Battle of Britain in the Second World War

“We shall never surrender” Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as the Prime Minister of Great Britain on 10th May, 1940. He knew very well that it was a move that brought danger in his life and his political career. It was the turning point during the Second World War as he was a capable foil to the thinking of Adolf Hitler and the strategies of the Third Reich. They were outsmarted by him. It is another matter that the backbone of the East India Company and the British Rule was broken as a result of the Second World War, resulting eventually in the Independence of the Indian Empire in August 1947. In 1940, Germany had already invaded and taken over Poland, followed by Norway and Denmark. It was marching on to take over Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and France. Britain remained as a big thorn in the flesh and obstacle in Hitler’s plan for dominating Europe. He began believing that no one would be able to stand in the way of his plans. Hermann Goering had promised Hitler that Germany’s Luftwaffe (Air Force) would bring down England to their knees with the help of relentless air pressure and bombing and setting the buildings of principal cities on fire. Goering was hell bent on teaching the Brits a lesson that they were foolish to think that they could be a thorn in the flesh of Germany’s ambitions and the might of the Third Reich. Goering promised that the English citizens would be horrified and they would ultimately force their government to submit to the German terms in exchange for peace and end to the aerial bombing. This was how the Germans expected the scenario to unfold in 1940. Churchill and the British were not at all interested in peace in the style of Neville Chamberlain and on Germany’s terms. They were, however, very well aware that France was succumbing to Germany and the United States of America was trying to act neutral like Switzerland for the Americans thought that it was purely a European conflict. So, the British stood alone, being led by the wiles of Winston Churchill and the nation took courage from his words, “We shall never surrender.” The Germans made fun of that slogan and tested England’s boast as their Luftwaffe planes crossed the English Channel and pounded the British Territory with their bombs. The people were forced to take refuge in the air raid shelters and this became a way of life for the poor civilians for a long time. It has been documented that on one night in July 1940; the London Underground gave protection for more than one hundred and seventy thousand people. The impact on human and material life was quite a punishing one from this month onwards for the next ten months; which was the duration of the Battle of Britain. During this time, more than forty thousand people were killed. The streets of London were ravaged and turned to rubble. The damage was devastating. While the Germans were dominating the air scene, they could not make inroads for a situation that warranted surrender of Britain. Not many people are aware that during these ten months; the Royal Air Force got alerted by radar when the German planes were approaching London and many gallant air force pilots flew up to meet their foes and gave capable replies and Goering was stunned by their resistance and resilience. The Royal Air Force inspired Winston Churchill to pass his famous comment, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” The German Luftwaffe was puzzled by the skills of the Royal Air Force and all those who have not seen the movie, `Battle of Britain’; they need to look that up. It was released in 1969 and had Christopher Plummer, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine and Robert Shaw in it, directed by Guy Hamilton. The Germans were finally driven away from the British skies at the end of the tenth month in May 1941 and the first military engagement that was fought between enemy air forces would end up as the first disappointment and in a way; defeat that the Germans would suffer. The Battle of Britain remains more than a military encounter. It was, as per Churchill, a test of the human will. He repeated that brave spirit at the Battle of Dunkirk again. It was not just Churchill. King George VI refused to move to Canada with his family for safety as per suggestion of the State. He had replied, “I will not leave the country in any circumstances, whatever.” It was this kind of an iron will or spirit that exemplified the resolve of the British response to German aggression. If not for such will and the patience of the British civilians, the administration would have been forced to accept Hitler’s terms and seek peace at any price. The citizens of Great Britain accepted the reality that freedom has to be earned with a price tag. Churchill never sugar-coated the harsh truths nor the threats that they faced and he was quiet successful in saving Britain from a certain Dark Age if Hitler had succeeded. Once again his words have to be quoted, “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that; if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasted for a thousand years from now; men will say that this was their finest hour.” Sitzkrieg – The Sitting War The German invasion of Poland began on 1st September 