The Strategic Role of the Battle of Britain

The British Navy of 1940 was vastly superior to the German Kriegsmarine, except seapower was now inextricably butt wizd to air power. If the Luftwaffe could rule the skies, British naval superiority on the sea surface could be counterbalanced and eliminated, and the way assailable for the first successful invasion of England since 1066.

Yet when Operation ocean social lion is closely examined, it seems virtually to fall apart. The German Wehrmacht had basically no experience in amphibious warfare (Fleming, 1957: 44). Nor did anyone else, at that time, though the Japanese Army and  especially  the U.S. Marine corps were conducting exercises that would pave the way for the great amphibious landings in after stages of the war. But the Wehrmacht made almost no special preparations for a Channel crossing, which seemed by the high command to be conceived as little much than a rivercrossing (a standard host operation) on a somewhat larger scale (Fleming, 1957: 4647). The invasion force was made up not of getbuilt amphibious ships and boats, but of hastily requisitioned steamers and canalbarges. The operation, in the first place planned for forty divisions (about three quarters of a one thousand million men) was reduced in the planning process to a true thirteen divisions, which would have to be landed in dribbles over a period of two weeks or more. In likeness to the careful thought give

(Deighton, 1978: 227)

n to other operations, and for which the German General Staff was renowned, the preparations for Sealion seem so lax that many have questioned whether it was forever seriously intended (Fleming, 1957: 238ff).

Such advantages as Britain had were only latent.

By mid1940, the British were building more planes, and training more aircrews, than the Germans were. As important, if not more so, was that the obdurate Churchill had now replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister. Britain now had a armed combat leader  and that, perhaps, was the one thing for which Hitler was least prepared. Swift suddenness and psychological solicitude had always been the keys to his success. France collapsed not because of material weaknesses (it had better tanks than the German panzer divisions did), but because the French were beaten in spirit before the fighting started.

The Germans also had high expectations for citybombing. The plans for Operation SeaLion called for massivebombing of London just before "DDay," for general demoralization and to clog the roads with panicky, fleeing refugees, thus disrupting justificative military movements. But in the event, the bombing of London would be a turningpoint in the Battle of Britain  in England's favor  and was the third decisive tactical error which the Germans made.

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