This Day in the Battle of Britain

[Njaco]

Stona, I'm not sure how to answer you but while Germany hoped that Britain would sue for peace, Hitler went ahead with an invasion plan as outlined in Fuhrer Directive # 16...

Fuhrer Directive 16

"Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and, if necessary, to carry it out.

The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."

Now look at this from the document..
"2. These preparations must also create such conditions as will make a landing in England possible, viz:

(a) The English Air Force must be so reduced morally and physically that it is unable to deliver any significant attack against the German crossing."

The Battle of Britain - the RAF against the Luftwaffe - was the preparation for the start of an invasion against England. What other reason was there for attacking England as such with the LW, stock-piling barges in French ports, etc?

 

[vikingBerserker]

Excellent info.

 

[parsifal]

Stona, I'm not sure how to answer you but while Germany hoped that Britain would sue for peace, Hitler went ahead with an invasion plan as outlined in Fuhrer Directive # 16...

Fuhrer Directive 16

"Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and, if necessary, to carry it out.

The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."

Now look at this from the document..
"2. These preparations must also create such conditions as will make a landing in England possible, viz:

(a) The English Air Force must be so reduced morally and physically that it is unable to deliver any significant attack against the German crossing."

The Battle of Britain - the RAF against the Luftwaffe - was the preparation for the start of an invasion against England. What other reason was there for attacking England as such with the LW, stock-piling barges in French ports, etc?

I can agree that without the aerial victory the germans were never gooing to implement Sealion. However, the question is, if they had won air superiority, would they have carried through, and secondly, if they had, would it have been successful?

As I pointed out in my original post, I think the circumspection in the fuhrer directive is important....."and if necessary we will carry it out" why did he need to say "and if necessary" was there doubt or hesitation in his mind???? I think there must be, because his other directives do not use such circumspect language. Compare it it Directive Number 21 for example, and you wil be struck by the different tone in the rhetoric.

I have serious doubts that Hitler ever intended to undertake Sealion as a serious venture. I think he hoped to win air superiority as a bargaining chip....to conbvince the british government of the hopelessness of their situation. secondarily i think he wanted to isolate the British politically, by making them appear as a defeated nation. How better to do that, short of amphibious invasion, than to have flets of Luftwaffe bombers roaming unopposed over england. He never achieved that.....

And if he was fair din*kum, then his planning for thactual invasion was attrocious. Crappy transport, no escort, vulnerable to surcface subsurface, and airborne attack, it would have been a massacre. And after September, even if they had gotten ashore, they would have been met by a re-invigorated and equipped British Army fighting on its home soil for its very existence. Thats got to be a recipe built in hell IMO

 

[Hop]

As I pointed out in my original post, I think the circumspection in the fuhrer directive is important....."and if necessary we will carry it out" why did he need to say "and if necessary" was there doubt or hesitation in his mind????

Because he thought bombing alone would force Britain to sue for peace.

I have serious doubts that Hitler ever intended to undertake Sealion as a serious venture. I think he hoped to win air superiority as a bargaining chip....to conbvince the british government of the hopelessness of their situation. secondarily i think he wanted to isolate the British politically, by making them appear as a defeated nation. How better to do that, short of amphibious invasion, than to have flets of Luftwaffe bombers roaming unopposed over england.

I think, above all, he wanted Britain out of the way so that he would be free to invade Russia. He didn't want a 2 front war.

I think the difference in tone between directive 16 and 21 is because Hitler wanted Russia. He just wanted Britain to go away.

But that doesn't mean the invasion wasn't serious. It was planned and organised to the best of Germany's ability. Granted with hindsight it would have been a disaster, but the Germans overestimated their own ability and underestimated Britain's, so it was far less clear at the time.

It's worth noting that when Hitler did eventually call off the invasion, he ordered some small scale preparations to carry on as a bluff. The original orders were "prepare for invasion", after the cancellation it became "cancel most of the preparations, keep some going to fool the British". If the invasion had never been serious in the first place, the orders (at the most senior levels) would have reflected that.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... by battles end Britain had pretty much guaranteed US support and deterred Spanish entry into the war ...."

The part about Spain is most significant, Parsifal. Franco was a shrewd man and he wasn't going to back a loser. He made that call by October, 1940, I guessing.

In the end - it doesn't matter whether Hitler intended to invade or not. What matters is how Britain responded - having lost an army on the continent but having heroically recovered the men off the beaches. To the British public the Germans were coming. It's an island, remember, with a long history of people arriving, and not leaving .

