[responsivevoice_button]
After France had been neutralized, the Axis forces of Germany and Italy turned their attention to Britain in two different ways.
Germany Attacks Britain
Hitler began taking control of the Channel Islands (British occupied islands in the English Channel between Britain and France) and he claimed that he would do what Napoleon never could, he would invade Britain. This would come to be known as Operation Sealion and it was much more difficult than the Germans had originally thought.
Hitler believed the British would not keep fighting after Dunkirk, but they were stirred to defend their homeland and they fought valiantly. Any amphibious invasion is difficult and costly and would require the ability to cross the Channel without having their carrier ships bombed. Then once you get your troops to the shores, you have to be ready with supplies.
All of this meant that Germany felt that it needed to neutralize the British Naval fleet and the Royal Air Force (RAF) in order to accomplish this monumental goal. So on July 10, 1940, the Battle of Britain began with 120 German bombers and fighters striking a British shipping convoy in the Channel, while 70 more bombers attacked dockyard installations.
During August, as many as 1,500 German aircraft crossed the Channel daily, often blotting out the sun as they flew against their British targets. Despite the odds against them, the outnumbered RAF flyers successfully resisted the massive German air invasion. For every British plane shot down, two Luftwaffe warplanes were destroyed.
The Battle of Britain is interesting because it was a 4 month-long series of battles fought almost exclusively in the air. This was not the trench warfare of World War I. Advances in technology would make World War II drastically different in many ways. Although Britain had around half as many planes as the Germans, they had some significant advantages that helped to make the difference.
The Enigma Code
A significant factor in winning any war is good intelligence. And if you know what the other side is planning well in advance, then you can prepare your defense while formulating a new offensive. By mid-1939, British intelligence, with the help of the Polish, who had already worked out some of the algorithms, was able to decode radio messages intercepted from the Germans.
Alan Turing was the British mathematician behind the Bombe machine. It was crucial to cracking German communications encoded by the German Enigma machines. Turing’s machine, which is a precursor to what we now think of as a computer, was able to rapidly speed up the rate at which intercepted messages were decoded, allowing allied forces to react accordingly within hours rather than weeks.
If this seems interesting, you can learn way more by watching the videos below:
- How an Enigma Machine worked.
- How did the Bombe Machine decode?
- If your parents are okay with it, you can also watch the 2014 movie “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch. He stars as Alan Turing and it is about his role in creating this machine while also exploring his difficult personal life.
Radar
While all of the big players in World War II had developed Radar (Radio Detection and Ranging) technology by the start of the war, much of the pioneering development was accomplished by the British. It had been developed over the years with input from many sources, but it was a Scottish physicist looking for a way to help airmen locate and avoid approaching thunderstorms who designed the first set put into practical use. His name was Robert Watson-Watt, and he soon realized, as he perfected his device, that radio waves could be used to detect more than storms.
Once the government saw the capabilities of this technology, they quickly embraced it and by September 1939, when war broke out in Europe, the British had a network of radar installations covering the English Channel and North Sea coasts. This effective radar system meant that the Germans couldn’t sneak up on them and the British could leave their planes on the ground until they were needed saving resources. I believe that it was radar, even more than the RAF pilots and planes, that kept Britain in the fight for so long.
Battle becomes Blitz
After 4 months of ineffective and costly raids on England, Hitler was enraged and ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF installations to London and other British cities. On September 7, the Blitz against London began, and after a week of almost ceaseless attacks several areas of London were in flames and the royal palace, churches, and hospitals had all been hit. However, the concentration on London allowed the RAF to recuperate elsewhere, and on September 15 the RAF launched a vigorous counterattack.
This period of the Blitz of London would stretch from September 1940 – May 1941. Nearly every night, Londoners could expect that German bombers would soar through the air above-head and drop hundreds of bombs with no discernable target. In fact, the British were instructed to darken every light so they didn’t provide any distinguishable targets for the Luftwaffe.
Air raid sirens would go off and if you weren’t already sleeping in an underground shelter, you would try to find one, or you might be part of the team of civilians who went to work overnight to try and minimize the damage done by the bombs. Obviously, they didn’t want to give Hitler the pleasure of knowing that they were terrorized by these bombs night after night.
Watch the videos below to see how the propaganda coming out of Britain portrayed the Blitz, then hear a couple of firsthand accounts from survivors of those harrowing nights.
In May 1941, the nightly bombings of the Blitz came to a surprising end as Germany began amassing troops on the border of Russia. We’ll talk more about this invasion next time, and discuss why Hitler would turn against his ally at a time like this, and why it is so hard to invade Russia, unless you are the Mongols.
Italy Bumbles North Africa
As the Battle of Britain began, Italy was eager to show its worth. They took advantage of the neutralized French territory in Africa to turn their attention towards Egypt. There were three reasons why Italy focused on Egypt:
First, Egypt was the land that divided Italy’s African holdings in the north and Ethiopia. Therefore, they thought they could attack on two fronts and bring the battle to a swift conclusion. Second, Egypt was home to one of the greatest economic factors in all of the world, the Suez Canal. That canal connected the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean and if Italy and the Axis Powers could control the ships that passed through that canal, it could drastically affect the outcome of the war. Finally, Egypt was controlled by Britain, and since Germany was busy bombing the British homeland, the Italians thought that the Egyptian forces would be weakened as reinforcements were sent to Britain.
