after the fall of France:
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 Civilization. Upon it depends our British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire....Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Germany's preliminary air operations began on July 10 and continued until August 6. They consisted of raids against British shipping and resulted in relatively little combat between the two fighter forces. It was not until August 8 that the Germans switched to attacks on British airfields with the intention of destroying the RAF fighter force. This shift marked the actual start of the Battle of Britain. The delay in launching this assault was due in part to the need to replace planes and pilots that the Germans had lost during the campaign in western Europe. The Luftwaffe also unleashed heavy assaults against radar stations on August 12 but seriously damaged only one. It failed to undertake any important follow-up raids against these installations, which must be considered a blunder of the first magnitude.
Despite the fact that the Germans had been conducting major raids against RAF fighter bases for almost a week, they did not officially launch their grand air offensive until August 13. They hoped to win mastery of the skies over Britain and the channel within four weeks to enable the invasion to commence by September 15. Intense aerial combat followed. Fighter Command absorbed considerable punishment, but it remained strong and replaced lost planes with new aircraft coming off the assembly line. Pilot losses were serious but perhaps not as critical as some observers have contended. The British secured replacements who performed well. And since the battle took place over Britain, many pilots were able to bail out of their planes and return to action. German losses were also high. During the crucial months of August and September, the RAF lost 832 fighters, and 532 more were damaged. The Luftwaffe suffered fewer fighter losses - 668 destroyed and 436 damaged - but it also lost 500 bombers and 67 Stukas. The heavier toll of British fighters was due partly to the Me 109s superiority over the Hurricane. But the RAFs policy of making German bombers its primary target was also an important factor. This left British fighters more vulnerable to Me 109 attacks than would have been the case if they had concentrated on attacking German fighters.
COMBAT IN THE SKY
These figures on losses do not capture the reality of the aerial combat that produced them. Throughout most of August and September, dogfights between German and British fighters raged at frequent intervals in the skies over Britain. They often resulted in flaming death for the unsuccessful pilots, and many, who were shot down but survived, were badly injured or burned. German bomber crews were virtually defenseless, if deprived of their fighter escorts, and fell victim to RAF fighters in large numbers. Each of these desperate engagements were of short duration, however, because German fighters had only 20 to 30 minutes of flying time over British airspace before turning back. Some of them did not make it and had to ditch at sea or crash land before reaching their bases.
Fighter aces emerged on both sides. They included two veterans of the German Condor Legion - Colonel Werner Molders, who accounted for 45 enemy planes by the end of November, and Major Adolf Galland, who recorded his fortieth "kill" on September 24. On the British side, Group Captain Stanford Tuck shot down 25 planes by the end of October, while Squadron Leader Douglas Bader was credited with 23 before being shot down over northwestern France and taken prisoner in the summer of 1941. Bader accomplished this despite having two artificial legs. He had lost both legs in a peacetime crash.
THE BATTLE CONTINUES
The Battle of Britain entered its second phase on August 24, when the Germans unleashed even more intense raids on Fighter Command bases. During the next week, the Luftwaffe shot down so many British fighters that the RAF losses actually outstripped production of replacement aircraft. The trend was dangerous, but the Germans also suffered significant losses and began to relax pressure on RAF airfields as early as September 4, when Goering diverted some strength to assaults on industrial cities and other targets.
Phase 3 of the Battle of Britain began on September 7. It featured a drastic change in tactics by the Germans, who abandoned their attacks on Fight Command bases in favor of direct raids on London. Goering made this decision with the support of both Hitler and Kesselring over the protests of Sperrle, who feared the change would ease pressure on Fighter Command just as its losses were reaching a critical point. The shift was due in part to Goering's concern that the Luftwaffe was not making rapid enough progress toward air supremacy. He believed that attacks on London would lure more British fighters into the sky over the capital, where they could be destroyed. But the shift was also due in part to Hitler's anger over the British response to a German raid on London August 24. Although the Luftwaffe had refrained from direct attacks on the British capital previously, this was enough to prompt Churchill to order a retaliatory strike against Berlin, and during the next few days RAF Bomber Command carried out five raids on the German capital. They inflicted little damage but killed a few civilians and infuriated the Fuhrer. Finally, the German leaders hoped that the bombing of London might weaken British civilian morale.
Critics have pointed to this change in tactics as the turning point in the Battle of Britain because it supposedly gave Fighter Command a new lease on life just as it had reached the verge of exhaustion. This is highly questionable. To be sure, the diversion ended the damage that the Germans had inflicted on Fighter Command airfields, but it did not lessen the number of RAF fighter engagements with the Luftwaffe. The raids on London certainly did not destroy the RAF, but it is unlikely that continued attacks on Fighter Command bases would have had this effect either. Goering pressed his assault on London for a week, climaxed by two especially heavy raids on September 15. But they did little serious damage and resulted in heavy German losses.
While the Luftwaffe and RAF battled for control of the air, Admiral Raeder and his staff did a remarkable job of assembling the ships and barges necessary to transport the invasion forces across the channel. But they could do nothing to ease the alarming shortage of escort vessels. Meanwhile, the British increased the strength of their army, and by the first week in September, 16 divisions guarded the landing areas. They were not at full strength in weapons, but they did have 800 tanks. RAF bombers also carried out raids during mid-September against German invasion craft in the French and Belgian channel ports and caused considerable damage. The cabinet also approved the use of poison gas against German troops if they succeeded in landing on the coast and could not be repelled by other means.