I'm glad this thread has gone active again. Last year I followed the dailies eagerly. Thanks, Njaco.

MM

 

[Mustang nut]

At the time of writing the directive it was expected by many that the RAF would be swept away in weeks by September that obviously wasnt the case.

 

[stona]

I'm with Parsifal,the invasion was a bluff. Hitler made plenty of orders and directives throughout the war which were at best fanciful. I don't believe that the high command of the Wermacht believed that a seaborne invasion was a practical proposition. I've read the directives and seen the plans as I'm sure many of us have. I've seen the same things for Moscow,Stalingrad,Leningrad,much later Antwerp and many more but that don't make it so. We'll never know what was in the mind of the Fuerher but I doubt he believed it either. The Army didn't have a single landing craft! Rhetoric like "The English air force must be reduced etc" is one thing they thought they could do. Had they succeeded who knows what may have happened politically in Britain and diplomatically in a settlement. One thing that wouldn't have happened,militarily, was a seaborne invasion.
I have a ludicrous image in my mind of soldiers paddling ashore in inflatables whilst flat bottomed river barges,the ones that didn't founder on the way,attempt to land tanks in the swell. All armies in 1940,the germans included,struggled to cross a river. Just compare the german capability in 1940 with the allied resources used in Overlord.......ridiculous.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Njaco]

ahhh but Hitler was invincble. Didn't he tell his genrals France could be taken and it was against what the OKH thought? Hindsight is one thing. You have to gauge the atmosphere in Germany at the time. Victory was assured!

 

[parsifal]

ahhh but Hitler was invincble. Didn't he tell his genrals France could be taken and it was against what the OKH thought? Hindsight is one thing. You have to gauge the atmosphere in Germany at the time. Victory was assured!

That wqs the image he wanted to project. his self image was a lot more modest.

Hitler, in fact was an opportunist, a gambler. He would follow the pathway of least resistance, seeking the cheap and easy victories. You mentioned his intervention on Plan Yellow (invasion of France)....true enough....what is missing from your summation, however, is that he got abad case of jitters half way through, that allowed the BEF and half the french army in the pocket to escape. He had the same crisi of nerves at Narvik, and again after Crete. KM ops were riddled with his timid interventions. later, as the fortunes of war forced him on the defensive he favoured a static defence over mobile operations, because it was a concept he could understand. His whole war strategy was based on the premise of cheap and easy victories. If things got hard, he tended to lose his nerve and bravado and look for alternatives.

Perhaps the best analogy of how he would have reacted if the LW had won air superiority in 1940 over SE England would be to look at the other great (planned) opposed airborne/amphibious operation.....the invasion of Malta. Shaken by the experiences of his airborne forces over Crete and having to rely on italian transport for the amphibious component, he opted for something he could understand, an alternative.....in this case, the prospective conquest of Egypt. This was in spite of the fact that over malta, the germans had won air superiority at the time of the prospective invasion. He lost his nerve, at the prospect of an opposed landing, one with much better propsects than Sea Lion. Though we are dealing with extrapolations here, why would we expect him to act much differently in the Channel in 1940, to the way he acted two years later over Malta???? Added toi this his stated admiration of the british empire, and his reluctance to dismember it, and i think we have a pretty strong case to question the true intent of the invasion preparations

 

[stona]

We (the British) have contributed to the perception of Hitler's invasion plans with our reaction at the time. Whether or not the British government really believed that an invasion was possible it was deemed judicious to infect the British public with "invasion fever". This is done at critical times in our history. The British are an island race and particularly susceptible to this virulent disease whose main symptoms are hysteria and patriotic speeches.
Elizabeth I alleged speech at the time of the Armada contains the sort of rhetoric heard at a time when Napoleon was supposedly poised to invade and in the famous "fight them on the beaches" speech from Churchill.

"I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms."

Her Majesty at least was facing a genuine invasion attempt. My Grandmother,who lived in Canterbury (Kent,South East England), was not but was expecting to be confronted by German parachutists every time she nipped out to the shops! Statistically she was more likely to be shot by the Local Defence Volunteers.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Mustang nut]

Her Majesty at least was facing a genuine invasion attempt. My Grandmother,who lived in Canterbury (Kent,South East England), was not but was expecting to be confronted by German parachutists every time she nipped out to the shops! Statistically she was more likely to be shot by the Local Defence Volunteers.
Cheers
Steve

Very good point steve and parsival, as parsival said Hitler was a gambler. The opposite of invasion fever is complacency. If Britain hadnt taken an invasion attempt seriously I think that would increase the chances of Hitler taking a gamble.

