Battle Of Britain

In the awake of success of the evacuation a tragedy would occur that has been largely glossed over by history when the British ocean linear, the RMS Lancastrian attempted to escape the French port of San Nazarie. The liner was taking part in operation Arial, which aimed to evacuate British nationals from France. When a 10 Minister for on June the 17th it was bombed by German aircraft. Exact numbers of how many men, women and children were on board is unknown because in the chaos of the evacuation people were crammed into every available space. But it's estimated that between 3 and 6 thousand people were killed making it the worst maritime disaster in Britain

history. To put this into perspective the most conservative estimates put the death toll as being twice that of the Titanic. The disaster was quickly covered up for fear of damaging national morale. On june the 10th 1940 Mussolini waded in on the side of Nazi Germany declaring war on Britain and France, although Italian forces would play only a token part in the fight for France. On June 25th 1940 after just 46 days of fighting, Hitler's troops achived what the Kaiser had failed to do in four years by defeating and occupying France. France was not wholly occupied by Germany, but instead the country was split in two. With Germany occupying the northern half and the south being ruled by the Vichy French goverment who were essentially German puppets. The French surrender also gave Churchill concerns that France's fleet would be absorbed into Germans Navy and used to try and blockade Britain in one of the most controversial acts during the war. On July the third he ordered the Royal Navy to demand French warships at mail Kerber in French Algeria to surrender to them and when they refused the Royal Navy bombarded them with shell fire killing 1297 French soldiers and sinking or damaging 8 ships. With France dully suppressed Hitler was now concerned with what to do with Britain. It wasn't in his favor to destroy them, as he believed that would only hand her empire to the Americans who were becoming increasingly to Germany after what happend to Poland. Believing Britain was tired of war after the fall of France he sued for peace but Churchill refused even though he knew that Britain's chances of surviving a full assault from German was slim at best. Hitler therefore ordered his generals to draw up plan for operation sea lion the invasion of Britain. At the same time Germany along with Mussolini's Italy met with representatives of Japan to begin negotiations for an alliance that was meant to counter the United States. This ultimately culminated in the tripod pact signed on September the 27th 1940 and saw the birth of what history now remembers as the Axis forces. Unlike Germany's previous military endeavours, the invasion of Britain had a serious obstacle in the way namely the English Channel. Hitler's military leadership agreed that it would only be possible to cross the channel in the summer since the weather during autumn and winter months would be too poor to cross safely. First  however you would have to destroy Britain's air force otherwise his troops would be sitting ducks to British aircraft as they sat in their invasion barges during the crossing. As Germany made their invasion preparations Churchill readied the country to do what had to be done to defend themselves. Declassified documents show just how far he was prepared to go to repel Hitler's forces should they land in Britain. He ordered that British forces would use chemical and even biological weapons at any German landing zone in Britain frequently saying that is our country and we can do what we want to defend it. On July the 10th the German Luftwaffe began their offensive to destroy the RAF. It was the start of the Battle of Britain and German confidence was still high after their swift defeat of Poland and Western Europe. However unlike much of the fighting in Europe the Luftwaffe now had to be content with a well organized and highly integrated air defense network centered around the RAF fighting command led by Sir Hugh Dowding. They were equipped with two of the best fighter aircraft in the world at the time namely the Hawker hurricane and the more advanced supermarine Spitfire. Fighter commands ranks also swelled with an influx of British Commonwealth, French, Dutch, Polish and even American pilots volunteering to fight with them. Many of whom already had combat experience during the battles for their own countries. Over the coming weeks the RAF would rise to face the overwhelming German aircraft but they were suffering for it as the Luftwaffe blasted their airfields in an effort to destroy their support infrastructure. On August 13th 1940 so many German aircraft attacked Britain but Churchill was warned that the invasion was finally underway, but despite a great deal of damage being done the RAF was still holding out against the Germans who were joined by the contingents of Italian aircraft. By September Fighter Command was at its weakest point in terms of men and machines. But then British fighter production ramped up to the point where it match his counterpart in the size of aircraft and newly trained pilots began to join the fight. However the damage to the airfields was proving more problematic. Hitler on the other hand was unaware that the RAF was once again growing in strength and was taught by Goering that it was barely able to put any aircraft into the air. After British bombers hit targets in Berlin in response to an accidental bombing by German aircrafts of London. Hitler decided to order his bombers to turn their attention away fro the airfields in order to devastate London and other British cities. His believe was that British morale would be so shaken by these terror attacks, that the country would eventually collapse forcing Churchill to surrender thus making an armed invasion unnecessary. It was colossal mistake, fighter command effectively rebuild and reorganized itself and by the time Hitler realized his mistake the summer was coming to an end. The weather was worsening RAF fighter command was still a potent threat and the country's defenses had been built up to where it was no longer practical to invade. While the Germans had successfully captured the British Channel islands, Britain herself was spared.