How did Britain resist and contribute to the defeat of Germany in the Second World War?

The Phoney War, 1939-40

By the end of September, Germany and Russia had defeated Poland. Britain and France made no effort to attack Hitler. A British Expeditionary Force of four divisions – 158,000 men with 25,000 vehicles – left for France on 11 Sept, but it was too small and poorly equipped to challenge the Nazi army. And France’s strategy was dominated by the Maginot line, a defensive super-trench on the border, which French generals believed would keep France safe from Nazi attack.

The Phoney War appears to have been an attempt by Hitler to push Britain and other west European into backing down over Poland, because they had backed down in Munich in 1938.

The German invasion of Norway, April 1940

The Phoney War ended in April 1940 when Germany attacked Norway. Control of Norway’s extensive coastline would have been very important in the battle for control of the North Sea and easing the passage of German warships and submarines into the Atlantic. The control of Norway would also aid Germany’s ability to import iron ore from Sweden. At the start of the war, Germany imported about 10 million tons of iron ore from Sweden. Therefore it was important for Germany’s war effort. Nine million tons of this came from north Sweden

The defeat of France, 1940

The evacuation from Dunkirk

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The defeat of France, 1940

The evacuation from Dunkirk

By 27 May, the British had decided that the battle was lost, and they began to withdraw their troops to the seaport of Dunkirk. This opened up a gap in the Allied line, which the Germans exploited. The advancing German Army trapped the British and French armies on the beaches around Dunkirk. 330,000 men were trapped here and they were sitting target for the Germans. Admiral Ramsey, based in Dover, formulated Operation Dynamo to get off of the beaches as many men as was possible. The Belgians surrendered on 28 May, but since 26 May, The British did not tell the French, who only found out when some French troops, who had tried to flee to Britain, complained to their commander that they had not been allowed to get on the boats.

345,000 Allied troops were evacuated. When they heard about it, many private individuals sailed their yachts and paddleboats to Dunkirk to ‘do their bit’. In Britain, Churchill described the withdrawal as ‘a miracle of deliverance’. He even claimed ‘there was a victory in that deliverance’. In the newspaper and newsreels, the evacuation was shown as a successful, heroic adventure

Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain took place between August and September 1940. After the success of Blitzkrieg, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the surrender of France, Britain was by herself. Hitler planned to invade Britain. The Germans needed to control the English Channel to launch her invasion of Britain which the Germans code-named Operation Sea lion.

At the start of the war, Germany had 4,000 aircraft compared to Britain's front-line strength of 1,660. By the time of the fall of France, the Luftwaffe this was the German air force had 3,000 planes based in northwest Europe alone including 1,400 bombers, 300 dive bombers, 800 single engine fighter planes and 240 twin engine fighter bombers. From August 23rd to September 6th, the Luftwaffe started nighttime bombing raids on cities.

The RAF was also badly hit with 6 out of 7 main fighter bases in southeastern England being put out of action. Biggen Hill was wrecked. However, for all this apparent success, the Luftwaffe was losing more planes than the RAF was - 1000 German losses to 550 RAF.

The Battle of The Atlantic

The fall of France allowed U-Boats to operate far into the Atlantic from French ports. Nazi shipyards produced about 20 new U-boats a months, and British merchant shipping losses grew.

After summer 1940, the U-boats attacked in large ‘wolf-packs’ – when a U-boat came across a convoy, it would radio its position to a number of other submarines, which would close in on the convoy. Then they would wait until nightfall and make surface attacks in numbers. On 18 October 1940, a pack of 6 Nazi U-boats attacked slow convoy SC–7, sinking 15 ships in 6 hours. Next day, reinforced by three more U-boats, the pack attacked the 49-ship convoy HX-79, sinking 12 ships in one night. The USA tried to help Britain. In August 1940 the US gave Britain 50 destroyers in exchange for Atlantic naval bases, and, after August 1941, by an agreement called the Atlantic Charter that Roosevelt made with Churchill, convoys were defended by the US Navy. It had little effect. Losses were huge. The worst period was from the beginning of 1942 to March 1943 when 7 million tons of merchant shipping was sunk. In July 1942, 143 ships were sunk in a single month, and in November 1942, 117 ships were lost.

The bombing of Germany

Germany was heavily bombed though for many people the blanket bombing of Germany could be forgiven after the traumas of Dunkirk and the tribulations of the Battle of Britain. Simple public satisfaction was enough of a rationale to explain away the bombing of Germany during World War Two. The main issue was whether we targeted the correct targets. In 1944 Britain dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Germany the highest annual figure of the war.

Yet in that year Germany was producing more industrial and war goods than ever before. It was only in 1944 that we changed targets and bombed strategic targets such as railway lines, bridges, motorways etc. and Germany’s ability to make industrial goods was smashed.

D-Day

The planning for D-Day began in 1943 at the Quebec Conference in Canada. The planned invasion was given the code word "Overlord". It was believed by the Allies that the Germans expected an Allied attack at the nearest point to occupied Europe the Pays de Calais. Their plan was for an attack on the beaches of Normandy, which would include a much longer crossing of the English Channel. Technical planning for D-Day had to start early. The beaches were secretly surveyed so that the Allies could find out about the sand shingle on the beaches. The planned landing would require a large number of tanks and armoured vehicles to be landed along with infantry. Landing on the Normandy beaches was grim on the first day, 3600 soldiers died or wounded, and Americans lost 6000 men, however 150,000 allied soldiers had landed. Even so, by the end of D-Day, 132,715 men were ashore, and this rose quickly over the next few days – by 12 June 2 million men were in Normandy.