They greatly underestimated the difficulties of waging war in North Africa and they underestimated the strength of the British forces in Egypt. By September 1940, Italy had reached as far into Egypt as it could and found its army out of supplies and terribly weakened. The British responded and pushed them back. The North African theater would prove to be a difficult fight and the Italians would need help from the Germans in the form of Erwin Rommel to make any progress. In the meantime, the Italians picked fights with Islands in the Mediterranean as well as Greece.
Pacts and Acts
As 1940 came to a close, the leaders of Germany, Italy, and Japan met in Berlin to negotiate and sign the Tripartite Pact. This agreement gave spheres of influence to each party and stated that each would come to the other’s aid if attacked by a force not currently involved in the war. Hungary and Romania would also sign the agreement in the coming months. The big notable exclusion from this Pact was Russia.
Obviously, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was still in effect, but it meant that the Soviets were not in on the discussions in the same way as others were. We know now that this is because Hitler already had his eyes fixed on the land of western Russia as the hope for his Hunger Plan.
At this point, we’re still nearly a full year from the United States official entrance into World War II. However, late in 1940, the draft had begun in preparation for war and a plan was making its way through Congress called the Lend-Lease Act.
This act allowed the US government to sell weapons to the British as well as any other country that the president deemed appropriate to national security. This was a remarkable shift because up to this point, the US had supported Britain but only as long as they could pay up front.
This Act would change America’s role in the war and take them from a role of neutrality to enough of a threat that the Japanese would attack just a few months after the US provided weapons to China.
Pingback: Advancing Fronts – Mr. Mauldin's Class
Its crazy to see that the bombings on England had the exact opposite effect that Hitler wanted. He wanted to demoralize the English people but instead they unified and just got them more excited to take down the Germans.
I think England is a perfect example of what you should do if you are in a tough situation: Never give up. Instead become determined to get through it. I also think that America was bombed by Japan because we were indirectly helping Britain. As the video said, they did everything except put troops on the front line. To me it seems as though America was involved in the war when they started giving weapons to the British.
I agree, that grit and determination is inspiring. So do you think the Lend-Lease Act was a good way for America to stick its toes in the war without jumping all the way in?
I think its kind of amazing to see that during the night raids the British did not really care about the damage that was caused and just went onto there normal every day life. Almost like they did not know what happened those nights.
What would have happened if Italy had gained control of Egypt? How would it have affected the war as a whole?
The Suez Canal runs through Egypt to connect the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. It was part of Mussolini’s efforts to recreate the Roman Empire of old.
I think the Lend-Lease act by the United States came at just the right time for the war. Britain had just fought off both the Germans and the Italians in 2 different fronts and the Germans were getting ready to break a pact they had made. The tide was beginning to turn, so in an effort to change that Hitler made a new pact, but the United States had now come to the aid of Britain and Germany was now swimming against the tide of the war.
If the night bombings were so unsuccessful, why didn’t the Germans just bomb them during the day, so that they could see?
That’s what The Battle of Britain was. However, they failed at that because the British RAF had better planes, intelligence , and Radar.
Oh, that makes more sense.
Were they still trying to take over Britain with the Blitz, or just demoralize the British? It didn’t seem to do either. After all, the British civilians were able to band together and protect their land. That’s pretty incredible. They were able to hold out long enough for Hitler to decide to focus on Russia. Maybe if the Germans had had a better plan than “rain bombs on them”, they would have done more damage.
Reports show that up until he turned his attention to Russia, Hitler kept adjusting and pushing back the plans to invade Britain. I think he thought that at some point the British would have enough and either give up or be weakened enough that he could manage a successful amphibious invasion.
How did London put up with all the bombings for 8 months? That’s crazy! The Germans were so persistent but London would not let them get a hold of them. Putting up with bombing every single night must have been tiring but London never gave up.
The first thought that comes to mind when I hear German night raids I think of the movie Narnia and how the start of the movie has that scene where the Germans dropped bombs and the people would hide in these shacks and sleep in them until the raids were over.
I wonder what happened to the children’s mother. Did she survive, did her house blow up?
That’s a good point! C.S. Lewis was writing during the war. In many cases, the children were sent out to the country to live with relatives where they were less likely to be in danger. I can very much image that children would have loved to climb into their wardrobe and escape to a magical land where bombs weren’t falling.
What would have happened if either side
destroyed the Suez Canal?
Destroying it would be difficult, they could have damaged it, but that would have helped no one. It was a water Highway for commerce. Whoever controls it controls what passes through it (or how much you pay to pass through).
I cant imagine how crazy it would have been for the people inside houses or near houses that got hit and i wonder how it must have affected them.
hey I commented here too
Humans are resilient. If constant bombings didn’t make the people surrender I’m under the belief that nothing would. They rained bombs on them nightly and the people just continued on with life as normal as possible minus a few blown up buildings. And I cant imagine what they where really feeling under the strong disguise they held up, they where probably terrified.