1939. Prime Minister Chamberlain declared war on 3rd September of that year. This declaration was followed by air raid sirens indicating that an air attack was imminent but the warning was a mistake. Though it was unreal, the British civilians prepared for battle, sending their children to the countryside villages, away from the cities to keep them safe from the Luftwaffe bombings. The Polish, meanwhile, were anticipating that they would be rescued from the German invaders. As the Germans drove further from the West, they realised that the Allied declaration of war was just a fart. About three million Polish were sent to Germany to work as slaves because the Germans considered Slavs to be racially inferior to them and intended ethnic cleansing. Poland would offer Lebensraum to the German, meaning living space so that they could expand their borders. Occupied Poland became site of deadly concentration and extermination camps that were managed by the Nazis; example – Auschwitz, Treblinka, Birkenau and Sobibor. These camps became centres of death as Nazis drove their annihilation efforts of Jews and other inferior races. Poland was not an attraction for Allied defence moves despite the promise made by the British to defend that nation. France was Germany’s next target. The Germans had never forgiven the French for the humiliation through the terms that Germany had to go through at the end of the First World War. These two countries have been adversaries for quite some time now. They viewed one another as natural enemies and Germany was keen to go to war with the French. The British expeditionary force began arriving in France in the second week of September 1939. There was no plan to aid the Poles. On 12th September 1939, the French and the British Supreme War Council met and decided that the Allies would put an end to their offensive operations and convert the war into a defensive one. The British sent four divisions made up of one hundred and fifty-eight thousand infantry members and twenty-five thousand vehicles. It was a small force to defend against the Germans but the French were confident that they would defend the Maginot Line along the border between France and Germany. The physical map of Europe was changing at a rapid pace as the Soviet Union was busy occupying Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Finland. The Allies opened a front in the Balkans and shut off oil to the Soviet Union. The British were also successful in thwarting the Germans from obtaining iron ore from Norway as shown in the film, `Heroes of Telemark’. German U-boats sank more than a hundred merchant vessels that were en route to Britain during the months of October 1939 to January 1940. German U-boats were destroying the pride of Britain which believed that it owned the seas. HMS Royal Oak was sunk by the Nazis in October 1940. The Germans were even attacking passenger liners and sunk Athenia with a loss of life toll of one hundred and twelve. In June of 1940, the Norwegian military surrendered to the Germans. Germany imported ten million tons of iron ore from Sweden. They were looking for a port that did not freeze during the winter months. They found that port in Narvik, in Northern Norway. Control of the coastline of Norway gave the Germans easy passage through the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. On 1st March, 1940, Hitler called for the invasion of Denmark. An attack by British bombers against the German warships was unsuccessful but it did make the Germans vulnerable. The Danish and the Norwegians found it difficult to ward off the Germans. The attack by the Germans was effective and Norway surrendered easily. Denmark also gave way quickly as King Christian X called for an end to resistance against the Germans. The Germans had no intention of stopping now. They were quite content with taking up France and Netherlands. They launched a blitzkrieg and their plan worked as the Dutch surrendered in six days. The Scandinavian countries were not the actual aim of Hitler. Yet, occupying Denmark gave Germany extra naval bases and they protected their iron ore shipments from Sweden. Belgium was next. The Germans sent their paratroopers and divisions along with air gliders to take over Belgium. The Belgians did not give up without a fight but after twenty days, their military surrendered. These countries that were earlier free now had to fly the Swastika and they were occupied by Germans who were all over, particularly in France. The Germans, with their superiority in the air, had an advantage in the sky battles as the allied planes were not found offering support to the infantry. They had the extra job of offering defence and aerial reconnaissance. They also lacked the ground to air communication finesse which the Germans had and their synchronised attacks were consequently; effective and efficient. The Germans knew well that they had to demoralise the people of the countries that they were attacking and occupying. Hitler and his Generals were so far successful in catching the Allied countries off guard and devastate their attempts in defence. The Allies believed that the region of Ardennes would be difficult for the Germans to move their troops into France but they were duped as Germany’s Group B rolled into action and their