What was the reason for the Battle of Britain?
Following the defeat of France in June 1940, Britain (and her Commonwealth and residue of Empire) was the only one of the original Allies (France and Poland were the others) unoccupied. On 16th July 1940 Hitler issued a Directive that, “As England, in spite of the hopelessness of her military position, has so far shown herself unwilling to come to any compromise, I have decided to begin to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion of England… and if necessary the island will be occupied.” Germany was unprepared, surprised by the speed and success of their attack on France no plan had been made to invade Britain, Franz Halder was given 1 month to conceive and prepare an invasion plan, named Operation Sealion. The first step to invasion was to destroy the RAF, with no air supremacy no invasion fleet could hope to cross the English Channel without being mauled from the air. Herman Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe (the German airforce), was convinced that the best way to
The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England) is the name given to the attack of Britain by the German air force during the summer and autumn of 1940 -The Royal Air Force roll of honour for the Battle of Britain recognises 595 non-British pilots (out of 2,936) as flying at least one authorised operational sortie with an eligible unit of the RAF or Fleet Air Arm between 10 July and 31 October, 1940.[56][57] These included 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovakians, 28 Belgians, 32 Australians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 7 American, 10 Irish, and one each from Jamaica, the British Mandate of Palestine, and Southern Rhodesia. – Germans had 4,074 aircrafts -Allied deaths-544 killed, 1,547 aircraft destroyed Axis deaths-2,500 killed, 1,887 aircraft destroyed Civilians casualties- 59,588 civilian casualties -On 13 October, Hitler again postponed the invasion until the spring of 1941; however, the invasion never happened, and October is regarded as the mont
