Something that kind of annoys me is when people say that the Germans were defeated in the Battle of Britain. I just don’t see it that way. The reason England was not invaded was more due to Hitler losing interest and wanting to invade the USSR. If the Germans focused on England and were not preparing for Barbarossa England could not have stopped them. While the air war was going badly for the Germans the Army could have made contributions that would have knocked England out. Had Rommel been supported he could have taken the Suez canal. I don’t think it would have taken much to get Spain to allow German troops to access their country to attack Gibralter. The U-boat war given more resources could have starved England. Preperation for the attack on the USSR (and the Balkans) is what saved England.
I am not trying to take anything away from England, but to say they beat Germany is a bit of a stretch. The Germans didn’t invade England because Hitler was an idiot and wanted to attack Russia. The Germans may not have been able to invade in 40, but if instead of attacking Russia they focused on England in 41 England would have collapsed. With the fall of Gibralter and the Suez Canal you could argue that England would have made peace (that or starve to death) making an invasion unnecessary.
Anyhow, any thoughts on this?
Good post.
It’s worth bearing in mind that, in 1940, Britain produced more military aircraft than Germany. Britain also received large numbers of military planes from the United States. Britain rapidly expanded the size of its army; and was far better-prepared against invasion in '41 than in '40. If Germany was going to invade, the best time would have been in the summer of 1940.
Von Manstein believed such an invasion could have succeeded–if done the right way. Air battles deep inside British territory gave the RAF the range advantage. To avoid this problem, von Manstein wanted the Luftwaffe to stay near the coast; providing overwhelming air support shortly before and during the invasion.
During the Dunkirk evacuation, the British shipped large numbers of soldiers across the Channel without having complete control of the sky. Germany may have been able to achieve the same.
Hitler rejected the tactical risks associated with such a plan, and therefore had to accept the much more serious strategic risk of war against the Soviet Union. German military planners had thought the Red Army had 200 divisions. By the fall of 1940 it had 600 divisions. For most of the war, it added 500,000 men a month: a pace Germany could not possibly hope to match.
The British having a higher production of aircraft? BAH! Let me point out the obvious. Germany makes 32IPC a turn and England only makes 30. Don’t you feel foolish…
A&A kidding aside, between the submarine threat and the bombing of the airfields Churchill himself thought England could be done for. The few weeks the Germans were doing it right the RAF lost more aircraft than what it made, not to mention pilots they lost. That kind of pressure being kept on England would have made them crack.
The diversion of the German airforce to the Balkans and Barbarossa is what saved England. And again, lets not forget, massive German man power and material that Hitler designated for Barbarossa could have been used capturing the Suez Canal and Gibralter. With the Germans securing both of those, even the Italians couldn’t screw it up as far as the Med goes.