The Battle of Britain took place when the Luftwaffe attempted to win air superiority over southern England from the Royal Air Force as an essential prerequisite for the invasion of this country by German naval and land forces. For the British, it ran from 10 July - 31 October 1940. For the Germans it began on 13 August, Adlertag or "Eagle Day". The key to success for the Luftwaffe was the destruction of the RAF's fighter force. Conversely, for Fighter Command it was to hamper bombing and inflict losses, preferably before the target was reached.
Hitler knew that the German Navy was too small to control the English Channel but he believed that with the Luftwaffe he could successfully defeat Britain. He believed that the Luftwaffe could easily destroy the RAF’s Headquarters and Britain’s aircraft industry since Germany had a much larger air force in the form of planes and personnel. The Battle of Britain began on 30th June 1940 when the German Air force which was called the ‘Luftwaffe’ attempted to gain power of the skies over Britain. But the German’s were not successful and instead of the battle not lasting very long as Hitler had predicted the Battle of Britain was a group of aerial battles which lasted it through the summer of 1940. In August 1940 Winston Churchill made his speech about ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few’.
The Battle of Britain History Paper The Battle of Britain was a battle between the German air force, the Luftwaffe, and the British air force, the Royal Air Force (RAF). This battle took place over the skies of the United Kingdom in the summer and autumn of 1940. In order for Hitler to execute “Operation Sealion”, a planned invasion, successfully, he had to get rid of the British air force fearing that they will stop the operation if he tried to execute it. The first attack occurred in the August of 1940. Hitler decided to bomb the British airfields and then eventually cities.
• Was a way of loweing morale and hindering German progression in the war, targeting their resources and factories. • There was some great success: 1943 Hamburg and Rhur had a serious impact on German war productin and took vital planes away from the Russian Front. • Was a major factor in German defeat. - Was Churchill justified in using the strategic bom 2 of 20 1 of 20 • Churchill felt uneasy about the bombing campiagn • The ruthless policy of total war had moral implications- Churchill could be seen as a war criminal. • Half a million Germans lost their lives in the bombing, way more civillian lives than were lost in Britain during the Blitz.
Though the odds and numbers were against the British, it was the unorganized planning and overconfidence that led to the British army to ultimately win the battle against Germany. The invasion of France ended in June 1940; it was not until over a month later that Hitler made the decision to invade Britain, because he was unsuccessful in trying to get the British to surrender. The Battle of Britain was not an immediate, necessary battle to Hitler, but because he wanted and would benefit from air superiority, he put forth the effort to fight it anyway. The small number of British forces fueled overconfidence for Germany and
Advanced Higher History Dissertation How important was the RAF victory in the Battle of Britain in preventing a German invasion in 1940? “Since England, despite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out. The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely.” The Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Directive 16 16 Jul 1940 Contents Introduction 3 The Battle of Britain 4 The RAF Victory 8 The Invasion of Britain? 13 Other Factors 14 Conclusion 17 Bibliography 18 Introduction Britain’s victory in ‘The Battle of Britain’ is arguably the most decisive incident of the Second World War. Our victory could be claimed to have prevented an invasion of Britain in the summer or autumn of 1940 and the subsequent defeat of the Western allies, also it was the first time Hitler’s mighty Luftwaffe had been defeated.
Strategic Bombing WW2 During WW2, the Allied and Axis powers each used strategic bombing to try and defeat their enemy economically. Both bombed factories where military weapons where being made to slow down their enemy. Also being bombed where military forces, railways, harbors, cities, civillians, and industrial areas. They did this to try and break down their enemys will to fight, to try and lower their morale and help shorten the war. My opinion on this argument is that there should be no civillians killed by bombs unless it was accidental.
* Germany first bombed London, and as a result the RAF answered with the first of many night raids on Berlin in August 24th. * People started realizing bombing wasn’t the effective, because many pilots couldn’t find the target due to bad weather or navigation errors; also the accuracy of those that did reach the target was poor. * In November the first raids were to do maximum damage to German towns. * By 1941 the fast Mosquito light bomber and the Lancaster heavy bomber began to enter the service * In 1943 the first RAF shuttle bombing raid took place. * The success of the RAF pushed the war to Germany.
As people fled from their homes they were machine-gunned by fighter planes. The three hour raid completely destroyed the town. It is estimated that 1,685 people were killed and 900 injured in the attack and the British leaders did not want that to happen to Britain especially when it would be a much lager scale. -29th September, 1938, Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier and Benito Mussolini signed the Munich Agreement which transferred the Sudetenland to Germany. When Czechoslovakia's head of state protested at this decision Neville Chamberlain told him that Britain would be not go to war over the Sudetenland.
After Britain declared war on Germany, France joined in with Britain as they felt threatened that Germany was going to take over them. At the beginning of the war the Axis(Germany, Italy, and Japan and other minor powers) were winning over the Allies(US, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Canada and other minor countries), this soon changed at the battle of “ El Alamein” and the attack on “Pearl Harbour”, where arguably the allies started to win the war. In the battle of “El Alamein” the British and its allies started to win, where the German advance through North Africa was stopped by the British army. At El Alamein the German North African army was trapped between the British forces and an American army. 275,000 German soldiers surrendered and the German campaign in North Africa was ended, although General Rommel managed to escape back to Germany.