Need assistance: Role of the Luftwaffe/Germany in the Battle of Britain?

[John Vasco]

Ah, the 'sogennante' Battle of Britain rears its head again, with an extensive 'lift' from one of the Prien/Rodeike/Stemmer/Bock books. Franek has got it spot on in his second paragraph. And an earlier poster poses questions regarding supplies/barges etc on the Channel coast in August/September 1940. Hmmm, let's waste a lot of staff time and aircrew time by fitting the Bf 110s of 1./Erpr. Gr. 210 with the Seilbomben device control box in the cockpit, and the frame and other accoutrements in stock on the airfield, and devote training time to teaching the crews how the device works, and issue them with maps of southern England showing the exact layout of the HT cable network and what the exact targets would be once the invasion was given the green light. Were the Germans just messing around doing such things? Or was it more a case of them being caught on the hop by the speed of their victory in the Western Camapign of May/June 1940, and so plans to subdue Britain permanently had not reached any kind of advanced stage? I tend to think it was the latter. Some pour scorn on the tenor of some of Churchill's speeches, but when he said (in so many words) that Hitler knew that he must defeat Britain or lose the war, he had it 100% correct, because simply by remaining in conflict with Germany it was going to result in the US of A entering the war sooner or later with the inevitable consequences that would entail given their industrial might.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, particularly when one wants to strike out with a 'revisionist' theory, which can be twisted every which way to suit an individual's particular taste.

Go to Cannock Chase, or the many cemeteries around Britain where the young RAF men were buried, and then say there was no Battle. Don't make me laugh...