The Battle of Britain: A Fight for Control of the Skies

they were at a disadvantage with plane numbers to the Germans.

It was also important for Britain to win because it would mean that they could keep their air force to stop Germany invading Britain and causing lots of disruptions and pain. Also Germany knew that if they got Britain's air force that it would be so much easier for them to invade Britain as the air force was the strongest thing for Britain and without it they would be stuck and it would be harder for them to defend themselves against Germany. For this reason Britain also tried their hardest against Germany and they did not want an invasion against them.There were a number of reasons why the British won the Battle but one of the biggest and best reasons were to do with the fact that the British had Radar which was very helpful to them as they could spot the German planes when they were coming. This was a huge advantage because it meant it gave the British time to spot them and get the planes that they needed to help them fight.

The German's were not that advanced and did not have radar and so they thought that they could just fly over and surprise Britain as they thought that they did not know that they would come and so would do well in the bombings, but Britain was ready and able to fight. Germany also gave Britain a huge advantage as when Hitler changed his tactics and decided to attack London. This gave the RAF time to repair the air fields and planes to make them stronger again. The British

also were close to home and could easily go back down to ground and refuel the planes where as the Germans did not have a lot of time to stay up in the air and get back as they would run out of fuel.Also other advantages that we had against the Germans was that Britain had observers helping spot the German planes as they flew over. This helped because the British knew exactly that the German planes were coming and where about they were and where they were likely to go to as the observers would phone up and report to people where about they had seen the planes.

Britain also had other support on their side such as the French the Americans and the Poles. Some of their fighter pilots joined up with Britain and helped them fight Germany in the sky. Germany's mistake was that when Hitler ordered his planes to bomb London. He did this because Britain bombed Berlin and he was angry about it and wanted to get his own back.

This was a huge favour to the British RAF because it was about to collapse and give up fighting, then Hitler attacked London. This was a relief to Britain as it gave them time to repair planes etc. this was a disadvantage and a big mistake to Germany as if they had carried on attacking Britain where they had done before Britain would have given up and Germany had of won the Battle of Britain but as they moved on to bomb London it just gave Britain more space and time to come back in power.The Germans were totally shocked

by loosing this battle as it was the first time in the war that they had been beaten. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. The Germans had things to settle with Poland as some years immediately after world war one in the Treaty of Versailles it said that Poland was to be rewarded with land from Germany and Russia.

Of course Germany did not agree with this but at the time had to go along with it. As Germany wasn't a country that would sit back and let things happen something was bound to happen and they used the excuse to invade Poland in the September of 1939.Germany was really strong compared to Poland as on the first day that the attack took place the Polish air force was virtually wiped out. This was bad as the Poles could not defend themselves in the skies and stop bombs being dropped.

It also gave Germany even more control as to what and where they could bomb as they had got the air force out of the way. The Germans took this to their advantage and used every method that they could to destroy Poland. They hurled thousands of tanks and bombs against the Poles knowing that they were probably stronger than them now that they had destroyed their air force. However the Poles were brave and they were determined not to feel weak against the Germans and got all of the tanks that they could and put soldiers on cavalry and tried to stand up to the Germans. On September 17th 1939 the Russians who also wanted pay back on Poland forced their way across the

eastern frontier of Poland and so any defending that Poland had been doing became pointless as they now stood no chance against Russia. The Poles had been forced out of their own country and they couldn't do anything about it.

Some of the Polish forces fled to Rumania, and after a while eventually went to Britain to fight against the Nazi Germans. As the Poles had been forced out of their own country it was left empty and so the two countries Germany and Russia who wanted revenge for Poland getting some of their land got Poland split up between them. It was split along the line that had been suggested in 1919 by the British foreign secutary Lord Cuizon.On the 3rd September Britain and France had joined together and declared war on Germany. It didn't feel real and felt stupid as no action really took place in the first six months apart from a little fighting at the sea. This was nothing like the Poland invasion to start with.

Part of the reason was because there was hardly no fighting because Britain was afraid of reprisals. Germany also didn't really want to get Britain and France annoyed because Germany only had 11 Nazi civilians and they were young and inexperienced soldiers so they wouldn't know what to do if Britain attacked and also elderly veterans defending the Rhineland and the Ruhr.The "Phoney" war continued all through the winter of 1939-40. The people were prepared and expecting the Germans to bomb them after the German success on Poland and the government.

