The Battle of Britain June 18th – October 31st , 1940

By: Shannon LaPoint

Who Was There? Great Britain

The RAF

The head of the RAF was Hugh Dowding

Germany

The Luftwaffe

The head of the Luftwaffe was Herman Goring

At the Start of the War

Britain had 1,660 aircrafts.

800 spitfires.

800 hurricanes.

But only 600 of those were serviceable before the night of this battle.

The RAF also lacked experienced pilots because most of them had been killed in the war of France and had not been replaced.

Germany had 4,000 aircrafts.

1,400 bombers.

800 single engine

fighter planes.

300 dive bombers.

240 twin engine

fighter planes.

2,500 planes were serviceable.

June 18th – October 31st

The RAF was split into 3 major groups.

No. 11 – defend London

No. 12 – defend eastern

counties and midlands

No. 13- defend Scotland

and northeast England

The RAF's main fighter planes were Spitfires and Hurricanes.

The RAF's plans were supplied with RADAR which played a big roll in German defeat.

The Luftwaffe mainly fought over southern England.

The Luftwaffe had 2,800 aircraft’s stationed in France, Belgium, Holland and Norway after the fall of France.

Germany relied mainly on Messcherschmitt fighters and Junker Dive Bombers.

They used a new style of war fare called the Blitzkrieg.

What was the Battle of Britain? After the fall of France, Hitler went after Great Britain in what is known as

the Battle of Britain, a four month battle for air superiority.

All Hitler needed was control of the English Channel so that the British Navy could not attack German barges, but getting the Channel, they would need control of the air.

There were two things the British had that the Germans did not.

RADAR, which gave them early warning of approaching German

planes.

The Royal Observers Corps (ROC), which used binoculars to

do the same job as RADAR but only from the ground

By the end of July, the RAF had lost 150 aircrafts while the Luftwaffe had lost 268.

By August the Luftwaffe started attacking Fighter Command stations and RADAR stations.

The idea being that the RAF could be destroyed from the ground.

Bad weather stopped the Luftwaffe from daily raids in August.

From August 23rd to September 6th , the Luftwaffe started bombing cities and civilians during the night.

The RAF was badly hit with 6 out of 7 main fighter bases being

destroyed.

By now the Luftwaffe was losing even more planes then the RAF

was – 1000 German losses to 550 RAF losses.

The change to bombing cities gave Fighter Command time to

recover from its losses and pilots to recover from exhaustion.

Soon Goering ordered an end to raids on RADAR bases, as they were “unimportant.”

On September 15th , the battles last major engagement, the Luftwaffe lost 60 planes while the RAF lost 28.

September 17th , Hitler postponed the invasion of Britain through night time bombings.

But the Blitzkrieg continued.

London and other places were all hit badly with these raids.

Works Cited Page

Barker, Ralph. The RAF At War. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life, 1982. Print.

"The Battle of Britain." History Learning Site. Web. 28 Jan. 2011.

<http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battleofbritain.html>.

"Battle of Britain." Spartacus Educational - Home Page. Web. 28 Jan. 2011.

<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWbritainB.htm>.

The Luftwaffe. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life, 1982. Print.

"RAF - Page Not Found." RAF - RAF Homepage. 16 Feb. 2005. Web. 28 Jan.

2011. <http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/bacjground.html>.

Rice, Earle. Strategic Battles in Europe. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 2000. Print.