Group A Panzers cut off the British Army along with the French. The Germans raced to the coast after the Maginot Line with seven armoured divisions. They took risks, but those risks paid off. The British Expeditionary Force was almost surrounded by the Germans and the latter knew how to capitalise on massive tank formations. Earlier, the Poles also did not know how to counter such attacks. It was becoming evident that even the Allies did not know, either. Within three days, the German armoured units made their way through the tough terrain of the Ardennes and crossed the River Meuse, forcing the Allies to retreat. The Army Group A of the Germans reached River Somme on the English Channel by the third week of May in 1940, trapping the main forces of England and France. The British began to fall back in order to survive and headed to Dunkirk. Their annihilation was looking certain. Hitler made a calculation error then and decided that the German tanks needed rest to destroy the French Army. Hermann Goering as the Luftwaffe Commander was sure that his air force would be able to destroy the British Army that had gathered at Dunkirk. This decision to rest proved costly to the Germans as the British prepared for the evacuation and it went a long way in preserving the British military. By the time the Luftwaffe attacked from the skies, the British evacuation was helped by a masterstroke of Churchill where he managed to arrange eight hundred little boats belonging to private fishermen and marines who decided to respond to the call of the nation to help more than three hundred thousand trapped soldiers. These lines of soldiers had to rush to the dunes to avoid being hit as the German planes flew overhead. Churchill applauded his nation’s feat as Germany realised that Britain was the only nation in Europe that refused to buckle down to its knees. Battle for the Skies Winston Churchill said this after the Dunkirk episode, “I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. 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; but if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States of America and all other countries that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.” On 15th May, 1940, The French Prime Minister called up Churchill to tell him that the French had been beaten. The German blitzkrieg had charged through the country of Belgium and Netherlands and crossed the Meuse River, attacking the French Army at Sedan on the northern part of the Maginot Line which was a two hundred and eighty mile stretch of long fortifications that were designed to protect the French from the Germans. The Maginot Line, in reality, proved no match for the German planes and tanks. On 14th June, the Germans marched into Paris and the city was immediately divided into two zones; one was under the control of the Germans and the other zone was under the control of the World War I hero, Marshal Philippe Petain, who was now the leader of the Vichy Government. Germany started ruling France. Churchill did not lose heart after the turn of these events. He was not discouraged nor did he cow down. Even though the Germans took Poland, Scandinavia and France with ease, they faced a tough nut to crack in Churchill. He wrote at this time, “I am now walking with destiny and that all my past life; it had been but a preparation for this dark hour and this trial.” Hitler was confident that Churchill and the English would get scared of the German victories in Europe and expected them to be crushed, eventually. However, the British never negotiated nor were ready for any settlement. Soon after, Hitler’s directive for Operation Sea Lion was issued. The invasion of Southern England was scheduled for autumn and the Luftwaffe was preparing to destroy the Royal Air Force of Britain. Once air superiority was achieved, the Germans would pressurise the British to accept peace on their terms. Operation Sea Lion would unfold as per the German plans by the middle of August in that year unless Great Britain decided to come to the negotiating table. Going by numbers, The Luftwaffe did have the advantage over the Royal Air Force as they had more than three thousand fighter planes, bombers and dive bombers in comparison with the latter’s less than two thousand aircraft. The British were looking for help and suggestions to prepare their air defence. As the soldiers were saved from the shores at Dunkirk, this time the government sent out another plea for help for provisioning aluminium. The Ministry of Aircraft Productions devised a campaign that said, “We will turn your pots and pans into Spitfires and Hurricanes.” To the credit of the British, they had a darn good radar system which was effective and it was capable of detecting incoming German aircraft as they would fly over the English Channel. Radar (Radio Detection and Ranging) was developed in the nineteen thirties and the British had not wasted their time in making capable and sufficient radar stations along their coastline. This system could easily identify the location of the Luftwaffe aircraft and respond promptly by sending fighters to intercept the Germans, taking out the element of surprise on the part of the Germans from the equation when they came raiding. The Royal Air Force had the benefit of maintaining