@@Petal4822 Because he is nothing more than secondary school history teacher with a famous father. He has nothing new to add, no insights or perspectives. He will say and do anything for a bit of filthy lucre. He debases himself, the subject and his famous name.
My Da was a Southern California boy with a pilot’s license who went to Britain as a volunteer & became a Flight Lieutenant in the 71st Eagle Squadron. He told me the Spitfire was as close to perfect as a plane could get, with all of the controls & instruments positioned to make operating it almost instinctive. He had flown Hurricanes as well, but the Spitfire was the plane he loved the most.
@daneelolivaw602, Thank you for your kind words, but Da didn’t consider himself brave. He came home with crippling survivor’s guilt & PTSD; his nightmares woke me up in the middle of the night throughout my childhood. War, even for the best of reasons - stopping fascist imperialism was certainly that - is a horrible thing which does terrible damage to the lives of those who survive it as well as destroying the lives of those who don’t.
@@robina.gardner2970 My father was not old enough to join the Army in WW2, but my Grandfather was a soldier in the British Army, in the Highland Light Infantry, and although this was a Scottish Regiment, my Grandad was a cockney boy from London, He fought right through the War, some of it with the British 8th Army, (The Desert Rats) including El-Alamein, in North Africa, and then up through Italy. When i started work at Fifteen years old, one of my bosses was a Lancaster Bomber Pilot in the War, he was just nineteen years old, I have a friend, who's dad was one of the first troops to Liberate the Belsen Concentration Camp, he too was just Nineteen years old, both of these men, and my Grandad, much like your dad, did not consider themselves as brave. I do. I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for them all. Thank you for your reply.
@@daneelolivaw602 I also have the utmost respect for anyone who volunteers to fight against imperialism &/or authoritarianism, & even more respect for those who volunteer for a fight which is not directly theirs. The imperialist ambitions of people (using that term quite loosely) like Putin & Xi frankly terrify me. If anyone whom you mentioned is still living, please convey to them my respect & deepest thanks for their service.
This is the first documentary video I have personally come across that mentions the Royal Navy regarding Germany's plans to invade. So much attention is concentrated on the RAF (which I agree should be the case) that many documentaries forget that the Royal Navy wouldn't just float about in the North Sea and let Germany tow those invasion barges uncontested. Air superiority or not, the Germans would be mauled by the home fleet and they knew it.
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz Please explain how the Kreigsmarine with its 2 light cruisers, 5 destroyers and 7 torpedo boats was going to prevent the RN Home fleet from wiping out any German STUPID enough to attempt a channel crossing at 2 knots in a TOWED canal barge? Minefields? The British NIGHTLY cleared away german minefields with their 150 coastal minesweepers AND their squadron of Wellington DWI aerial magnetic minesweepers. Together they were so effective that coastal convoys were still sailing through the Dover Straits at night, right the way through the battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe? Is that the same Luftwaffe that it was promised would prevent the BEF from being rescued from the Dunkirk pocket? How did that go? Oh yes.... 338,000 Allied troops evacuated with relatively light losses to the British & French navies.
It's interesting to note that the Lutwaffe had already suffered significant losses during the battle of France. In 1 month and a half during the battle of France the Lutwaffe lost 1.290 aircraft, almost as much as during the 3 months of the battle of Britain.
The exploits of French and non-British allied pilots in 1940 are all too often forgotten, alas. I can't imagine what would have happened if the Germans had suffered fewer losses in May-June 1940...
Too often forgotten? Never seemingly not mentioned would be more accurate. You can even see the nationalities of all the pilots on Wikipeadea. @@MarquisVincentBissetdeGramont
@@MarquisVincentBissetdeGramont "The exploits of French and non-British allied pilots in 1940 are all too often forgotten," No they're not. But you have to remember that over 80% of Fighter command pilots during the BoB were of BRITISH birth.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 My comment mainly concerns the aerial combats in May-June 1940 on the Western Front (many foreign pilots also fought during the Battle of Britain).
I'm amazed at how young a lot of the soldiers/airmen/sailors were during the war. Even senior officers were sometimes shockingly young. I guess you grow up quick when circumstances demand it. Either that or you end up a footnote.