 

[Hop]

Churchill didn't really believe the Germans would attempt an invasion either, until he started getting Enigma decrypts showing the extent of the preparations.

Whether Hitler would have gone through with the invasion or not we will never know. We know, from the German records, that the invasion was prepared as a genuine operation at the highest levels.

Hitler hoped for an easy victory. That doesn't mean he would have backed away from an invasion if bombing alone didn't seem to be doing the job.

Perhaps the best analogy of how he would have reacted if the LW had won air superiority in 1940 over SE England would be to look at the other great (planned) opposed airborne/amphibious operation.....the invasion of Malta. Shaken by the experiences of his airborne forces over Crete and having to rely on italian transport for the amphibious component, he opted for something he could understand, an alternative

But in 1940 he didn't have the experience of Crete. He was fresh from the battles of Norway and France. If the Luftwaffe had indeed driven the RAF from the SE of England, then he'd have had an unbroken string of successes. I think, given that background, he'd have tried an invasion if he had air superiority.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"..... The British are an island race and particularly susceptible to this virulent disease whose main symptoms are hysteria and patriotic speeches."

REALLY Stona .... . This certainly has been Britain's undoing then ..... hysteria and patriotic speeches?

MM

 

[Mustang nut]

"..... The British are an island race and particularly susceptible to this virulent disease whose main symptoms are hysteria and patriotic speeches."

REALLY Stona .... . This certainly has been Britain's undoing then ..... hysteria and patriotic speeches?

MM

I cant think of many wars without hysteria and patriotic speeches. Churchill was good at them but so were Roosevelt,De Gaulle, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin I believe.

 

[stona]

"..... The British are an island race and particularly susceptible to this virulent disease whose main symptoms are hysteria and patriotic speeches."

REALLY Stona .... . This certainly has been Britain's undoing then ..... hysteria and patriotic speeches?

MM

I was making a serious point in a humorous way.
Invasion fever served a purpose,it got the majority of the population onside. It got the Local Defence Volunteers out every night although if they'd lived up to their nick name (Look,Duck,Vanish) they might not have been terribly effective. They were good at taking pot shots at local people who ignored their road blocks,sadly some were killed. It got my Nan looking for paratroopers over Canterbury. Well to do families sought out lethal pills to kill themselves with. There are endless accounts of people living along the South coast reacting to the slightest unusual sight or sound by deciding that "it's the invasion" and evacuating their homes at three o'clock in the morning. This qualifies as a sort of hysteria and as for the speeches,we all know them.
Cheers
Steve

 

[parsifal]

But in 1940 he didn't have the experience of Crete. He was fresh from the battles of Norway and France. If the Luftwaffe had indeed driven the RAF from the SE of England, then he'd have had an unbroken string of successes. I think, given that background, he'd have tried an invasion if he had air superiority.

Crete only reinforced his sense of caution whern faced with a difficult operation. He had already displayed a marked lack of resolve at Narvik and during Fall Gelb. His airborne forces had shown their vulnerability in Holland, where the airtbaorne assault had almost been defeated, and over 125 of the transports had been shot down. There is absolutely no reason not to believe that he would react any differntly to the way that he did with Herkules.

Hitler had no real stomach for high risk operations like amphibious or airborne assaults. If he could achieve a quick smash and grab, like Weserbung, then yes, but any sign of opposition, he usually folded and left the table in a real hurry. His attempted invasion of the Aland Islands in 1944, his reaction to the invasion at Kos, his excessive garrison on Jersey, anythiing remotely associated with seasborne communication, and Hitler always lost his nerve. I see absolutely no reason to think his reaction to Sealion would be any different, particulalry when he woulod come to realize the extrem vuklnerabilkity of the invasion fleet. I am confident, he would never have risked it

 

[michaelmaltby]

"Hitler had no real stomach for high risk operations like amphibious or airborne assaults. If he could achieve a quick smash and grab, like Weserbung, then yes, but any sign of opposition, he usually folded and left the table in a real hurry. His attempted invasion of the Aland Islands in 1944, his reaction to the invasion at Kos, his excessive garrison on Jersey, anythiing remotely associated with seasborne communication, and Hitler always lost his nerve. I see absolutely no reason to think his reaction to Sealion would be any different, particulalry when he woulod come to realize the extrem vuklnerabilkity of the invasion fleet. I am confident, he would never have risked it".