the effectiveness of their aircraft. The Spitfire, with its ability of taking sharp turns, could elude its pursuers effectively. The Hurricanes would be able to carry forty-millimetre cannon guns. In comparison, the single-engine fighters of the Germans and their limited radius coupled with the insufficient bomb-load capacity would give them a slight handicap. The Germans began to attack the ships along the English coastline in the early part of July that year. This technically began the air chapter of the Battle of Britain. The date that is remembered is 10th July, 1940. British radar system started picking up the signals and reported that German reconnaissance planes were looking out for convoys to attack. More than a hundred German planes attacked a British shipping convoy in the English Channel. Dockyard installations in Southern Wales were struck by about seventy German bombers. The idea was to attack the ships so that Britain would not be able to get the supplies and material it required and to trigger and tempt the Royal Air Force fighters to come up in the skies for dog fights and air battle engagement with the Luftwaffe fighter escorts. On the first day, three British Hurricanes and four Luftwaffe planes were lost and one ship sank by the coast. It has been recorded that on that first day; the Royal Air Force flew over six hundred sorties to intercept the Luftwaffe when they came raiding. For the next round of sorties, the planes needed to be re-armed and refuelled when they returned from the skies to their base fields. Another weapon that helped the British was the Dowding System which was kept as top secret. It was linked with fighter control. As per reports, about a month of engagement; on 18th August, the Luftwaffe flew 850 sorties and the RAF responded with 927 sorties. RAF lost 68 planes against 69 of the Luftwaffe. The heroics of John Beard, a member pilot of a squadron are mentioned as he fearlessly dove onto the tails of several Heinkels. He downed all of them with a pair of two-second bursts, resulting in flames shooting out from the fuselage of the German planes and sending those planes spinning away and blowing up into many pieces. Two months into the air engagement, the Germans grew desperate and targeted their raids on the shipping warehouses on ports to damage the ability of the British to provide food for their civilians. The Battle of Britain for the Germans stretched into almost ten months, from July 1940 to end of March 1941 and resulted in a loss of 1,733 planes against 915 of RAF. The result was that the Germans had to give up their dream of gaining supremacy over British skies. The Royal Air Force had already made its mark as a certain force to be reckoned with. In a speech on 20th August, 1940, Churchill said at the House of Commons, “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” He was referring to the diehard spirit of the Royal Air Force pilots and the boats of individual fishermen that rescued soldiers from Dunkirk beaches. The British were hell bent on not surrendering. This new twist to the developing war was turning the British civilians into a kind of domestic frontline forces. All the citizens were now accepting their new roles as defenders of their country, taking relevant positions in local organisations that were designed to protect their communities in the likelihood of attacks by the Germans. Children were being evacuated to the less populated countryside places so that they would be safe. Some children were even evacuated to places like Canada across the Atlantic, to the United States of America and to Australia. Separation was quite hard on their families but they all understood that they could not buckle down to their knees. The civilians had to go through food rationing, as was the case in Germany. In addition to food, clothing, leather and petrol were also rationed. Some private people made sure that they planted gardens and had extra food supply. For poor people, the government provided the Anderson Shelters. These were buried halfway into the ground with soil on top to offer protection from shell fragments and bomb splinters. They were made out of sheets of corrugated iron that were bolted at the top with steel plates at each end and they measured six feet by four and a half feet. People tried to stay within these shelters whenever the air raid sirens went off. Then, there were Morrison Shelters which were designed like a cage. They provided shelter to people who did not have gardens or cellars. They were initiated in March of 1941. They were assembled out of more than three hundred parts. By the end of 1941, more than half a million such shelters had been distributed. They got their names from Ministers and their aides in Home Security. They were made of heavy steel. This was a period of national unity as the civilians worked together and they were confident of their purpose in resisting the attack of the Germans. During the ten months of this Luftwaffe Blitz, the Germans dropped almost fifty thousand tons of bombs in their attack on the British civilians. More than a million were left homeless and more than forty thousand were killed. This was the first time in the history of Europe that a civilian population was punished like this by air bombing on such a huge scale. The