WW2 · AUG 1940
Why was bombing London a war-losing mistake for Germany?
The seminar question: “Why did the shift from airfields to London help Britain continue the war?”
After France fell in 1940, the Luftwaffe tried to destroy RAF Fighter Command so that Germany could invade Britain. Britain’s integrated system of radar, observers and control rooms held, and after the Luftwaffe shifted its main effort to London on 7 September, Hitler postponed the invasion on 17 September.
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Operation Sea Lion was Germany’s plan to invade Britain. The Channel made it a formidable undertaking: the German navy had been battered in Norway, and a slow invasion fleet would face the Royal Navy. As long as RAF Fighter Command could operate, German aircraft could not be counted on to protect the crossing. The Luftwaffe therefore set out to destroy the fighters and the facilities that sustained them.
The short answer
- The crossing problem. The Royal Navy stood between an invasion fleet and Britain. Germany’s navy had been badly weakened off Norway, so Sea Lion depended on the Luftwaffe gaining control of the air to protect the crossing.
- A hoped-for settlement. Hitler had not planned a war with Britain and hoped that a show of force might bring negotiation. As Germany sought a decision, the air campaign developed with shifting target priorities.
- A connected defense. Chain Home radar, ground observers, and sector control rooms helped Fighter Command find incoming raids and send fighters to meet them. Attacking aircraft did not by itself disable the network that directed them.
THE TURNING POINT
The defenses hold, 15 September. On “Battle of Britain Day,” 15 September, the Luftwaffe mounted a major effort against London. British fighters met the raids and German losses were heavy; the original account gives a 2:1 loss ratio. Fighter Command remained operational, and two days later Hitler postponed the invasion.
What it changed
A base for return. Britain remained a western base from which the Allies could prepare their return to continental Europe in 1944.
Germany looks east. Hitler saw destroying the Soviet Union as a way to remove a source of British hope, as well as a means of pursuing his ideological aims. Barbarossa planning advanced in autumn 1940 while Britain still refused to yield.
American support grows. Accounts of British resistance and the Blitz reached American audiences and helped shift opinion. Destroyers-for-bases and then Lend-Lease in March 1941 supplied Britain before the United States entered the war. The “arsenal of democracy” was beginning to arm a fight it had not yet joined.
The full answer, argued
Fighter Command stood in the way of invasion. Attacks on its airfields and pilots put the defense under pressure, so directing the main effort toward London gave parts of the system time to recover, even though attacks on airfields continued. The bombing inflicted immense civilian harm without compelling surrender. Historians still dispute how close Fighter Command had come to defeat.
An interesting fact
Fighter Command’s “Few” came from many countries: nearly one in five was not British. Its summer roll included 145 Poles and 88 Czechoslovaks, alongside pilots from a dozen other nations. A handful of Americans had enlisted through Canada while the United States was neutral. No. 303 (Polish) Squadron entered battle on 31 August and became one of its highest-scoring units. Airmen from partitioned Poland helped defend the island from which the Allies would later return to Europe.
This is the study layer of Battle of Britain, chapter 4 of The War Room — WW2, 1936–1945; the full index of the atlas is here.
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