Exactly

MM

 

[psteel]

My two cents worth


3) expanding on Point (1), the invasion fleet had an expected fleet speed of just 2 knots, but thats with a favourable current. Remember the Germans were atttempting to utilize river barges in an open water body, towed by tugs. Problems would arise for this arrangement, however, if ther was any sort of current. A post war study by the RN, estimated that the real rate of advance would be more like 1 knot in the prevailing current, and the distance to the landing point more like 80 miles, after the embarkation and debarkation points are considered, as well as the currents. That means that the all up time for the cross channel voyage was something i the order of 120 hours....more than enough time for the RN to tear it to pieces. thats with or without the Germans holding air superiority over southern England. Having control of the air is just a bonus, not a prequisite for crossong the channel, but the abject preparations would gurantee failure.

4) That is not to say that control of the air was not a critical battle, its just not critical to a crossing of the channel. The importance of the battle is simply about who controlled the airspace over southern England and the survival of the RAF. Saying that the British objectives were simplistic is generally true, but achieving that objective was incredibly difficult. Dowdings defensive plans could not have been achieved by any other force in 1940, including the LW. his handling of the battle was as close to perfect as one can be. He always avoided th pitfall of over-comitting the RAF, this cost more aircraft overall, but minimised the risk of exhausting the RAF at any particular point. By contrast the LW, particularly its fighter arm was exhausted by October. Its seviceability rates were down to below 50%, its formations worn thin, its resolve shaken. Like it or not, they had been defeated, and they knew it. .

I agree with the second point which is why any invasion attempt had to occur along side any battle in the air, not in sequence after the BoB,.... just like it was done in Norway or the invasion of Russia. You throw so much at the enemy he can't read and adjust to the changing situation fast enough to counter it. Fog of war will do the rest.

BTW Hitler's faith faltered halfway through the Norway invasion, but he was convinced by the Generals to continue.

The first point I don't agree with however . The British didn't know the German plan, which timed the ride to the currents either way, so the average fleet speed would have been more like 4 knots, not 1 knot. The Extreme distance mentioned is the exception as most units had 40-60 mile journeys. A two-day turnaround was planned for each part of each wave with two parts to each wave. However the towed barges only crossed on the first wave. After this they would operated from either side to speed up embarking and departure from the beaches, while motorized barges would operate in successive waves.

It was really difficult to sink a vessel at this point in history. Through out the war the British averaged 150 sorties for every vessel sunk, ranging from trawlers on up and this doesn't include anything about the infamous "Butt Report". In naval battles it took hundreds of shells to sink even a small vessel with small guns. Since the Germans would be armed themselves that means it would be a race to see who sank the most. In studies of naval battles through this period, the Germans had a knack for beating off allied and British naval attacks despite being out gunned and out numbered and often inflicted twice as much as they lost

Adding to the British woes would be the mine fields/barriers. If the Germans could establish and maintain the mine barriers either side of the Dover Straits, any invading fleet would likely suffer 1/3 losses crossing such a barrier, just like at Kallinengrad.

You guys need to acknowledge that the reason any invasion of UK didn't happen, was firstly because Hitler didn't want to invade the UK . He really believed the British would stand aside and let him get on with his racial strategy. All through the 1930s he adjusted the German rearmament drive to avoid conflict with the UK because he saw them as potential racial allies. Deep down Hitler believed the English were part of his Aryan race. Hitler tolerated the BoB as part of what has been referred to as 'Fright wars' to scare the British into neutrality.

 

[michaelmaltby]

".... You guys need to acknowledge that the reason any invasion of UK didn't happen, was firstly because Hitler didn't want to invade the UK . He really believed the British would stand aside and let him get on with his racial strategy. All through the 1930s he adjusted the German rearmament drive to avoid conflict with the UK because he saw them as potential racial allies. Deep down Hitler believed the English were part of his Aryan race. Hitler tolerated the BoB as part of what has been referred to as 'Fright wars' to scare the British into neutrality."

This is very true, psteel.

MM

 

[Njaco]

BTW Hitler's faith faltered halfway through the Norway invasion, but he was convinced by the Generals to continue.

psteel, just read about that and it surprised me. He really didn't have confidence in his armies despite his boasting.