Battle Of Great Britain Research Paper

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The Battle Of Great Britain By: Karla Lopez, Anna Bendeck and Camila Herrera Period: 1 The Battle of Britain is the World War ll air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom, which took place between July and September of 1940. The purpose of this battle was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), which is the aerial service branch of the British Armed Forces. The Luftwaffe's goal during the Battle of Britain was to open the way for the invasion of the British Isles. To do this, they needed to eliminate the British air force so the German bombers could cripple British naval bases and German transports could deliver German army units unharmed.After the success of Blitzkrieg, the evacuation of…show more content…
The British airspace was divided up into four Groups; the 10 group defended Wales and the West Country and it was commanded by Air Vice-Marshal Sir Quintin Brand, the 11 group covered the southeast of England and the critical approaches to London and was commanded by New Zealander Air Vice-Marshal from the No.11 Group Fighter Command Operations Room in the underground bunker at RAF Uxbridge which is now known as the Battle of Britain Bunker , the 12 group defended the Midlands and Eat Anglia and was led by Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory and the 13 group covered the North of England , Scotland and Northern Ireland and was commanded by Air Vice-Marshal Richard Saul. The control systems of Britain consisted of the Chain Home Radio Direction Finding (RDF). Usually the first indications of incoming air raids were received by the RDF facilities, which were location around the coastlines of Great Britain. The RDF was able to pick up formations of Luftwaffe aircraft. The Observer Corps also plotted the formations and once the raiding aircraft moved inland over England, the information from RDF and the Observer Corps were sent through to the main operations room of Fighter Command Headquarters at Bentley Priory. The plots were given to determine whether they were "hostile" or "friendly". If hostile, the information was sent to the…show more content…
On 12 August, the first attempt was made to blind the Dowding system, when aircraft from the specialist fighter-bomber unit Erprobungsgruppe 210 attacked four radar .Three were briefly taken off the air but were back working within six hours. The raids appeared to show that British radars were difficult to knock out. The failure to mount follow-up attacks allowed the RAF to get the stations back on the air, and the Luftwaffe neglected strikes on the supporting infrastructure, such as phone lines and power stations, which could have rendered the radars useless, even if the towers themselves remained intact. Göring ordered attacks on aircraft factories on 19 August 1940.On 23 August 1940 he ordered for the RAF airfields to be attacked. That evening an attack was mounted on a tyre factory in Birmingham. Raids on airfields continued through 24 August, and Portsmouth was hit by a major attack. That night, several areas of London were bombed; the East End was set ablaze and bombs landed on central London. The RAF bombed Berlin on the night of 25–26 August, and continued bombing raids on Berlin. Göring's pride was hurt since he had previously claimed the British would never be able to bomb the city. The attacks enraged Hitler, who ordered retaliatory attacks on London. From 24 August onwards, the battle was a fight between Kesselring's Luftflotte 2 and Park's 11 Group. The Luftwaffe

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