Winston Churchill And The Battle Of Britain

13 Pages 3345 Words

A battle in which not only Britons, but also Canadians, Poles, Czechs, Americans, South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders, and the French came together to defeat the greatest menaces the British isles would ever face. Hermann Goring’s air force began its assault on England in July 1940 with more than twice the 600 aircraft available to Sir Hugh Dowding’s Fighter Command. Every day between June and October 1940 the RAF and the Luftwaffe clashed over Britain.
The primary weapon of the RAF to combat the tremendous German threat was the Supermarine Spitfire, a new and flashy fighter that could compete on even terms with anything that the Luftwaffe could hurl at them. The British also made use of the Hawker Hurricane, one of the toughest fighters of the day. As RAF fighter pilot H.G. Niven, who flew both the Spitfire and the Hurricane, said,” Flying the Spitfire was like driving a sports car. It was faster than the old Hurricane, much more delicate... a perfect lady... and so fast!” At Goring’s disposal were a wide variety of planes and their disparate variants such as the Bf-109 which seems to at one point have had every letter of the alphabet tagged on to it to identify some new model or upgrade. Yet the Germans did have a few basic models which served throughout the entire battle in various forms. These included the renowned Bf-109, the superbly designed and amazingly savage Focke-Wulf 190, and the Stuka divebomber whose familiar drone struck fear into the hearts of those undergoing the blitzkrieg.
From the start the Germans had a tremendous advantage over the British, which they used to devastating effect. As the weeks dragged on the Germans pounded RAF bases and radar stations mercilessly and would soon have had total control over the skies of Britain had it not been for a strategic decision of far reaching effect to the German war effort. In late August 1940 the RAF organized a bombing of German territory which ...