In the summer of 1940, England was isolated on the edge of a hostile continent. Only an arm of the sea separated the English cities from the panzer divisions. Crossing "the world's largest anti-tank ditch" required air superiority that the Luftwaffe failed to obtain.
battleofbritaindata
- Who: The German Luftwaffe facing the British Royal Air Force, reinforced by foreign volunteers.
- How: German attempts to destroy the RAF led to fierce air battles, which the Luftwaffe ultimately failed to win.
- Where: In British airspace, mainly over the southern and eastern counties.
- When: Summer of 1940.
- Why: Hitler's Nazi Germany wanted to invade and subdue England, and needed air superiority to carry out their project.
- Result: A desperate fight brought the RAF to the brink of defeat, though they eventually managed to hold out long enough to prevent the invasion.
Background
Some historians present the two world wars as a single conflict, with a 20-year cessation of hostilities in between, and in retrospect it is easy to see how the roots of the second conflict lie in the first. In the 1920s, while an unarmed and humiliated Germany faced economic and social problems, the rest of the world was trying to absorb the cost of the recent Great War. Treaties were signed to limit shipbuilding and prevent a costly arms race, and the general feeling was that another war had to be avoided at all costs.
As a consequence, England and her allies were totally unprepared to fight a second world war. The Royal Navy was sizeable, but it was limited by treaties, and the army was small and poorly equipped.
The royal airforce
The Royal Air Force (RAF) of the 1930s was something of a social institution , a private club for well-to-do young gentlemen who flew archaic airplanes and excelled at parties. The equipment was dated, although totally usable. The design and acquisition of new aircraft had low priority. This may have cost England the war.
The Gloster Gladiator, the RAF's front-line fighter in 1937 , it was a magnificent airplane in some ways (it was easy to handle, highly maneuverable, and had no vices), but it was a biplane fighter armed with four machine guns. The first Messerschmitt BF 109s were in service two years later, and had they engaged the Gladiators over southern England, the result would have been a massacre. Fortunately, a late 1930s initiative to create a decent, low-plane monoplane fighter for the RAF paid dividends, and just in time. The Gladiator was designed in the early 1930s, before air forces were really appreciated. Once it was realized that aircraft would play an important role in any future war, new projects began to emerge.
The Hawker Hurricane was considered radical by many people; however, it was the armament carried by the Hurricane I, which entered service in December 1937, and with which 18 squadrons were equipped by September 1939. The more famous Supermarine Spitfire entered service in August 1938, although in number smaller than the Hurricane. The Spitfire was also originally armed with eight 7.6mm machine guns, but a small number received 20mm cannons instead of four.
The decision to arm the fighters with cannons or machine guns was influenced by their intended role. Machine guns were considered better for defeating other fighters and cannons were better for destroying bombers. Its heavier shells were more likely to do serious damage to a larger airplane, which could fly quite well with a series of small holes in the fuselage. Many fighters adopted a hybrid armament of cannons and machine guns.
The bomber threat
In Germany, which had built its air force from scratch in defiance of treaties that forbade it, there was no obsolete "legacy" equipment to rely on, so modern aircraft had to be acquired from scratch. Thus, the German fighters and fighter-bombers were somewhat ahead of the competition.
The air force had been in its infancy during the first world war, although it had achieved very promising results. In the 1930s it was thought that bombing could achieve decisive results. The experience of the Spanish civil war seemed to confirm this:the effects of air raids on towns and cities could be horrible. If a country did not want to collapse and surrender because of civilian casualties, the bomber had to be stopped. Ground guns could do something, but fighter interception was the great hope in the fight against the bomber.
English preparations
The RAF Fighter Command fought vigorously during the Battle of Britain. However, it might not have prevailed were it not for the advanced detection and coordination system that supported it.
During the 1920s, it was assumed in England that the next major threat would come from the traditional enemy, rather than from a defeated and demilitarized Germany. To defeat the horde of French bombers, an early warning system was established in the south of England made up of acoustic detectors.
The detectors themselves played no role in the Battle of Britain. However, the command and control system set up to send their data to the fighter bases was still in operation when war with Germany broke out in 1939. Their information did not come from the acoustic detectors, but from the "Chain Home" radar stations. », recently installed on the southern coast. These stations provided an early warning that allowed a response to be planned and adapted to the circumstances.
The declaration of war
Things were not looking good when war was declared. After several months of "fake war" or "Sitzkreig", German forces advanced on France and overcame its defenses. The British were forced to refuse French requests for more Hurricane squadrons, in effect admitting that they did not believe France could be saved.
The decision not to send fighters to reinforce the defeat was morally courageous, and played a role in the final salvation of all of Europe from Nazism. The strength of the RAF was already quite scarce. If a part of his forces had been sacrificed in a political gesture, England might have been lost too. Although the French, aided by English forces, fought vigorously, they were unprepared for the armored onslaught they faced, and France was quickly eliminated from the war. Although much of the English army was evacuated and managed to return home, he left behind most of his heavy equipment and needed time to reorganize and re-equip himself.
If Germany could launch an invasion of England (codenamed Operation Sealion) ) in the near future, the chances of avoiding it were slim. Various measures were taken. Urgent programs to expand the army, backed by a major fortification project and the formation of what became the National Guard , offered a chance to resist an invasion. The navy declared that it could prevent an invasion for some time, though not indefinitely. Their cruisers and battleships could wreck an invasion flotilla, but to do so they would have had to operate in restricted waters under very hostile skies. The fleet was prepared to do what it could, but if the Germans had control of the air, that meant
go down fighting to buy time for the ground forces.
