The Battle of Britain, the Blitz, V weapons and the allied bombing of Germany

The Battle of Britain, the Blitz, V weapons and the allied bombing of Germany.

1. In June 1940, Germany attempted to invade Britain in the Battle of Britain. Air power was decisive in preventing the invasion, as the Luftwaffe (German air force) needed to gain control of the air over the English Channel and southern England in order to protect their sea power and make way for their landings. To do this they needed to destroy the RAF and other British airfields, which they weren't able to do. The British were able to win because they had plenty of factories to replace destroyed aircraft; the British radar was able to locate German attacks; they were fighting in their own territory, so surviving British pilots that were shot down could go back to war, but German pilots were arrested; the Germans decided to bomb British cities towards the end of the war, keeping the British' air control of the English Channel while the Germans were pre-occupied.
2. The Blitz was Germany's consistent air bombing campaign against Britain during WW2. The raids killed 43,000 civilians and lasted for 8 months, petering out when Hitler changed his focus towards his upcoming invasion of Russia in May 1941. It was described as the "Blitz" (lightning) because of the extremely heavy and relentless bombing raids that were carried out. The Battle of Britain wasn't going well for Germany before the Blitz, so they decided to rapidly attack British cities in an attempt to "soften up" the British people and destroy their confidence before Germany's full invasion - dropping over 5,000 tonnes of explosives on London within the first month. Between the month of September 1940 and May 1941, London was attacked 71 times, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Plymouth 8 times, Bristol 6, Glasgow 5, Southampton 4 and Portsmouth and Hull 3.
3. Although the Blitz had ended because of focus drifting to the Russian invasion, the British people ended up suffering through a second Blitz in the final war years, from V-1 and V-2 weapons. The V-1 was a flying bomb, and the V-2 a supersonic missile, which were both fired from Nazi-occupied Europe onto the south of England during 1944-45 and killed nearly 9,000 people. The V-2 was more dangerous than the V-1 because of its sheer speed, meaning that it couldn't be seen or tracked before it could be shot down. However, it was too late in the war for it to have any impact on war outcome. But, the V-1 was more cost effective, as it made the Allies spend heavily on defence and towards diverting the missiles.



Birmingham after an air raid.

4. German people still had hope and high spirits due to the Nazis pretending that they were winning the war through propaganda - the Allies wanted to end this. The Allies intensively bombed Germany's largest cities in May 1943, including Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg. Approximately 800,000 civilians were killed, and left many people fleeing to the countryside (village populations increased substantially), people sharing their homes, and opened German's eyes to see that they were losing the war. However, some of the bombing campaign has been criticized, as cities such as Dresden, with no military importance, were targeted - only further uniting the German people and rising determination.