Why Britain Won the Battle of Britain

Why Britain Won the Battle of Britain

After taking France in addition to his list of captured countries on

mainland Europe, Adolf Hitler set his sights on Britain. After the

success of Blitzkrieg, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the surrender of

France, Britain was by herself. However, before Hitler could

contemplate undertaking an invasion he was advised by his generals

that Germany had to destroy the Fighter Command of the Royal Air Force

in order to gain superiority in the air. This would in turn enable him

to gain control of the English Channel in order to transfer the

160,000 German troops on the 2000 invasion barges, which had been

assembled in German, French and Belgian harbors, over the channel to

Britain unscaved. Between august and September in the summer of 1940,

under the codename of operation sealion the planes of the German

Luftwaffe attacked British airfields, ports and radar stations in an

attempt to gain air superiority, while Britain was defended

tenaciously by the Royal Air Force. This period of time became known

as the Battle of Britain and remains one of the most famous battles of

world war two, if Britain had lost, Germany would have invaded. After

taking the captured European countries with no serious problems,

Hitler expected that Britain too would be an easy target. However,

against the odds Britain held out and resisted the German attack. In

this essay I am going to examine how Britain managed to resist the

Luftwaffe and as some would say, win the Battle of Britain. For this

essay I will anylise the reasons for the British success under the

four main categories of: tactics, technology, organization and

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...al errors, it still took the

bravery and ability of the RAF to exploit these mistakes and defeat

the Germans for the first time in the war. The Battle of Britain was a

turning point in the sense that it was the first time that German

forces had been defeated. The survival of Britain meant that it could

later be used as the staring point for the liberation of Europe.

However, some historians now regard it as being of less importance

from a military point of view. Hitler may well not have been able to

invade Britain even if the Luftwaffe had been able to defeat Fighter

Command. The German armed forces were completely unprepared for an

invasion and Operation Sealion was opposed by all of the German High

Command. Hitler lost interest in Britain in 1941 when he ordered

Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.