Battle of Britain

"Battle of Britain" is the term used for the successful defence of Great Britain in 1940. It was mainly achieved by the fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force (RAF) whose aircraft, principally the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire, were in almost daily combat against air attacks by the Luftwaffe from 10 July to 31 October 1940.

Hitler needed the Luftwaffe to establish air superiority over the RAF so he could launch Operation Sea Lion, his plan to invade Britain by crossing the English Channel. On 16 July, he issued his Führer Directive #16, instructing all divisions of the Wehrmacht to make preparations for Sea Lion. As Hitler said, "the British Air Force must be eliminated to such an extent that it will be incapable of putting up any sustained opposition to the invading troops". This was asking too much of the Luftwaffe whose pilots and aircraft could not match, let alone overcome, those of the RAF. For the first time in World War II, the Wehrmacht was defeated. Operation Sea Lion was cancelled.

Background

Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of 338,226 Allied servicemen from Dunkirk, ended on Tuesday, 4 June 1940. Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Fight on the Beaches" speech to the House of Commons that afternoon. Germany initiated Hitler's Fall Rot the following day and Italy entered the war as Germany's ally on the 10th. The Wehrmacht occupied Paris on the 14th and completed their conquest of France on 25 June.

It was now inevitable that Hitler would attack and probably try to invade Great Britain. Faced with this, Churchill addressed the Commons on 18 June and delivered his "Finest Hour" speech, ending with this peroration:

What General Weygand called the "Battle of France" is over. I expect that the "Battle of Britain" is about to begin. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still say: "This was their finest hour".

First German attacks

On 30 June, Goering as Head of the Luftwaffe ordered his pilots to engage the RAF and their campaign began on 10 July with an attack on a shipping convoy in the Channel. Realising the importance of radar, the Germans used their Stuka dive-bombers to try and knock out the radar stations and towers along the south coast of England. The Stukas, however, were ineffectual against the RAF fighters and were withdrawn after serious losses.