Story Highlights
- Historical event:
- 17 September 1940
- He planned to land on the coast of England, the part of England closest to France (260 000 people were supposed to invade the country for three days), and eleven divisions were supposed to conquer Britain within a month.
Nazi Germany planned to invade Britain, and that plan is also known as Operation Sea Lion (German: Unternehmen Seelöwe).
They planned to land on the coast of England, the part of England closest to France. The SS planned to arrest 2,700 people. They wanted to eliminate their opponents, including the Boy Scouts, who were considered as an extended arm of the intelligence service.
But the Luftwaffe’s victory over the British Air Force was something akin to a precondition for the launch of the mentioned operation. It is interesting to note that the British still owned a sufficient number of aircraft, despite the tough Battle of France.
Marshal Dowding, the commander of the RAF Fighter Command, didn’t want to send all aircraft to France, despite the French wanting this. Later, this proved to be a key decision because the RAF had enough aircraft to resist Göring’s Luftwaffe.
Another important advantage of the British was the use of the radar (the Germans thought it wasn’t important). Therefore, Germany made several mistakes, and Hitler stopped the invasion on this day in 1940.
After that, he didn’t get another chance due to the German declaration of war against the Soviet Union and the United States in 1941.
