Battle Of Britain Essay

Battle of Britain
At the end of June 1940 The Second World War defense of the United Kingdom by the Royal Air Force began against an onslaught by the German Air Force Luftwaffe. Also known as “The Battle of Britain”, The Battle of Britain has been described as the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces. The Battle of Britain also has an unusual distinction in that it gained its name prior to being fought. The name is derived from a famous speech delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on June 18, more than three weeks prior to the generally accepted date for the start of the battle.The officially recognized dates are 10 July – 31 October 1940, overlapping with a period of large scale of attacks
known as The Blitz. The objective of the Nazi German forces was to increase pressure on Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement. An air and sea blockade began in July 1940, with coastal shipping convoys, ports and shipping centres such as Portsmouth the main targets of the Luftwaffe.
A direction issued on August 1st for the Luftwaffe's Adlertag campaign to achieve air superiority over the Royal Air Force with the aim of incapacitating Royal Air Force Fighter Command, and shifted attacks to Royal Air Force airfields and headquarters.
As the battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in World War II aircraft production and ground infrastructure. Eventually the Luftwaffe resorted to attacking areas of politics and using terror bombing strategies Germany was forbidden military air forces by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, but developed aircrew training in civilian and sport flying. From 1923 the Deutsche Luft Hansa airline developed freight aeroplanes convertible into bombers, and in 1926 the secret Lipetsk fighter-pilot school began operating. Erhard Milch organised rapid expansion, and following the 1933 Nazi seizure of power his subordinate Robert Knauss formulated a deterrence theory incorporating Douhet's ideas and Tirpitz's "risk theory", which proposed a fleet of heavy bombers to deter a preventive attack by France and Poland before Germany could fully
rearm.
A winter 1933 war game indicated a need for fighters and anti-aircraft protection as well as bombers. On 1 March 1935 the Luftwaffe was formally announced, with Walther Wever as Chief of Staff. The 1935 Luftwaffe doctrine for "Conduct of the Air War" (Die Luftkriegführung) set airpower within the overall military strategy, with critical tasks of attaining (local and temporary) air superiority and providing battlefield support for army and naval forces. Strategic bombing of industries and transport could be decisive longer term options, dependent on opportunity or preparations by the army and navy, to overcome a stalemate or used when only destruction of the enemy's economy would be conclusive. The list excluded bombing civilians to destroy homes or undermine morale, as that was considered a waste of strategic effort, but the doctrine allowed revenge attacks if German civilians were bombed. A revised edition was issued in 1940, and the continuing central principle of Luftwaffe doctrine was that destruction of enemy armed forces was of primary importance.

The Royal air force responded to Luftwaffe developments with its 1934 Expansion Plan A rearmament scheme, and in 1936 it was restructured into Bomber Command, Coastal Command, Training Command and Fighter Command.
The latter was under Hugh Dowding, who opposed the doctrine that bombers were unstoppable: the invention of radar at that time could allow early detection, and prototype monoplane fighters were significantly faster. Priorities were disputed, but in December 1937 the Minister in charge of defence coordination Sir Thomas Inskip decided in Dowding's favour, that "The role of our air force is not an early knock-out blow" but rather was "to prevent the Germans from knocking us out" and fighter squadrons were just as necessary as bomber
squadrons.

In the Spanish Civil War, the Luftwaffe in the Condor Legion tried out air fighting tactics and their new aeroplanes. Wolfram von Richthofen become an exponent of air power providing ground support to other services.[33] The difficulty of accurately hitting targets prompted Ernst Udet to require that all new bombers had to be dive bombers, and led to the development of the Knickebein system for night time navigation. Priority was given to producing large numbers of smaller aeroplanes, and plans for a long range four engined strategic bomber were delayed. By preventing Germany from gaining air superiority, the British forced Adolf Hitler to postpone and eventually cancel Operation Sea Lion, a planned amphibious and airborne invasion of Britain. However, Germany continued bombing operations on Britain, known as The Blitz. The failure of Nazi Germany to achieve its objective of destroying Britain's air defences in order to force Britain to negotiate an armistice (or even surrender outright) is considered by Steven Bungay to be its first major defeat in World War II, and a crucial turning point in the conflict.