"Greatest generation" who sold their Empire to the Americans for pennies on the dollar just to have their great grandchildren forced to live with foreign migrants.
@@bandit6272 I worked for a company in London in the 1970s, one of the directors of the company, a lovely man, was a Lancaster Pilot in the war, he flew missions over Germany, he was 19 years old. 19 years old. i stared at him barely able to take my eyes off of him, when he told us, he asked me if i was ok, i could barely speak to him i was so moved. He said it was nothing, it needed doing, he said, "i had to help the country out". 19. We were so lucky to have people like him.
Churchill said, "By being so long in the lowest form (at Harrow School) i gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But i was taught English, Thus i got into my bones the essential structure of the British sentence, which is a noble thing". I think a lot of people are thankful for those extra English lessons.
explain how the battle of Britain was a turning point? And what kind of technology do you mean? Germans had radar In those days. The spirit of resistance is also due to propaganda keep that in mind.
Hitler being unable to break Britain in operation sea lion directly lead to Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union in operation Barbosa. The Battle of Britain was also the first major defeat of the Germans in the war and showed that the Germans could be beaten and put an unbreakable will and belief in the British people that victory would be achieved, and that Britain would never fall to Nazi Germany. Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union followed operation sea lion (due to knowing Britain could not launch a counter offensive until 1942 in mainland Europe at the earliest but could not invade Britain let alone take her like the rest so turned his attention east) Hitler making this error, the biggest of his life *InvadingRUSSIA* also gave the British vital time to mobalize, and strengthen there military while boosting morale. BTW dont know if you are aware but the Germans may have had have radar in the Battle of Britain (1939-1940), but they had no idea how effective it was when applied to ones defense and anticipation. Which is why they would find themselves outnumbering the RAF 5 to 1 and 4 to 1 and getting mauled in the main. The British could see the Germans soon as they were approaching the French coast, the Germans werent aware the British could see them and the formation before they were in the channel😂If that makes sense. This is mainly because the Germans mainly used a ground radar system known as FREYA which was way less effective than the system the Airborne radar the British deployed especially for defensive combat. @@Hooibeest2D
During WWII, the Luftwaffe was primarily designed to support the Blitzkrieg, i.e. to protect armoured vehicles and troops from enemy aircraft and to carry out ground attacks. Faced with Great Britain, protected by the English Channel and the Royal Navy, the Germans tried to conduct a strategic air campaign using totally unsuitable aircraft (such as the "Stukas"), which enabled Great Britain to thwart the Germans' plans. This was the main reason for the German defeat in the Battle of Britain.
Whatever his other faults (according to our modern sensibilities) the one thing nobody can take from him is his ability to spin a good speech to inspire. In that regard, he's arguably one of the finest orators of the 20th century.
The young man on the thumbnail was Flight Lieutenant Brian Lane, who as a 23 year old in 1940, was TWICE temporarily placed in charge of 19 squadron as its former commanding officer had been killed in action. He was just TWENTY THREE years old when he took that HEAVY front line responsibility on his young shoulders. His photo is often seen in books on the subject of the battle and you can CLEARLY see the utter EXHAUSTION on his young face. In December 1942 he was shot down off the Dutch coast.... his body was never found.
I have said it several times before in my youtube comments to BoB videos, that this battle changed the course of the war. If It had been lost and Britain had capitulated, then Germany would have had free reign against the Russians. America wouldn't have been able to help. There would be no bombing of German held territory both day and night, no Africa campaign. no battle of the Atlantic, no one supplying Russia with weapons and more importantly - intelligence. Germany would have been able to throw all their recourses at the Russian campaign, and I think very probably have won. Look how long it all the allies working together, to defeat them.
what are you babbling about? churchill would have just fled to canada and continued the war using the rest of british empire to mobilise resources against europe. the british empire would have bombed britian itself into ruble. the commonwealth forces and the americans would have still invaded africa and the war in russia would have still resulted in a stalemate with germany still struggling due to its oil shortages while the soviets had plenty of their own.
@@Gingerphile00 America would have had no interest in invading Africa, why would they? With Britain out of the picture, they would just have to do business with the new European superpower. Don't forget there was a significant part of the US population that was of German decent. Also they would still have had to deal with Japan.
