The Battle of Britain, waged between Great Britain and Germany in the summer and fall of 1940, was the first battle in history conducted entirely by AIR power, as Germany attempted to gain air supremacy over Britain in preparation for an invasion. Although the German effort was ultimately unsuccessful, the threat to Great Britain, following the success of the German blitzkrieg in overrunning western Europe in the previous months, was instrumental in the shift of American foreign policy to anti-Axis intervention through such measures as the DEstroyers-for-bases deal.
The German Luftwaffe forces based in France, the Low Countries, Norway, and Denmark consisted of 1,260 medium bombers, 320 dive-bombers, and more than 1,000 fighters. Continental bases were a mere 20 minutes from England, but German fighters had a short range, and Luftwaffe twin-engine fighters and dive-bombers could not match the RAF Supermarine Spitfire or Hawker Hurricane. In addition, German bombers carried small bomb loads.
The British Royal Air Force (RAF) Fighter Command operated over home ground, which allowed longer times in the air and rapid pilot recovery. Increases in fighter production in 1939, an efficient ground-to-air communications network, and a radar system along the southern coast, gave a slight advantage to the 600 RAF pilots flying 900 fighters.
Early skirmishes in the Battle of Britain began in July 1940, with combat beginning in earnest on August 13, called “Eagle Day,” when the Luftwaffe attacked in strength. The period of mid - to late August was one of heavy fighting, with RAF pilots flying multiple sorties each day. Yet both sides overestimated the other’s casualties and their own successes. German intelligence failures caused a shift in tactics based on the assumption that the RAF had suffered irreplaceable losses. The Luftwaffe starting attacking airfields, but then shifted to terror BOMBING of cities, particularly London, in retaliation for an RAF raid on Berlin on August 25. Regular daylight attacks on London, known as the Blitz, began on September 7. The RAF responded quickly against Luftwaffe bombers over London on September 15, known as “Battle of Britain Day,” and downed 175 aircraft in one week, prompting a suspension of daylight raids. While the Blitz continued with decreasing intensity through May 1941, attacks on airfields never resumed, and the planned German invasion was canceled on September 17. Between July 31 and October 31, the RAF lost 788 aircraft compared to 1,295 Luftwaffe aircraft destroyed. Referring to the RAF’s successful defense of Britain, Churchill memorably said that “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
See also WORLD War II European theater.
Further reading: Richard Collier, Eagle Day: The Battle of Britain, August 6-September 15, 1940 (New York: Dutton, 1982).
—Clayton D. Laurie
World History