London Blitz “During the Battle of Britain, London was ripped and stabbed with fire,” said Ernie Pyle, a war correspondent and a journalist. September 15, 1940 would later come to be known as Battle of Britain Day. It was the unleashing of Nazi terror, from the skies. At 1100 hours on that fateful day, the first wave of Luftwaffe bombers came into sight with two hundred and fifty bombers crossing the English Channel. The Royal Air Force was able to intercept at least half of these planes but the rest proceeded to London. At 1400 hours, the second wave and round appeared, heading for South London and Kent. The raid and the bombing went on, through the night. Britain was saved in a way on that day as targeting London for raids posed few problems for the German aircrafts. Their escorts had limited fuel capacity and had only ten minutes of flying time left till they reached their destination. They had to turn back after that. This fact left the bombers undefended by fighter escorts. Germans were trying to adapt the Messerschmitt to take care of this deficiency but it was not a very big help. The Royal Air Force had some wise minds and they were able to scatter their bombers in effective formations so that when the Luftwaffe planes dropped their bombs, they were not as deadly as they fell over a wider region. On 15th September, the RAF shot down sixty-one German planes and it was the highest loss to the Luftwaffe while RAF lost thirty-one planes. It may seem relative but it did have one positive result. The Germans subsequently dropped their ides of bombing London during daytime and this neutralised the London Blitz. The bombing continued from 16th September during the night and it did bring destruction to the defiant Londoners. Ernie Pyle, the journalist quoted above wrote that he could feel his hotel room shaking from the vibration of the air guns. He mentioned, “You have all seen big fires but I doubt if you have ever seen the whole horizon of a city lined with great fires, scores of them, perhaps hundreds. I could see from the windows that buildings at a distance were being torn apart by the explosions from the aerial bombs. I could hear the flames from the fires as they crackled and the yelling of the firemen. Every few minutes, a new wave of planes was flying over. Their motors sounded like bees buzzing in their fury. The thing I shall always remember above all the other things in my life is the loneliness of the view of London, stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pin points of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. This became the most hateful single scene I have ever known.” Churchill and his Role in the War The leadership of Neville Chamberlain at the beginning of the German aggression was not at all inspirational for majority of people in the British government. When May 1940 arrived, many members of the Labour Party refused to serve under him. Winston Churchill was made the Prime Minister in a rush by the then king George VI who was in two minds and wanted to push his close friend Viscount Halifax for that job. Churchill got the nod because he had served in various government positions and was a good tactician along with good leadership skills. He served as the First Lord of Admiralty in the First World War and despite the disaster of the Gallipoli campaign was still considered better than Halifax. Churchill’s strategy, to throw the Osman Empire out of the First World War and create a direct supply route of munitions and arms to Russia through the Dardanelles Strait and the Black Sea against the canny alertness of the Germans and the Turks, was an unsuccessful one and marred his image in the eyes of King George VI. Winston Churchill was born to Lord Randolph Churchill and his American wife Jennie Jerome. He belonged to the privileged class. Lord Randolph became the First Duke of Marlborough and was also a military hero. Winston took part in action in Sudan and India. He was taken prisoner during the Boer War in South Africa but managed to escape and wrote a book on his dramatic exploits. He won a seat in the Parliament in 1900 and managed to rise up the political ladder. He promoted the modernisation of the Royal Navy as First Lord of the Admiralty and also initiated the Royal Navy Air Service. After the Gallipoli campaign disaster, Winston left the government in 1915 and rejoined the British Army, serving on the western front during the First World War. He promoted the increase in the production of munitions, airplanes and tanks. He was then made Minister of Munitions. Winston also concentrated on his fine writing ability and completed a book called `A History of the English Speaking People’ that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. He was recognised through this book for his expertise in historical and biographical description and also for his brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values. This was also his motivation when he became Prime Minister in 1940. He considered the German Nazi group to be totally evil in their thoughts and lacking in fine human values which he held dear. When Adolf Hitler was rising in power during the early nineteen thirties, Winston Churchill recognised the threat which Nazism posed to the whole of Europe. Before the War