The failure of the Luftwaffe's attacks against London on September 15 convinced the Germans that their efforts to destroy RAF Fighter Command had failed. They had not achieved the all-important prerequisite for an invasion. On September 17, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely. His decision really sounded the death knell for the project, because he soon shifted his attention away from Britain in favor of an invasion of the Soviet Union.
Luftwaffe attacks against Britain continued but without clear purpose. After September 15, the emphasis gradually shifted to night raids on the British capital. These attacks soon became known as the London "Blitz" and reflected the fact that RAF fighter attacks were hurting the Luftwaffe. Night raids made it more difficult for the RAF to shoot down German bombers and enabled the Luftwaffe to penetrate deeper into British airspace by sharply reducing the need for fighter escorts. But the shift also made it harder for German bombers to hit their targets and to destroy British fighters. At first, however, the Germans enjoyed considerable success with an offensive radar navigational device called Knickebein (crooked legs). It utilized intersecting radio beams from widely dispersed transmitters to guide bombers to their targets. British scientists were up to the challenge, however, and soon devised various means of disrupting the system. Night attacks increasingly took on the guise of terror bombing, designed to undermine Britain's will to fight.
BRITISH CIVILIAN MORALE
Contrary to a persistent myth, civilian morale during these raids was not always high. This was especially true during the early stages of the bombing of London, which focused on the docks and the city's East End. London's worst slums were also located here. For a time, strong resentment flourished among many "East Enders" over the fact that their neighborhood was being devastated, while the wealthier sections of the city remained virtually unscathed. Vehement protests also arose over the lack of bomb shelters. All of this gradually faded, and morale stiffened as other parts of London sustained major damage. One bomber, flying off course, even dropped a bomb into the courtyard of Buckingham Palace where King George VI and his family were in residence.
The lack of satisfactory bomb shelters was not limited to the East End. As a result, people began to crowd into London's subway (Underground) stations in search of refuge. Before long, whole families packed themselves into these "Tube" stations night after night. Although hot, humid, smelly, often mosquito infested, and always filled to capacity, they afforded protection and even a sense of comradeship to their nocturnal residents.
In November, Goering extended his raids to other cities and ports, starting with an attack that destroyed much of Coventry in the industrial Midlands. Over 400 bombers devastated the center of the city with incendiary and high-explosive bombs, killing more than 500 people and destroying a beautiful fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral. A new German radar device, X-Gerat, utilizing a more sophisticated beam that could operate on various frequencies to avoid jamming, contributed significantly to the destructiveness of the Coventry raid. For a time, the Luftwaffe again enjoyed more accurate bombing, but once again, the British devised an antidote. This time it came in the form of small radar sets installed in fighter planes. Assisted by ground control, they enabled the fighters to intercept enemy bombers with much greater success.
The assault on cities continued until late December, followed by a comparative lull during the winter. One of the worst of these raids struck London on December 29. Although only 136 bombers took part, their incendiaries set almost 1,500 fires, which destroyed a large area bordering St. Paul's Cathedral. Despite being hit by 28 incendiaries, the cathedral itself suffered only minor damage. The Luftwaffe resumed its offensive in earnest when better weather returned in March 1941 and carried out a series of heavy attacks for the next two months. This time, in addition to London, the Germans concentrated on port cities and the industrial centers of Birmingham and Manchester. But in May, the skies over Britain fell strangely silent as most of the Luftwaffe headed east to participate in the invasion of the USSR.
Both sides made wildly inflated estimates of enemy losses during the Battle of Britain, officially the period from July 10 through October 31. The British claimed a total of almost 2,700 enemy aircraft destroyed, while the Germans believed that they had accounted for slightly over 3,000 RAF planes. In reality, the Luftwaffe lost 1,882 fighters and bombers, the RAF 1,017 fighters, 118 bombers, and 130 Coastal Command aircraft for a total of 1,265.
Germany's air offensive had caused considerable damage and taken many lives, but it had not achieved its objectives of destroying RAF Fighter Command, preparing the way for invasion, or breaking the morale of the British people. This failure offered two lessons for those who were willing to learn. It demonstrated that a cross-channel invasion could not be improvised but had to be prepared well in advance with ample troops, equipment, landing craft, warships, and control of the air. Britain and the United States learned this lesson well - perhaps too well. The German failure also revealed that there were definite limits to the effectiveness of bombing cities, something that Britain and the United States were exceedingly slow to learn. Obviously, the Luftwaffe was not suited for such a mission, but the British and Americans later experienced disappointing results from strategic bombing of German cities, carried out by long-range bombers that they had designed especially for this purpose.
It is now clear that Germany's attempt to destroy RAF Fighter Command in the summer of 1940 was probably doomed from the start. The inadequacies of the Luftwaffe, the weakness of its planning, and the inconsistency of its approach combined to diminish greatly the possibility of success. And if these obstacles were not enough, Fighter Command was a formidable opponent. The gallant British pilots who flew the Spitfires and Hurricanes denied control of the air to the Luftwaffe, and without this vital prerequisite, a cross-channel invasion was out of the question. Churchill's memorable words immortalized their contribution: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."