@@Gingerphile00 Clearly you have never read any detailed history of the second world war. You also haven't read any number of the excellent biographies on Churchill by those that worked with him and knew him. Your freedom to speak ill of those who gave you your freedom is the sign of a poor education and poor intellect.
@@Gingerphile00 My word Josh, your level of nonsense knows utterly NO bounds !!! Indeed Churchill, the UK govt and the Royal Navy did all have plans to evacuate to Canada if Britain fell, but WHERE do you get the nonsense that "the british empire would have bombed britain itself into rub(b)le"? Please tell me what large bombers did the British Commonwelath possess and which airbases would they be flying from in order to pound Britain into rubble? As for a nazi / soviet stalemate, rest assured that Stalin & his cronies would have been eating their borscht with a wooden spoon sitting in a cave in Mongolia by 1943 if it hadn't been for the UK still holding out against nazism in western Europe.
You have to admire the diction and the class of oration of Churchill, the way he spoke was so powerful, even though he used large words that some would not understand, he placed emphasis on the simple words to incite the people .
Great video. Have to give a shout out to the graphics design team at History Hit. The animated words of Churchill’s iconic speeches were strikingly good. Great job!
There are numerous memorials to the battle. The most important one are the Battle of Britain Monument in London and the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-le-feme in Kent.
@@Gingerphile00 Repeating the same thing does not make it true. Explain how a vast empire would protect the beaches of Hastings, Eastbourne and Pevensey from Nazi invasion. I am genuinely curious.
'The Royal Air Force takes these films to record how various enemy types stand up to the fire of our fighters. Apparently they don't. Watch this...' Outstanding
Whenever I watch documentaries on the Battle of Britain, I immediately think of Reginald Mitchell, we should think if it were not for him where would we be and for all the pilots of the spitfire!
They were very irritating, and why do they have to use frequency modulation ( I think that is what it's called) for Wing Commander Neil's contribution at 14.20.
The best quote of the Battle of Britain I've heard is from an RAF fighter Ace, who when asked what was his favorite fighter aircraft said, 'To fly in a Spitfire, but to fight in a Hurricane'.
To my knowledge, this documentary is the first one to bring up the Royal Navy in relation to Germany's invasion intentions. Many movies overlook the Royal Navy's unwillingness to allow Germany to tow those invasion barges unopposed in the North Sea because of the excessive focus on the Royal Air Force (which I also believe should be the case). The Germans were well aware that the home fleet would annihilate them regardless of their air superiority.
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz Irrelevant? Oh you mean because your heroes got their arses well and truly kicked ? As for Irrelevent It was Britain alone in 1940-41 that SAVED Europe from 1000 years of nazi tyranny. THAT'S how relevent the BoB was.
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz There’s a "Third World” war in progress now ~ and ‘The West’ is losing it too! "The Anglo-sphere is committing mass suicide". quote from ~ Victor Davis Hanson - Hoover Institution 04/09/2021
@@Jeremy-y1t Are the figures of +1700 Luftwaffe aircraft lost, the vast majority complete with their highly trained prewar "experten" aircrews, also fake? I wonder who all those thousands of men in Luftwaffe uniforms we transported to Canada in 1940/41 were then? Hahahahaha
@@Jeremy-y1t 951 to be precise jeremarkyjames.... with the majority of their pilots returning to active service within a year. Suck it up lad, suck it up.
