Who really won the Battle of Britain?
Did the Germans ever have a joined-up plan for the invasion of Britain? Churchill didn’t think so. But that’s not what he told the British public. And for good reason.
The Germans make extraordinary preparations for the immense task of invading Britain in 1940. Why bother when neither Hitler nor any senior German officer wanted to do it or thought it was possible?
Was the Battle of Britain a fight for Luftwaffe air superiority in order to enable an invasion? The Luftwaffe itself did not think so. It had another agenda altogether.
Britain is gripped by fear of invasion. Government leaflet 'If the Invader Comes' calls for pepper and ‘a sharp knife to kill them if necessary.’ Churchill goes on BBC and says ‘we await undismayed by the impending assault. Perhaps it will come tonight.’ So why in private is Churchill saying he doubts the invasion would ever take place?
Churchill talks up the threat of invasion, even though it looks impossible. ‘I might as well send my men straight into a sausage machine,’ writes the German Chief of Staff. But invasion preparations still go on. Who is bluffing who?
The Battle of Britain was never as close as the popular story has it. The RAF was too well organised and supplied. But is that why the Luftwaffe switched to bombing London? Or was there another reason?
Who won the Battle of Britain? For good strategic reasons Churchill claimed victory. But the Germans, who saw the eight months of the Blitz as part of the same campaign, achieved much of what they intended.
The most enjoyable book on Operation Sea Lion is still Peter Fleming’s Operation Sea Lion first published in 1957. Fleming was an intelligence officer who knew and interviewed many of the people who were involved. The most interesting pilots’ stories can be found in Patrick Bishop’s Battle of Britain (revised edition 2010).
Richard Holmes, In the Footsteps of Churchill (2005), has a colourful account of the Prime Minister in 1940. To understand Churchill better you really have to use Martin Gilbert’s official biography Finest Hour. Winston S. Churchill 1939-41 (1983), which is a serious undertaking. Read it alongside Andrew Roberts’s entertaining, Churchill. Walking with Destiny (2018). The tone of which you can guess from its title.
The best general, accessible survey of the Second World War is probably still Peter Calvocoressi and others’ The Second World War (third edition 2001). It’s another big book.
Geoff Hewitt’s Hitler’s Armada (2008) is not difficult to read and argues that it was the Royal Navy and not the RAF that saved Britain in 1940.
Peter Schenk’s Invasion of England 1940. The Planning of Operation Sealion (1987, translated 1990) is by far the best book on German preparations and makes it clear in considerable and deeply-documented detail that it was never going to work.
To see more about where we have found our interpretation you would also need to tackle some serious textbooks:
Richard Overy, Goering, Hitler’s Iron Knight (2012) and Richard J Evans, The Third Reich at War (2008) deal with it from the German side. So does Keith W. Bird, Erich Raeder. Admiral of the Third Reich (2006). He concludes that ‘Operation Sea Lion served as a bluff, a propaganda ploy, and a diversion for other military operations (the Russian campaign).’
On the other side, journalist Leo Mckinstry’s heavy Operation Sealion (2014) accepts that Churchill did not think the invasion was ever viable but argues he was wrong. You can make your own mind up.
There are plenty of documents to read.
Churchill’s own account was published in 1949 as Their Finest Hour.
The British War Cabinet’s minutes are available on-line here, and make it obvious the threat was taken much less seriously behind the scenes.
The German Franz Halder’s diary was published as The Halder War Diary 1939-42 (1988).
Helmuth Greiner’s account and extracts from the originals of the OKW (the Supreme German Command) diaries, are on-line here.
There are countless websites but most you should use with care.
The RAF’s own site includes a day-by-day account of the battle.
The RAF Museum’s site also has some good material.
This site has a mass of original material to use.
There’s not yet a good site for Sealion, though the BBC is, as always, informative.
The most recent cinema film about the summer of 1940 is The Battle of Britain (1969), which of course tells the traditional story. Come on, all you budding film makers.
The Imitation Game (2014) deals with Bletchley Park and includes this period. It’s a good watch but not to be taken as history.
Go to see the ‘Battle of Britain Bunker’, Group 11’s operations room, at Uxbridge and the Churchill War Rooms, in Whitehall. They’re run by the Imperial War Museum.