Buoyed by hitherto easy success and having failed to win Britain as a friend, Hitler turned his attention now on Britain and launched an attack on 1 July, 1940 when 617 fighters escorted by 348 bombers crossed the Channel and dropped bombs on The London Docks, the Woolwich Arsenal and the armament factories at Silvertown. He knew that to win the war against Britain he had to weaken the superior British naval force by crippling the RAF, which would make their ports, dockyards and navy vulnerable to attacks by German planes. Hence, he started “Operation Sealion” by bombing ports, radar stations and RAF airfields. However, the British Hurricanes and Spitfires supported by radars proved to be more than a match for the Luftwaffe’s Stukas. The German Luftwaffe lacked in leadership, tactics, long range bombers, experienced pilots and specialized fighter planes. For instance, German fighters could carry fuel for only 30 minutes flying time over England. Britain lost 1,116 planes while the Germans lost 1,660 planes. The British were also able to produce more replacement planes (563 per month) than the Germans. As a result, the Germans failed to destroy the RAF and lost the fight for the skies. Hence, on 7th September, 1940 Hitler ordered an end to the daylight attacks and decided to go back to his tactics of Blitzkrieg by launching a night time aerial “Blitz” on London and other major cities, with the objective to humble the country to surrender by breaking down the infrastructure and morale of the people.
For the next eight months British cities were subject to intensive bombing in what is known as the Blitz. As Field Marshall Kessering has explained, their aim was to disturb production especially British armament to begin a full scale economic war for which industrial centers, power plants and armament centers in places such as Manchester in December 1940, Liverpool in May 1941, Coventry, Birmingham, and Woolich Arsenal and Silvertown in London were targeted. Coventry was worst affected with 30,000 incendiary bombs dropped in one night in November which almost destroyed the town.
Destroy public morale by bombing densely populated residential areas, East End of London and religious towns such as York and Canterbury. Hitler believed that the people of Britain would surrender if they saw large civilian casualties and became
exhausted by scarcity of food supplies, medicines and sleepless nights so that there would be none to organize resistance. London was most heavily bombed in 1940 with an average of 250 tonnes of bombs were dropped each time which left over 13,000 killed in London alone. Every major town and city in the British Isles was attacked and by the summer of 1941 43,000 people had been killed in air raids across Britain and over 300,000 became homeless.
Disrupt supplies, transport and communications by targeting ports, telephones, railway lines and junctions. Ports were raided in January, 1941 with 530 people killed in Southampton,1, 000 in Bristol, 299 in Port in Cardiff, 930 at Portsmouth and 900 in the ‘Belfast Blitz” in the Easter 1941. Glasgow and the Clyde shipyard towns were hit in 1941
Demoralize the government into surrender by bombing the symbol of the British empire –the Buckingham Palace on 10th and 13th September, 1940 and the Westminister.
With the stoical spirit of the British people, the strength of its navy, superior airpower and Winston Churchill’s inspirational leadership and superb skill in war strategy Britain could survive the Blitz and emerge victorious.
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