Hitler’s hopes that Britain would seek a peace deal with Nazi Germany after France capitulated on 22 June 1940 were to be dashed extremely quickly. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill strongly rejected any compromise with the Nazi dictator and prepared his country and armed forces for an inevitable confrontation with the Nazi war machine. A fierce battle ensued in the British skies between the British and Nazi air forces.
Furious that Britain would not accept a peace deal after the surrender of France, Hitler ordered, on July 16, 1940, the preparation of plans for the invasion of Great Britain, in an operation called “The Great Lion”.
A naval and land invasion of England, however, was a logistical nightmare for the German army, which required multiple resources and time to plan and carry out the operation.
It was when Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, Nazi Germany’s military air force, convinced Hitler that German planes could bring Britain to its knees.
Göring’s miscalculations
Göring relied on the fact that the Nazi military aviation was stronger than the British one.
The Germans were not able to maintain a continuous attack, wave after wave, of massed bombers, as the British public opinion had feared, and the number of fighter planes was not much greater than that of the British machines”, wrote the military historian Liddell Map.
Mainly, the air offensive was carried out by Air Fleets (Luftflotten) 2 and 3, led by Field Marshals Albert Kesselring and Hugo Sperrle – the former based in north-east France and the Netherlands, and the latter in the north and north-west France.
For a single day, Luftflotten 5 from Norway and Denmark also intervened, but due to the high losses recorded, it no longer carried out raids over British territory.
The Messerschmitt 109 and the “Achilles’ heel”
Although it had impressive features, the German fighter plane The Messerschmitt 109 did not have the autonomy to use its full potential.
“On August 10, when the offensive was about to begin in force, the 2nd and 3rd Air Fleets had a total (…) of 929 fighter planes, mostly single-engined Messerschmitt 109s, in addition to which there were 227 Me 110 with two engines and relatively long range.
The Me 109 planes (the prototype appeared in 1936) had a maximum speed of 565 km/h; the high rate of climb gave them an additional advantage over British fighters. In battle, however, in terms of turns and maneuvering, they were at a disadvantage compared to the British planes. In addition, unlike these, at the beginning of the war most did not have armored protection for the pilot. Instead, the fuel tanks were bulletproof, unlike the British ones.
In this battle, the limited range was a negative factor for the German single-engine fighters. The official cruising range of the Me 109s, estimated at 665 km, did not prove to be real. In fact, the round-trip range of a little more than 100 miles,” noted Liddell Hart, also a former combatant in the Second World War.
Royal Air Force, Hurricane și Spitfire
As for the British Royal Air Force, it was undergoing an extensive rebuilding process after losing over 400 fighter planes in France. By mid-July, however, it had 650 Hurricane and Spitfire fighters, plus around 100 older aircraft of other types.
“Comparison in terms of on-board weaponry is more difficult to achieve. The Hurricane and Spitfire planes were armed only with machine guns (each plane had eight machine guns, fixed in the wings). It was about American Browning machine guns, chosen because of their reliability at remote control and high rate of fire: 1,260 shots per minute.
The Me 109s were generally equipped with two fixed machine guns in the fairing and two 20 mm cannons in the wings – a weapon developed as a result of the experience gained in the Spanish Civil War – the Me 109s had been tested there, as well as other types of older fighters that had been superseded,” Liddell Hart analyzed the armaments of the two fighter jets.
In the end, the skill of the British fighters and their growing numbers proved decisive against the speed and brute force of the German fighters Messerschmitt 109, whose range was quite reduced.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
