Notes
- Hitlers plan to invade Great Britain
- Needed control of the air before this would be possible
- Luftwaffe begins bombing aircraft factories, hangars, runways, radar, convoys
- British come within days of not being able to sustain a defence
- Hitler had promised this would never happen in Germany
- He changes strategy and bombs London fro 76 night Straight (The Blitz)
- Allows there RAF to recover
- RAF outnumbered 3:1 by Luftwaffe
- Spitfires and Hurricanes vs. Messerschmitt 162
- 24 August Accidental Bombing of London
- RAF bombs Berlin
- British in Control Enigma
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Summary
Hitler's plan to invade Great Britain was referred to as Operation Sea Lion. This was the origins of what would become the major air battle of the Second World War.
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Political Cartoon
Quotes
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their Finest Hour.' - Winston Churchill
Subjunctive Question
What if the British were able to build a defense? Would they have kept them off?