Operation Sea Lion Essay

The German air force, the Luftwaffe, was met with great resistance, and by late 1940 Hitler

In World War, two great superpowers in Europe, Germany and Britain clashed through aerial warfare. Hitler planned to lead the invasion of Britain with the Luftwaffe through intensive attacks against the Royal Air Force in England. Britain was the only nation left standing against the Germans after France was forced to sign an armistice on June 22, 1940; Hitler knew that air power was the only way to reach the isolated island nation. The Battle of Britain lasted from mid-June, when Hitler launched Operation Sea Lion, codenamed as such for the invasion of England, to mid-September of 1940, when Operation Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely. The Second World War went from September 1st, 1939 to September 2nd, 1945. The German Luftwaffe had a substantial impact on the military, economic and social systems of Britain throughout the Second World War.

The Battle of Britain started on July 10, 1940. The Luftwaffe (commanded by Hermann Göring) sent off 1350 bombers and 1200 fighter jets to Britain. Most of their pilots were unprepared and not trained sufficiently for battle. Their plan, Operation Sea Lion, was to defeat the British RAF in multiple

The Battle of Britain was an extremely important piece of history that was almost completely exclusive to air battles between the Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe. Luckily for Great Britain, its air defense system was one of the most effective of its time. Luckily for Germany, the Luftwaffe contained numbers that were far superior to Great Britain's, in terms of men and also the amount of planes used in battle and in bombings. The Battle of Britain was also the first big battle to use radar on Great Britain’s coast to its full potential. One of the biggest attacks planned by Hitler was the attack on London, which ended up turning the battle in Great Britain’s favor. And so the Battle of Britain was known as exclusive to air battles,

This panic combined with the bombing of a single rocket research station was enough to make the Luftwaffe chief of staff, Hans Jeschonnek, commit suicide. The devastating effect of these events was amplified by the fear of an invasion of Germany, due to the Allied forces landing in Normandy and the Russians approaching from the East.

When German troops entered the demilitarized Rhineland in March 1936, Britain refused to support French action against them. British appeasement lasted far into 1939. Many British conservatives saw Hitler as a bulwark against communism. In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. Hitler supported him and formed an alliance. From 1936, the Fascists and Nazis supported Francisco Franco’s fascist movement against the Spanish republic. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria and the Sudetenland, with British approval. In 1939, he took all of Czechoslovakia and then demanded territory from Poland. Britain and France promised to fight should he invade Poland. After concluding an alliance with the Soviet Union to divide Poland, Hitler invaded on September 1, 1939. Britain and France soon declared war. After overrunning Poland with new blitzkrieg “lightning warfare” that used tanks and aircraft to break enemy lines, the German army conquered Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France in the spring and summer of 1940. British victory in the epic air battle known as the “Battle of Britain” prevented German invasion of the home islands. In April 1941, Hitler conquered Greece and Yugoslavia and subjugated the entire Balkans. In June, the German Army attacked the U.S.S.R., in accordance with Hitler’s own dream of “living space” in the East. Japanese–U.S. relations steadily worsened a trend that culminated in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,

Airpower’s contribution to the Allied victory did not represent the ultimate fulfillment of the prophecies and predictions that were raised in the interwar period. Airpower theorists, on both sides of the Atlantic, advocated predictions and prophecies for the future of warfare. They strongly supported ideas and expectations that airpower and especially strategic bombardment was the best answer in the quest for decisive victory. Airpower was the end and the means to destroy the enemy’s will to fight. However, the Trenchardian notion that decisive victory would come through the cumulative moral effect of aerial bombing proved false because German citizens showed a remarkable resilience to surrender. Moreover, the Allies’ rhetoric that bombers “would always get through” was far from the reality and resulted in a tremendous number of aircraft losses and fatalities. Finally, the prediction that the airpower can win alone was an overestimated expectation albeit, airpower played a significant role, the decisive victory came as result of a larger joint effort by all the services.

The Germans were losing aircraft and pilots fast; Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion. Germany had lost. The fighter pilots of the battle of Britain had saved Britain from invasion, but many of its major cities were severely bombed. German U boats and surface vessels also began a new campaign.

I am working on a study of the Battle of Britain in order to comprehend how Britain was able to defeat Germany, and the impacts of their decisive victory. One of the reason why the Battle of Britain is important is because it was the first battle between only air power. This conflict was to be decided between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force. Because of that fact, I find this topic to be extremely interesting. The Battle of Britain was a turning point in World War II, which I will attempt to prove in this paper, and it was fought between two of the most powerful air forces

The battle of Britain was fought between July and October in the skies of southern England 1940. The German airforce attacked British targets from bases in France and northern

On June 18, 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was speaking to the British House of Commons when he said “The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin.” Just the day before, the French signed a peace treaty and were no longer involved with World War II. The Battle of Britain was the air battle between Germany and Britain for control over Great Britain’s air space. This happened during July 1940 to May 1941, with the heaviest fighting from July to October 1940. Winston Churchill was trying to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. The Germans were trying to control the English Channel to invade Britain as part of “Operation Sea Lion”. Once they had control of this Channel, the British Navy could not attack The German barges. The British Navy was headed for Kent and Sussex beaches. Churchill knew he would succeed only if Britain was superior when fighting in the air. It was the British Royal Air Force (RAF) Fighters vs. the German Luftwaffe and for the first time ever, the battle was in the air.

"World War 2 was a war fought in two distinct phases. The first was the last war of a new generation. The second was emphatically the first of a new era" . <br><br>"The British strategic bomber campaign was of doubtful cost effectiveness" . Bomber Command was by far the largest claimant on labour and factory space within the armed forces. Relative to their size they suffered more casualties than any other sector. <br><br>The Anglo-American bomber force was divided in terms of strategy. Bomber Command believed it was too risky to bomb by day, while the Americans believed it was too difficult to bomb by night. Initially both forces lacked accurate navigational equipment, which deterred them from precision bombing. <br><br>Germany developed a

On the night of September 7, 1940 Germany attacked Great Britain. “About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over” (Pyle). They targeted the “gigantic dome of St. Paul's Cathedral”, along with many other populated places. “Flames seemed to whip hundreds of feet into the air” (Pyle). The smoke was so bad they you could barely see the St. Paul's Cathedral (“The Bombing of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, September 7,1940”)“On September 4, the Luftwaffe switched tactics again and, on Hitler's orders, set about destroying London and other major cities” (“BBC History-The Battle Of

First, the Blitz was a tactical mistake and loss of Nazi Germany. It was an operation of strategic bombing on the United Kingdom during the WWII. According to the book Glencoe World History, “At the beginning of the August of 1940, the Luftwaffe, which was the air force of Germany, launched a major offensive, bombed on the British air and naval bases, harbors, communication centers, and war industries.” However, this bombing operation motivated the British people thus they were going to fight back. Although they suffered a large casualty on their air force, the British people soon developed their radar

immense bombardment of London and the invasion ports by the secret weapons that Hitler was