British people were so sure that this would happen that they took actions such

as closing cinemas and evacuating children to the countryside. In April 1940 the shocking lightning war that had come to Poland had suddenly arrive din the west. The Germans were in full power once again and over ran Denmark in just one day. Hitler then continued down to Norway.

Norway was important as it was a huge source of iron ore and this was a huge help to Hitler as it helped with fuel in the war and helped with the guns (etc). Without it I don't think that Hitler would have been so powerful. Norway was quickly over run by Germany with help from a Norwegian traitor who obviously offered to help Hitler. The morale in Germany would most probably have been quite high as they had defeated and over run every country that they had come against and so this would make them feel strong and powerful against everyone else.

The Norwegian campaign failed and that forced Chamberlain to resign as prime minister. Churchill was the man that took over from him.On May 10th the day that Churchill took over to his new job Hitler launched the great assault on Holland, Belgium and France. This attack was meant and was purposed to try and end the war before the autumn. In this attack the Dutch only lasted a little while because they had lost of blanket bombings to their city and paratroopers landing unexpectedly and attacking them. This was part of the Blitzkrieg that paratroopers would drop down and defend and fight the allies.

So Hitler obviously had his plans and tactics well thought out before he made his moves. Belgium were a little

bit stronger and better at defending themselves apart from sometimes they were stopped and limited to what they could do and attack as refugees and people were going southwards along the roads that were filled with bombs, dead bodies and things that had been destroyed by the bombings. The French commander ordered his troops to follow the British troops northward to support them who had been sent to Belgium. This was quite bad as it left a vital 160 km of the French-Belgium border almost unprotected. This was bad as it gave the Germans advantage as they had no one to fight against if there was no one there as they were all in other places.

The Nazi's were so powerful that the burst through the French line. Some of the soldiers moved to France and split the allied forces which were Britain and France in two. The rest that were left of the Nazi's went southwards to capture Paris. The remainder of the Soldiers went back Northwest to trap the British and the Belgium armies. About 500,000 or half a million soldiers were trapped in and around the little port of Dunkirk.

Hitler was determined not to let any of those soldiers escape which were the British and French soldiers. However the British had boats ranging from battleships to private boats which had heard about them being trapped and wanted to help and so did everything that they could to get them out of the situation. They went through all the bombs and mines to rescue 350,000 troops and got them safely across the channel. When the fighting had stopped in the north Mussolini declared

war on the French government on 10th June.

After Paris had gone the French surrendered. The Germans were made to look even stronger as they made the Germans sign a surrender document. Once again Germany had defeated a country and got what they wanted more power as Nazi forces occupied the whole of northern France and the Atlantic coastline.Britain's morale was extremely low at this point as they had been trapped by the Germany and couldn't really do anything about it.

Britain did not expect Germany to go for Paris and so they were expecting them to go to where they were and so thy could fight them but they were surprised by the Germans who seemed to have a lot of tactics. They then got trapped as the Germans managed to wedge them in Dunkirk so they could not get out. The British got themselves in that mess as they did not know where and when the Germans would come and where they would come from. They took it for granted that they would go the easiest and most logical way. However that Germans took it for granted that they thought that they would have the British trapped for along time as they would not be able to get out. What they didn't know and expect is that the British would have back up from the country and that people in boats could come and help them out.

Over 350,000 men were rescued to fight another day but it was still a very bad defeat. At this point in the war Britain was not in a very good position as they did nit know

how long it would be before they could get out of the mess and when they did get out what Germany would do, whether they would start another big attack or whether they would change their tactics and try and attack in a different way. Britain had to be prepared for this and anything that might happen. So they had to be on top at all times with no slacking. They had to work even harder as a team, especially as they had lost all their allies and were not fighting alone.

If Hitler had have won the battle of Britain, Britain would not have stood a chance as Germany would have invaded Britain and destroyed it and made Britain feel worthless and weak like they could not do anything to make it better. So really it would be the end of Britain and Germany would have ended up the strongest again who had invaded and defeated every country that they had tried to. This would make Germany unbeatable and they would feel invincible as they would have known that they had defeated all of the countries that they had tried to. Britain put up a good fight as they were very outnumbered by the Germans and so had to fight hard and use their heads if they had any chance of surviving against Germany.