started, he was proactive against Germany by occupying the iron mines and sea ports of Norway while Neville Chamberlain continued to resist his ideas and arguments. Chamberlain and Halifax were meek and wanted peace agreements with Germany. On 10th May 1940, Neville Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister and Winston Churchill replaced him. On that same day, the Nazis had begun their advance towards Norway. On 18th June 1940, Churchill spoke to the House of Commons and made it clear that the Battle of Britain had started. Several military experts in England had thought the country would eventually not be able to defend its land against the mighty Germans. Churchill had different ideas and he was not the one to be cowed down; even with a mind as that of Adolf Hitler’s. He convinced the British that they were fighting against an enemy which was seeking to eliminate all that were progressive and noble in civilisation. Churchill’s oratory prowess rallied the minds of the English civilians and also that of the marines and army personnel. His courage inspired his countrymen even as the Germans poured countless bombs on them and their lands. He calmed the fears of the entire nation. He told his countrymen that he could offer them nothing but “blood, toil, tears and sweat.” He knew that victory would ultimately be theirs. After the brilliant evacuation of the British from the beaches at Dunkirk, Churchill knew that one masterstroke would not take care of the struggle that lay ahead. His brilliant tactic of sending individual civilian boats to help his marooned troops was like a shot of adrenaline to all in England, much to the egoistic chagrin of Viscount Halifax and the suspicions of King George VI. He gave a speech on the radio, “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” While this was going on to boost the morale of the English, France fell to the Germans. Despite this bad news, Churchill was not disheartened. He told the country, “we shall not sink into the abyss of a new dark age which is being made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science. Out of all this darkness, this will emerge as our finest hour.” After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December, 1941, United States entered the War and became Britain’s ally. Churchill’s service as the prime Minister of Britain during the Second World War defined his destiny and the British people never forgot him. In 2002, a survey was done to pick the greatest Briton of all time. It did not come as a surprise that Winston Churchill received 447,423 votes and won that honour. Hitler’s Move to divert his Attention to Russia that cost him the War Adolf Hitler issued a `Directive 21’ which was an instruction for “The German Wehrmacht to be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign with Operation Barbarossa”. This was not a good tactical move as it was issued even before the conclusion of the Battle of Britain. Germany’s massive raids did not bring in positive results against England by September 1942. England did not succumb and was not brought to its knees. The Germans had to reassess their timeline for the invasion of Britain. Germany had lost more than one thousand six hundred aircraft. The Luftwaffe was running out of crew as well as planes. The Germans had grossly underestimated the size and resilience of the Royal Air Force. Hitler gave Germany time till 8th October to achieve results against England. When that did not happen, he asked for Operation Sea Lion to be temporarily postponed. England did not survive without considerable damage. More than forty thousand civilians were killed and thirty-two thousand were wounded in the German air raids. The Battle of Britain had been a costly one but not without inflicting the German military and air force its first major defeat. The Royal Air Force had defended England against the German attack and was the major factor in throwing Hitler into a state of panic and towards making weak decisions. Germans had lost morale, more so than England. For Churchill, the finest argument in his favour was his masterstroke of evacuating his troops at Dunkirk. His decision, taken during his darkest hours, made sure that England and its army would not capitulate at the hands of the Germans. The Americans watched from across the Atlantic and what they saw impressed them. President Franklin Roosevelt was suspicious of England’s ability to survive the bombing and air raids of the Germans. He decided that it was time that USA supported Britain. Meanwhile, Hitler’s determination to capture the giant land mass of Russia proved his undoing as it did for Napoleon Bonaparte. The Battle of Britain made sure that England would not be conquered but from a wider perspective; it broke the spine of the British Empire and they lost their colonies, chiefly India. In a span of fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, countries in Asia, Middle East and Africa saw the British Union Jack off their flag poles. The independence of these nations was a direct by-product of the Battle of Britain. This Battle would go down in history as a battle fought and won not only by brave pilots of the Royal Air Force and efficient soldiers and sailors but also by resilient and determined civilians of Britain.