Air supremacy was the key. With it, the German invasion would be unstoppable, so the Luftwaffe set out to gain control of the skies. Its commander, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring (1893-1946), believed that the small and unprepared Royal Air Force would quickly fall apart and that RAF fighter command could be out of action in four days. This statement turned out to be somewhat optimistic.
The battle of Britain begins
Goring's plan was to lure in RAF fighters and destroy them by attacking targets such as coastal convoys, airfields and radar stations, while reducing England's ability to replenish aircraft by bombing factories.
The fighting began on June 30, 1940. The raids intensified until, August 13, a major offensive was launched against RAF airfields In the south of england. Alder Tag, the Day of the Eagle It was a desperate time for fighter command. Aircraft that survived dogfights could return to a bomb-cratered runway or be destroyed on the ground while rearming. The fighter command pushed itself to the limit, though it didn't break. As ground crews re-armed and refueled unscathed planes, and did their best to return even the most heavily fired-up to semblance of operation, work parties filled runway craters while, a short distance away, soldiers they fired machine guns and anti-aircraft guns to defend the airports.
Information was pouring in from central command, sending tired pilots into new battles, taking off again and again to intercept new incursions. Group 11, covering Kent and Sussex, was the hardest hit, but they managed to keep fighting through 'Eagle Day' and the terrible weeks that followed.
The projected four days had passed long ago, and yet the RAF was still in the fight. Staggering at times, the fighter command fought back with everything they had, and each raid bled the Luftwaffe dry.
The English had a number of advantages over the attackers, although it may not have seemed so at the time. British aircraft engaged in combat close to home, benefiting from the traditional 'interior lines' advantage over an enemy who had to travel to the battlefield. Thus, fighters could switch from one target to another as long as they had fuel and ammunition, and as long as their pilots could stand it. Fighting at a distance from their airfields caused serious problems for the Luftwaffe. Pilots had to spend more time on unproductive trips to and from the combat zone, which wasted fuel, increased maintenance needs, tired the pilots, and also kept the planes out of combat much longer than their British counterparts. , who often fought on their own bases.
This of course meant that the German pilots had less combat time per day, while the RAF men were thrown from one action to another, with a corresponding psychological effect. The RAF was also reinforced during the battle by foreign volunteers and newly trained pilots. Among the foreigners were Polish, French, and Scandinavian pilots, as well as New Zealanders, South Africans, Canadians, and even American citizens who had come to fight alongside the British, even though their nation was not yet at war with Germany.
In any case, "the few" were less and less and the battle was far from being won. The decision to send new squadrons from the less heavily attacked northern sectors led to a massacre. These out-of-practice pilots were thrown into an intense battle against a much more experienced enemy. Those who survived learned quickly, and soon gave as much as they received.
Change targets
From the German perspective, the RAF's reluctance to roll over and die was inexplicable. Goring was very jealous of his Luftwaffe prestige, and had staked his reputation on defeating the RAF. So why didn't the RAF surrender? In reality, the fighter command could take no more. There were times when all the planes that could fly were in the air, and even then there were too few.
Perhaps unaware that the RAF was, in fact, being crushed, Góring ordered a change in strategy. A German bomber had missed its industrial target and hit a residential area of London, and RAF Bomber Command had retaliated with a raid on Berlin. Hitler was enraged, and deliberate attacks on London and other cities were ordered. Fighter command had to respond to bomber raids, although the RAF was no longer the primary target. Now that their airfields were no longer directly attacked, the tension eased a bit and hopes began to rise. The fighter command began to grow stronger and, over time, managed to prevail. It had come very close to extinction, but held on long enough to guarantee victory.
The victory
Unlike a land battle, it's hard to pinpoint a clear moment when one side had won and the other lost in the Battle of Britain. Things certainly looked bad for England on September 15; however, on the 17th Hitler decided that the invasion of England was not possible and he canceled Operation Sealion . It can be reasonably claimed that the Battle of Britain was not actually won by the English; it was rather that the Luftwaffe failed to win.
This represented, however, a strategic victory for the English - the Battle of Britain was fought to prevent an invasion by German forces - even if there was no clear moment when tactical victory was achieved. Although there is some doubt that the invasion was successful, it remains a fact that it was called off because the RAF held on despite all the Luftwaffe could do to them. Churchill referred to the RAF Fighter Command pilots as 'the few', rightly commenting that much was owed to these heroes. However, let us not forget the other architects of victory. Those who pushed for good modern fighters just in time, who repaired, refueled and rearmed fighters, and the little-known coordinators who collected radar data and turned it into effective intercepts. Victory in the Battle of Britain was a team effort. It was won by tenacity in the face of tremendous odds, and very likely changed the course of the war.
Aftermath
The battle to destroy the RAF cost the Luftwaffe 1,733 aircraft . The RAF lost 915. Some English pilots were shot down several times. There are documented cases of men crashing near their base, running to the nearest plane and taking off again. Against such a fighting spirit it is not difficult to understand how the German air force escaped victory.
The air raids did not end suddenly, but continued throughout the war. London and other cities were bombed many times, and there were quite a few raids on factories and ships, to which the fighter command responded. However, from September 17, 1940 onwards, the threat of an invasion receded.
In 1941 Hitler ended up losing his way by spurning bloodied and battered, though undefeated, England on her flank and invading the Soviet Union. Later that year, the US entered the war. On June 6, 1944, British, American and Canadian soldiers landed in France to begin the liberation of Europe . They landed from the south of England, from a territory that was kept free of enemies thanks to the courage and skill of a handful of fighter pilots.