The Battle for Britain by Cumming Anthony J

Author:Cumming, Anthony J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-6125-1835-0
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2015-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

The Naval War: The Battle for Britain

He told me . . . he, himself [Churchill], had never believed that invasion was possible! To which I replied to the effect that he had camouflaged it very well. He then had a go at me. . . . However, we made it up (he had perhaps had one over the odds).

—Admiral Charles Forbes to Godfrey Style, 6 February 1947

The story of the Battle for Britain started before the air campaigns over Britain and before the Battle of France. Hitler’s Operation Weser-Exercise (Weserübung)—the attacks on Denmark and Norway—commenced in April 1940, and though not planned as any kind of preliminary to the invasion of Great Britain, the consequences greatly impacted on Germany’s ability to implement the future Operation Sea Lion. The seeds of Hitler’s Scandinavian adventure owed much to his perception that controlling these countries must damage Britain’s ability to wage war rather than as a purely reactive measure to protect the vital supply of iron ore to German factories. Indeed, the opportunity to erode British war-making potential was the essence of Grand Admiral Erich Raeder’s lobbying in favor of such an operation. A series of other operations and campaigns followed, all of which had important consequences for a potential invasion of the British Isles.

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