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz No the figure of 1500 luftwaffe aircraft is from LUFTWAFFE records... if you include all the Luftwaffe aircraft lost during the battle due to accidnets and other causes it's over 1733 destroyed & 643 damaged. As for the comparison of RAF and Luftwaffe aircraft armaments. The Me109E had.... 2x 7.92mm MG17s above the engine each with 1000 rounds of ammo. The MG17 had a rate of fire of 1200rpm which gave 50 seconds of fire. 2x 20mm MG FF cannon in the wings with just 60 rounds of ammo each. The MG FF even with its relatively low rate of fire of 540rpm gave just over SIX SECONDS of potent but low density fire. So after those 6 seconds of fire the 109E had 44 seconds of relatively ineffective 2 x 7.92mm MG fire left, effectively making the average Me 109E a one (or sometimes two) punch wonder. The RAF fighter's 16 seconds of EIGHT .303 Brownings each firing 300 rounds at 1150rpm looks a LOT less anaemic when viewed like that. With regards to dogfighting the nazi's MG FF itself was far from an ideal weapon. As well as its low rate of fire, it's low muzzle velocity meant that when used in a "turning battle" or at high angles of deflection it was an incredibly difficult weapon to achieve hits with. It was best employed in "Boom and Zoom" tactics, where a diving 109 would fall on an unsuspecting British fighter and shred it before it had time to react.... Experienced 109 pilots were loath to get into a "turning fight" with a Spitfire or Hurricane. In defence of the 8 x .303s of the British fighters and their lack of outright destructive power, one RAF pilot (either Al Deere or Adolph Malan, I can't remember) voiced the opinion of many RAF pilots when they was recorded as saying they preferred to send a German bomber back to France, riddled with bullet holes, both engines smoking with its aircrew dead and dying rather than shooting it down outright.
Respect to any pilot from anywhere if the fight the king and country they are on equal to any native Brit in those planes Amazing bravery 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 🇦🇺 🇳🇿 🇵🇱 more I’m missing I’m. Sure
Yes we STILL honour the 595 NON British pilots (who supported the +2400 BRITISH pilots), flying British planes and directed by a pioneering BRITISH command and control system.
I assume you're referring to the navigational error by the Heinkel which dropped its bombs over south London on 23rd August 1940.... what about the REPEATED luftwaffe raids against RAF FIghter Command sector stations such as Biggin Hill, Kenley, Hornchurch & Northolt, which had been taking place for the previous two weeks, and ALL of which were within the boundary of Greater London, and during those attacks HUNDREDS of innocent British civilians had been killed and wounded by "collateral damage". The bombs mistakenly dropped on south London on the 23rd were simply the "final straw".
Julius Meimberg, Battle of Britain veteran said, ‘It’s all exaggerated, Churchill succeeded in creating this myth that so few did so much for so many. When you look at how we fought against the Americans later, the Battle of Britain was very little in comparison.’
More Brit hating nonsense eh, Nick? What you're saying is a nazi pilot who was thoroughly TROUNCED during the battle of Britain said that they weren't trounced. The Germans failure to knock Britain out of WW2 in 1940/41 was PIVOTAL.... don't try to paint it any other way, sonny.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The Battle of Britain was irrelevant as Hitler never intended to invade the UK. As soon as Stalin broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 28 June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa. We should have helped the anti-Communist side.
@@Jeremy-y1t The idea of a "bluff" is that you make it known to the recipient otherwise how can you bluff them? Hitler's directive no.16 in particular was sent from his mountain retreat, "The Berghof" on 16th July 1940 to OKW "Armed forces High Command" using the "Lorenz" encyphering device sent over secure land lines. As the British decryption efforts had not yet broken into the Lorenz encyption network in 1940, how exactly were the British supposed to know the contents of Hitler Directive No.16? The conclusion is that it wasn't "a bluff", but Hitler's decree to his armed forces high command to prepare for an invasion of the UK. Also was the Luftwaffe's loss of over 1700 aircraft together with most of their highly trained, prewar "Experten" aircrews during the battle of Britain also a "bluff"?
Even with all his faults, and he had many, the FREE WORLD owes it’s(the apostrophe in this instance is to show possession) continued existence to Sir. Winston S. Churchill. Yes, the USA and other countries provided materials, supplies and later men, but it was Churchill’s iron will that kept the world free.
@Jeremy-y1t when you see how they helped destroy our lndustry. Ascot gas water heaters replaced by Junkers. Ronson replaced by Braunn. It was more like a draw. We helped replace their factories with new ones.
No it wasn't Jeremarkyjames. The nazis set out to "eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely." They failed COMPLETELY in that task and in the process squandered 1700 of their aircraft together with their highly trained aircrews for nothing.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Hitler never intended to invade the UK. As soon as Stalin broke the pact in June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa. We should have allied with Germany against the only threat.
@@Jeremy-y1t RAF Fighter Command ended the Battle of Britain with more and better fighters than they started with, better tactics and more experience aircrew. The Luftwaffe lost a large number of aircraft and crew that German production was NOT keeping up with. By EVERY measure, the RAF won the Battle of Britain.
