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Luftwaffe Project |
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Battle of BritainOperation SeaLion - Goering, Hitler's best Luftwaffe commander gave the command for the 2000 waiting Junker 111 to take off and fly off to Britain. Messertschmitt 109 fighters followed close behind. The sky was dotted as thousands of planes flew to Britain. Target, London. For the past few weeks, Britain had been poked and prodded by German fighters and bombers that took out radar stations, airports, and shot hundreds of planes still lying on the ground. Now with the Britain's Royal Air Force severally battered, they headed for the capital. Britain's Aces Save England - With only a few tanks, a small standing army, and few planes ready for combat, Britain was the only country left fighting Hitler's massive armada. In the early days of Operation Sea Lion, when the first fleets moved into Britain, only a few planes soared up against them. Often against four times as many planes. But still, the British aces fought bravely killing three times as many planes as the Germans. How did these fighters defend Britain so effectively. Since W.W.I, Germany, US, and Britain had discovered effective radar, but no one was as advanced as the British. When the fleets came in spread out wide, the radar told the British fighters exactly where the attack would come and how many planes they faced. Without the radar, the Royal Air Force would have fallen in days. Another advantage for Britain was a superior plane design called the Submarine Spitfire. It could easily out maneuver the early BF-109's and the Focke Wolf's. Yet the best defense was the small patch of sea that separated Britain from the mainland. The German fighters once they got to Britain could only stay for 20 minutes or else run out of fuel, which gave the British Aces the strategy of chasing the planes so for inland that they would never make it back into Germany. The Bombing of London - "Eagle Day," Hitler's fatal mistake in the war came on August 13, when he decided to attack London. He commanded the hesitant Goering to do so. Later that day after furious fighting on both sides, London was in flames. The citizens cowered in Subways and cellars, yet hundreds where killed or injured everyday. One out of every four homes was destroyed. To keep up the hopes of the citizens, the Royal Air Force announce that it had destroyed 183 German planes when only taking down 38. The German Luftwaffe also lied about it's kills, saying they killed 134 planes instead of 18. Then suddenly the Royal Air Force attacked Berlin. Britain had attacked the capital of Hitler's invincible Empire. Hitler went mad. He commanded Goering to stop all Luftwaffe attacks on runways and radar stations and concentrate on London. He wanted them to pay dearly for this insult. For the next months London was mercilessly pounded with bombs. This time 43000 were killed and 50000 injured, but instead of disheartening the citizens, it mad them even angrier. Many more enlisted in the army and worked even harder in the factories to get revenge. Britain Defeats the Luftwaffe - While Hitler concentrated on London, the Royal Air Force pumped out planes at an astounding rate. They rebuilt runways and factories. If Hitler had not concentrated on London and finished destroying the Royal Air Force, he would have won Britain, and possibly the war. Because for the next few months, Britain fought back suicidally. They attacked Hitler's barges that would have started the land invasion of Britain. They killed 1700 German planes while loosing only 915 of their own. And with that, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely, and kept the bombing of Britain to a minimum. |
Home Page | Invasion of Poland | Battle of Britain | Flight Into Russia | Americans Entered the War | The Planes of the War | References/Bibliography
Date last modified: 5/19/98
by Robert Helgason