What was the battle of Britain for?

Answer 1

The Battle of Britain was a momentous struggle between the RAF and Germany's Luftwaffe. Hitler saw England as the last bastion of Fortress Europe, and by taking it he could gain mastery of the continent. However, the Royal Air Force would have decimated the invasion force, and so Hitler needed to forcibly remove it. it began with small scale attacks on shipping in the English Channel, before Goering (Head of the Luftwaffe) decided to attack the RAF's airfields. This drew the British fighters into massive clashes in the sky with the Luftwaffe. Goering had also realised the presence of radar, which was the RAF's key to success, but unfortunately for Germany had not realised its full importance. This meant that the Luftwaffe attacked the RAF's radar stations infrequently, believing they were some kind of aerials. They were much mistaken, and the radar operators could track the Luftwaffe's every move. Throughout the battle, the RAF was constantly outnumbered by Goering's Luftwaffe, having about 650 fighters versus Germany's 2500 fighters and bombers. at the lowest point in the conflict, the RAF were short of 200 pilots, though they were aided by a great many pilots from countries invaded by the Germans (notably Czechoslovakia and Poland, whose pilots possessed a real hatred for the Germans) and airmen from the commonwealth and British Empire. However, the German's effectively lost the Battle for themselves. German bombers accidentally attacked London, which the RAF retaliated for with attacks by Wellington bombers. This led the Luftwaffe to stop attacking the RAF and concentrate on attacking London by night, so starting the great Blitz, which lasted until the winter of 1941. After a final massed attack by as many bombers as Goering could muster on 15th September 1940 (during which the Luftwaffe's bombers were annihilated), the Germans stopped all attacks on the RAF. This was essentially the death blow for the Luftwaffe who had not wiped out the RAF, despite beliefs that they could and had. The German army withdrew from the channel ports, and Hitler scrapped Operation Sealion (the plan to invade Britain) in favour of an equally disastrous invasion of the Soviet Union in the winter of 1941. It was the last time any military force attempted to attack the island nation of the United Kingdom.