Did RAF Prevent Operation Sealion?

[sample]

If we take account of another events we could might apreciate well the importance of RAF for Allies: i will refer to Rotterdam Blitz, the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by the German Airforce on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. A total of 90 bombers from Kampfgeschwader 54 were sent over the city, with 33 bombers turned back; the rest proceeded with their attack, dropping low to release 97 tonnes of bombs, mostly in the heart of the city. Some ignited vegetable oil tanks on the dockside, the fires spreading into the city centre. Although exact numbers are not known, 800 to 900 people were killed and 80,000 made homeless.
Around 2.6 square kilometres (1 square mile) of the city was almost levelled. 24,978 homes, 24 churches, 2,320 stores, 775 warehouses and 62 schools were destroyed. Germany threatened to bomb other Dutch cities, but started with Rotterdam due to its unrivalled strategic and industrial importance for the Netherlands and the rest of the region. This included Germany's enemies like France, but also Germany itself, since Rotterdam is the gateway to the sea due to its situation on the great European rivers Rhine and Meuse (Maas).
The Dutch Army had no means of stopping the bombers (the Dutch Air Force was practically non-existent), and the Dutch government decided to capitulate rather than suffer a repeat of Rotterdam in Amsterdam or The Hague.
In retrospect, this has triggered the remark that the Dutch government used Rotterdam and its inhabitants as a "bargaining chip". It was the Blitzkrieg in its essence: spreading terror and breaking the will to fight. I will put the same scenario on british side: a more or less succesfull Dunkirk evacuation
(at the start of the operation Dynamo RN hoped to evacuate some 40.000 soldiers) and a fleet largely intact and without air cover facing Luftwaffe and 1 heavy cruiser (Hipper), 3 light cruisers and some 10 destroyers (this was the state of the Kriegsmarine after the Norvegian Campaign);
so sistematic air campaign of destruction of british cities carried whitout air oposition (the british army alone was in a no position to challenge the Whermacht on continent after evacuation) would have been forced the British Government to reconsider it's position might seek peace by means of terror and destruction.

In retrospect the conduct of the Luftwaffe during Battle of Britain followed the same strategy as in the dutch case, elimination of the fighter command in first phase and a sustained bombing ofensive against british cities and forcing the british goverment to seek peace in the final phase; the so called ill-fated decision (in british perspective) to switch the bombings from airfields to London during Bob was infact a natural decision as we might say from german perspective.

i apologize for possible errors regarding grammar or spelling, however English is not my native language. best regards

[tallyhooldboy]

Hi all,

Please read extracts below from Winston Churchill "The Few" speech, does he praise one arm of the Defence Forces, or all for halting Sea Lion? I rest my case.

August 20, 1940
Winston Churchill "The Few"
House of Commons


Meanwhile, we have not only fortified our hearts but our Island. We have rearmed and rebuilt our armies in a degree which would have been deemed impossible a few months ago. We have ferried across the Atlantic, in the month of July, thanks to our friends over there, an immense mass of munitions of all kinds: cannon, rifles, machine guns, cartridges and shell, all safely landed without the loss of a gun or a round. The output of our own factories, working as they have never worked before, has poured forth to the troops. The whole British Army is at home. More than 2,000,000 determined men have rifles and bayonets in their hands tonight, and three-quarters of them are in regular military formations. We have never had armies like this in our Island in time of war. The whole Island bristles against invaders, from the sea or from the air. As I explained to the House in the middle of June, the stronger our Army at home, the larger must the invading expedition be, and the larger the invading expedition, the less difficult will be the task of the Navy in detecting its assembly and in intercepting and destroying it in passage; and the greater also would be the difficulty of feeding and supplying the invaders if ever they landed, in the teeth of continuous naval and air attack on their communications. All this is classical and venerable doctrine. As in Nelson's day, the maxim holds, "Our first line of defense is the enemy's ports." Now air reconnaissance and photography have brought to an old principle a new and potent aid.

Our Navy is far stronger than it was at the beginning of the war. The great flow of new construction set on foot at the outbreak is now beginning to come in. We hope our friends across the ocean will send us a timely reinforcement to bridge the gap between the peace flotillas of 1939 and the war flotillas of 1941. There is no difficulty in sending such aid. The seas and oceans are open. The U-boats are contained. The magnetic mine is, up to the present time, effectively mastered. The merchant tonnage under the British flag, after a year of unlimited U-boat war, after eight months of intensive mining attack, is larger than when we began. We have, in addition, under our control at least 4,000,000 tons of shipping from the captive countries which has taken refuge here or in the harbors of the Empire. Our stocks of food of all kinds are far more abundant than in the days of peace, and a large and growing program of food production is on foot.

