Battle of Britain
In the summer and fall of 1940, German and British air forces clashed in
the skies over the United Kingdom, locked in the largest sustained
bombing campaign to that date. A significant turning point of World War
II, the Battle of Britain ended when Germany’s Luftwaffe failed to gain
air superiority over the Royal Air Force despite months of targeting
Britain’s air bases, military posts and, ultimately, its civilian
population. Britain’s decisive victory saved the country from a ground
invasion and possible occupation by German forces while proving that air
power alone could be used to win a major battle.
On June 17, 1940, the defeated French signed an armistice and quit World War II.
Britain now stood alone against the power of Germany’s military forces,
which had conquered most of Western Europe in less than two months. But
Prime Minister Winston Churchill rallied his stubborn people and
outmaneuvered those politicians who wanted to negotiate with Adolf Hitler.
But Britain’s success in continuing the war would very much depend on
the RAF Fighter Command’s ability to thwart the Luftwaffe’s efforts to
gain air superiority. This then would be the first all-air battle in
history.
Battle of Britain |
The battle received its name from a speech Winston Churchill delivered
to the British House of Commons on June 18, 1940, in which he stated
"The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about
to begin."
Even more serious, the Germans had poor intelligence and little idea of British vulnerabilities. They wasted most of July in waiting for a British surrender and attacked only in August. Although air strikes did substantial damage to radar sites, on August 13–15 the Luftwaffe soon abandoned that avenue and turned to attacks on RAF air bases. A battle of attrition ensued in which both sides suffered heavy losses (an average loss of 21 percent of the RAF’s fighter pilots and 16 percent of the Luftwaffe’s fighter pilots each month during July, August, and September).
For a time the advantage seemed to swing slightly in favor of the Germans, but a combination of bad intelligence and British attacks on Berlin led the Luftwaffe to change its operational approach to massive attacks on London. The first attack on London on September 7 was quite successful; the second, on September 15, failed not only with heavy losses, but also with a collapse of morale among German bomber crews when British fighters appeared in large numbers and shot down many of the Germans. As a result, Hitler permanently postponed a landing on the British Isles and suspended the Battle of Britain.
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