Was the Battle of Britain an RAF victory or a Luftwaffe failure?

Answer 1

If you want one answer (although history and life are never that simple) probably a failure by the Luftwaffe if you judge failure by the inability of one side to achieve it's objective. The Luftwaffe failed to 1) destroy the air defenses of Britain so it could launch and invasion (Operation Sea Lion) and 2) failed to bomb Britain into surrender or an armistice. The RAF on the other hand established an effective fighter force (of Spitfires and Hurricanes) efficiently controlled by the advanced (for it's time) radar (RDF) system. Their success in preventing the Luftwaffe achieving its objectives would surely mean they were victorious?

Hitler ordered:-

Since England, despite its militarily hopeless situation, still has not shown any signs of being prepared to negotiate, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and, if necessary, carry it out. The objective of this operation is to eliminate the English home country as a base for the continuation of the war against Germany...

and also a) The English air force must have been beaten down to such an extent morally and in actual fact that it can no longer muster any power of attack worth mentioning against the German crossing.

The Luftwaffe strategy had been to destroy the RAF fighter command in the south East within 4 days and then move onto destroying the military installations and the aircraft industry in the rest of the country within 4 weeks. Lack of intelligence on the success rate and a lack of focus on pursuing parts of the strategy combined with a much higher manufacturing capacity to replace losses enabled the RAF to survive. The British control systems which achieved 80% interception rates and the demand for protection from the bombers hindered some of the more successful Luftwaffe strategies in the air. The Germans while initially attacking the radar stations failed to follow up or attack the infrastructure supporting them and a lack of understanding that they were used not just for early warning but also control led to the attacks being abandoned. At one point the RAF believed they were within weeks having to withdraw and of running out aircraft, in fact it was more the lack of trained pilots that would have caused problems. The German's lack of reliable intelligence in underestimating the capacity of the British to replace losses led them to shift the attack from the airfields to the industrial targets believing they had achieved success just as the RAF had its backs against the wall.

Eventually it became apparent the Luftwaffe had exaggerated its success against the RAF and the invasion was postponed several times, the attack switched to bombing cities and was later stopped as the German focus switched to Russia and the invasion was formally abandoned.

Despite the large numerical superiority the high rate of loss (5 German aircrew for every RAF fighter pilot at the height of the battle) was too much for the Luftwaffe to sustain. So the Luftwaffe failed in its objectives and invasion never came but were the RAF victorious? Well they defeated the Luftwaffe objectives but not the Luftwaffe completely which recovered to its former strength and aided the Germans in victories against the allies in North Africa and Greece. The experience lost over the channel and Britain however could not be replaced and the Luftwaffe was "not the force it had once been". The battle also proved the Germans were not invincible and convinced the Americans that Britain would survive and should be supported. Given the survival of Britain led to it being used as a base with which to liberate Europe from the Nazi's its significance was huge. So 1-0 to the RAF then (1940) and that great quote "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".