The great air battle which has been in progress over this Island for the last few weeks has recently attained a high intensity. It is too soon to attempt to assign limits either to its scale or to its duration. We must certainly expect that greater efforts will be made by the enemy than any he has so far put forth. Hostile air fields are still being developed in France and the Low Countries, and the movement of squadrons and material for attacking us is still proceeding. It is quite plain that Herr Hitler could not admit defeat in his air attack on Great Britain without sustaining most serious injury. If after all his boastings and bloodcurdling threats and lurid accounts trumpeted round the world of the damage he has inflicted, of the vast numbers of our Air Force he has shot down, so he says, with so little loss to himself; if after tales of the panic-stricken British crushed in their holes cursing the plutocratic Parliament which has led them to such a plight-if after all this his whole air onslaught were forced after a while tamely to peter out, the Fuhrer's reputation for veracity of statement might be seriously impugned. We may be sure, therefore, that he will continue as long as he has the strength to do so, and as long as any preoccupations he may have in respect of the Russian Air Force allow him to do so.

On the other hand, the conditions and course of the fighting have so far been favorable to us. I told the House two months ago that, whereas in France our fighter aircraft were wont to inflict a loss of two or three to one upon the Germans, and in the fighting at Dunkirk, which was a kind of no-man's-land, a loss of about three or four to one, we expected that in an attack on this Island we should achieve a larger ratio. This has certainly come true. It must also be remembered that all the enemy machines and pilots which are shot down over our Island, or over the seas which surround it, are either destroyed or captured; whereas a considerable proportion of our machines, and also of our pilots, are saved, and soon again in many cases come into action.

A vast and admirable system of salvage, directed by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, ensures the speediest return to the fighting line of damaged machines, and the most provident and speedy use of all the spare parts and material. At the same time the splendid-nay, astounding-increase in the output and repair of British aircraft and engines which Lord Beaverbrook has achieved by a genius of organization and drive, which looks like magic, has given us overflowing reserves of every type of aircraft, and an ever-mounting stream of production both in quantity and quality. The enemy is, of course, far more numerous than we are. But our new production already, as I am advised, largely exceeds his, and the American production is only just beginning to flow in. It is a fact, as I see from my daily returns, that our bomber and fighter strength now, after all this fighting, are larger than they have ever been. We believe that we shall be able to continue the air struggle indefinitely and as long as the enemy pleases, and the longer it continues the more rapid will be our approach, first towards that parity, and then into that superiority, in the air upon which in a large measure the decision of the war depends.

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and b~ their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain.

We are able to verify the results of bombing military targets in Germany, not only by reports which reach us through many sources, but also, of course, by photography. I have no hesitation in saying that this process of bombing the military industries and communications of Germany and the air bases and storage depots from which we are attacked, which process will continue upon an ever-increasing scale until the end of the war, and may in another year attain dimensions hitherto undreamed of, affords one at least of the most certain, if not the shortest, of all the roads to victory. Even if the Nazi legions stood triumphant on the Black Sea, or indeed upon the Caspian, even if Hitler was at the gates of India, it would profit him nothing if at the same time the entire economic and scientific apparatus of German war power lay shattered and pulverized at home.

The fact that the invasion of this Island upon a large scale has become a far more difficult operation with every week that has passed since we saved our Army at Dunkirk, and our very great preponderance of sea power enable us to turn our eyes and to turn our strength increasingly towards the Mediterranean and against that other enemy who, without the slightest provocation, coldly and deliberately, for greed and gain, stabbed France in the back in the moment of her agony, and is now marching against us in Africa.

[Freightshaker]

IMO, Hitler was responsible for preventing Sealion. It's the only proposed campaign that he was not actively involved in. Any other campaign had Hitler embedded deep into the details but not Sealion. He had no real zeal or enthusiasm for it. I feel the invasion was but a threat to try and persuade the Brits to the negotiating table.

[redcoat]

Originally Posted by Freightshaker

IMO, Hitler was responsible for preventing Sealion.

No. The British prevented Sealion. The Royal Navy and the RAF were both too strong for any attack to have a practical chance of success

It's the only proposed campaign that he was not actively involved in. Any other campaign had Hitler embedded deep into the details but not Sealion. He had no real zeal or enthusiasm for it.

The problem for Hitler was the body of water between Britain and France, this brought the Royal Navy into the equation, and even as a 'land-lubber' he was aware how powerful it was.
I think the lack of enthusiasm was due to the fact he couldn't really see a way past the RN.

I feel the invasion was but a threat to try and persuade the Brits to the negotiating table.

To a large extent I agree with you, but at the start it was a real plan, it was only when the German high command realised the full extent of the difficulties they faced in any attempted attack and the stubborn resistance of the RAF that it became merely a bluff