Some of the short term consequences for Britain was that it didn't get invaded by Germany and that Hitler scrapped operation sea lion. Britain was protected from the Germans as Hitler turned his army towards Russia instead to try and attack them. Hitler deciding to do this instead of invading Britain

leads to the invasions of Yugoslavia Greece and Russia in the summer of 1941. While he did this Britain could have repaired the damage that Germany caused in Britain and go t the RAF together again and gain more pilots to help fight Germany again.

This would all be so that they were ready to hit back against the German's once again.Germany did not win the Battle of Britain and so they still decided to try and get Britain back they tried to do this by blitzing Britain and other major cities, this was the dropping of bombs over the cities at night when it was pitch black. They were hoping that this would work and destroy Britain completely as they knew that they had tried to defeat them in the skies with the British RAF but that was not successful as Britain had fought back and proved to Germany that they were going to try their hardest to not be beaten by Germany. This was terrible and caused a lot of damage to the cities and it did not stop until the May of 1941.

At this point there was great morale in Britain and other countries of the world . For Britain they believed that they could survive against Germany and their confidence was increased because they have beaten Germany. Other countries such as America saw that Germany was not unbeatable and their morale gets higher as well. Britain was a vital free base for military operations against German occupied Europe.

Over 100,000 free French soldiers used Britain as a base to recover and hit back at the Germans, to defend Britain and

keep it free from Germany from the west. This proved that Britain must have been thought of as a strong country to still be fighting against Germany after what it had done to Britain as other countries and seen this and had great beliefs in Britain.However there was also long term consequences. For example Britain became the main launching pad for attacks against Nazi occupied Europe after America joined the war in December 1941. Over 2 million Americans were sent to Britain and it was used as a base to bomb Germany from the air and to invade North Africa(1942) Italy(1943) and France (1944). They would not have been able to do this and defend if Britain had been invaded by Germany.

Britain's victory in 1940 was directly responsible for making up Hitler's mind to attack Russia. Between 1941 and 1945 90 percent of German casualties happened in Russia. The Germans were getting shot by the Russians and were not sure of what the Russians tactics were and so had no idea of what to expect from them. This weakened the Nazi's and helped Russia and Britain to gain more confidence and feel stronger as there were less Germans.

Even though Britain had a lot of support from these countries it cant have been all that good as lots of people would have been in the country and Germany would have known that Britain had lost of back up and would have still fought against them and targeted Britain still. The British RAF grew much larger than the German air force after 1941.Britain's bomber command slowly destroyed every major German city from the air, killing

thousands of civilians. German factories were also destroyed so nothing could be made and people lost their jobs. This damaged Germanys ability to fight in the war and so helped them loose it. The Royal navy also grew stronger.

It won the battle of the Atlantic and took control of the world seas. This meant that British and American forces could safely travel to invade North Africa Italy and France which is known as today as D-Day. These invasions meant that the allied soldiers could fight German soldiers face to face in Europe again. If Germany had won the battle of Britain and invaded Britain none of the consequences would have happened as Britain would have been a shambles and demolished so America could not have used it as a base to fight the Germans from the sky and defend themselves and Britain. Also the navy would not have got control over the seas and the RAF would not have bombed Germany and killed so many people.The British Victory was an important turning point because if Britain had not have won the battle of Britain it would have collapsed because it would have given Germany the chance to invade the country and ruin them.

This would have given Germany full confidence and lots of power as it would have beaten every country that it had tried to fight against. And the power to really over run any country. It also changed the course of the war as other countries saw that Germany was not unbeatable if Britain could beat them and made other countries feel stronger and believe in themselves more. Also if we had

not won it we would not have been able to invade Germany and kill so many of their civilians and take control over the seas.

Britain's most important role in the war was a free base where the British and the American air forces could attack Germany and cause a land invasion which would leave us and then the war get taken back to Europe away from Britain. Really if Germany did invade Britain it would have been a different ending and things would have changed dramatically and Britain would have probably been wiped out but Germany did not invade and so things did not change. Britain would not have won if Hitler had been victorious. Time and time again before the Battle of Britain Hitler and his Blitzkrieg tactics had always worked and the other countries could not stand up to beat Germany. If this had worked against the British RAF as well Britain would have lost the war and it would have been over and done with the war in the west over and finished with.

They did not win and so Britain gained the glory and became a stronger country and this gave them many advantages in the war and overall.