In 1940 the Battle of Britain began.
On the 18th of June 1940 newly appointed Prime minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill gave a speech stating that "... the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin". On the 22nd of June France signed an Armistice with Germany leaving Britain as the only remaining Allied threat in Europe. Hitler was indeed planning an invasion of Britain but due to Britain’s superior Royal Navy the invasion would not come from the sea. But Hitler did have the Luftwaffe, the most powerful Air Force in the world.
On the 28th of June 1919 the “Treaty of Versailles”, signed at the end of World War I, ordered Germany to disarm and forbade them from having military forces including an air force. However Germany continued training its pilots using civilian training schools as a cover. Later in 1924 Germany became more daring and aided by Russia they began training in a secret airfield in Lipetsk using larger military aircraft. Shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power as chancellor on the 30th January 1933 he ordered the large scale production of military aircraft and training of pilots under the command of Herman Goering. The Luftwaffe was created on the 15th of May 1933 and thanks to huge financial support within three years the secret air force soon became the largest and most powerful air force in the world.
The Royal Air force was the first independent air force in the world having been formed on the 1st of April 1918. After World War I the Royal Air Force also became the largest air force in the world but this title would not remain for long. When the strength of the Luftwaffe was demonstrated in 1939 and war was imminent the United Kingdom began large scale production of its air force. The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan started on the 17th of December 1939, training pilots in Canada, Australia New Zealand, South Africa and the UK for aerial warfare and strategic bombing. Pilots from all these countries and more would soon be available to fight within their own air force or part of the RAF.
Despite the increased preparations the RAF were numerically inferior to the Luftwaffe and previous fighting in the Battle for France signalled the Luftwaffe’s superiority of the skies. On the 10th of July 1940 the Luftwaffe began an aerial bombardment of British ships in the Channel marking the start of the Battle of Britain. Shortly after the Luftwaffe began to attack coastal shorelines until the 12th of August 1940 when their focus was turned to the RAF, airfields and radar bases. The Luftwaffe’s pilots favoured their Messerschmitt BF 109E (Me 109) for aerial combat believing them to have superior manoeuvrability, while RAF pilots preferred the Spitfire which could out manoeuvre the Me 109 with a smaller turning circular and superior weaponry (the spitfire had 8 machine guns compared to the Me 109’s 2 machine guns and two cannons).
Goering was concerned and surprised with the losses to the Luftwaffe during these raids and on the 4th of September he changed tactics once more with bombing raids of the major cities. These raids continued with the hope of destroying British infrastructure and morale. On the 15th of September the Luftwaffe sent out its largest fleet of 1,120 aircraft with the hope of initiating a large scale attack with the RAF and hopefully annihilating them once and for all. As the 500 bombers approached their target London with their 620 fighter escort, the 620 RAF fighters engaged the invaders and the largest aerial battle in history ensued over the city of London. The RAF proved to be the superior force inflicting far more damage on the enemy despite fewer numbers. Hitler realised that aerial superiority over Britain would not be possible and therefore “Operation Sea Lion”, the invasion of Britain, never came to pass.
In the battle of Britain the RAF had 1,960 aircraft with 2,936 pilots and of these 595 were non British pilots. The foreign Allied pilots that aided in the battle of Britain include 145 Polish, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovakians, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 10 Irish, 7 from the US, 3 Rhodesians, 1 Jamaican and 1 Palestinian. Thanks to the efforts made by these allies and the 2,341 British pilots Hitler lost the Battle of Britain which ended on the 31st of October 1940.
During the Battle on the 20th of August 1940 Churchill gave a speech to the House of Commons, declaring that “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed to so many by so few”.