@@Jeremy-y1t More accurately, it was a German and British victory and a French defeat. The battle would not have come off as it did without both the British and German forces.
Julius Meimberg, Battle of Britain Luftwaffe veteran said, ‘It’s all exaggerated, Churchill succeeded in creating this myth that so few did so much for so many. When you look at how we fought against the Americans later, the Battle of Britain was very little in comparison.’
Quote *Park’s leadership, and his men’s bravery,* *denied the Luftwaffe air superiority.* *After* *the war when the Nazi’s most senior army* *commander, Field Marshal von Rundstedt,* *was asked* *which Battle he regarded as* *most decisive* *he replied* *"The Battle* *of* *Britain"* All Nations Together - A Battle of Britain resource.
Said after losing 1700 aircraft in 3 months..... the previously all conquering Luftwaffe gets its arse PUBLICLY kicked and tries to laugh it off.... Hahahahaha
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The numbers make it clear, the operational combat strength of the Luftwaffe went from around 2,400 down to around 1,600. Meanwhile the operational strength of RAF fighter command went from around 650 to around 700. The Luftwaffe broke themselves against a brick wall of British resilience.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Hitler never intended to invade the UK, and as soon as Stalin broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 28 June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa. We should have allied with Germany against the only threat.
Radar was hardly a secret When Generalfeldmarschall Miltch met Dowding for Lunch at Bentley Priory He asked Dowding how he was getting on with radio detection,The war would be won or lost in the Atlantic,not over southern England.
@@Smoshy16Not sure how the RAF could br defeated when only a small propotion of available fighters were stationed in southern England,protection of the industrial midlands and north was the main priority.
@@terryoneil6209 Where do you get the "only a small propotion of available fighters were stationed in southern England" nonsense from? RAF Fighter Command 11 Group covering Kent / Surrey / Sussex commanded 27 fighter squadrons (out of a total of 64 RAF fighter squadrons or 42% of Fighter Command's TOTAL force). These facts are easily searchable on the internet, try looking details up instead of making up complete nonsense and trying to pass it off as "fact".
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 I am not going to argue numbers in what was a fluid conflict, but the main point I was making is that the RAF could not loose. infact they only had to avoid defeat until October, the RAF had more available fighters at the end of the conflict than in July,with fighter production increasing only a shortage of pilots was becoming a short term concern.Dowding in his book has no mention of any BoB just a page and half to what he refers to the ''summer air battles over southern England'' Battles of little significance and no stratigic importance.
@@terryoneil6209 I know you're not "going to argue numbers"... instead you just make them up to justify the nonsense of your argument. So what that Dowding never assigned the name "the battle of Britain"? The summer air battles that were the prelude to German invasion plans happened. End of. As for your "Battles of little significance and no stratigic importance" I only need to provide a SINGLE piece of verifiable information to prove my point. What better than the order issued by none other the Adolf Hitler himself? Below I've "copy and pasted" the preamble to Hitler "Fuhrerbefehl No. 16" (Fuhrer Directive 16) issued from the Reichchancellery on 16th July 1940 to the German armed forces high command (OKW). The directive was transmitted in what the Germans believed was an unbreakable code, showing that it was NOT for the digest of the British and simply designed to initmidate them into coming to the surrender table, but was a true indication of Hitler's intent. "The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces. The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out. The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely." But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan was academic. The operation had been stopped in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory". Lets then look at what would have happened if the United Kingdom, as the LAST power then opposing nazism in the world, had instead chosen to surrender, there would have been: NO D-Day and war in the Meditteranean to draw sizeable wehrmacht resources from the war on the Eastern Front. NO strategic bombing of German cities and war industries. NO interdiction of German global sea trade by the Royal Navy. NO massive supply of weapons and war materiel from the west to the USSR, once their former allies nazi Germany had turned on them. NO utterly crucial strategic intelligence courtesy of Britain's (not Poland's before you say it) "ULTRA" program. With the result that the USSR would have collapsed somewhere in 1942/43, leaving the nazis in control of the whole of Europe, where their extermination camps would STILL be operating on European soil today, and the US would have been left isolated between a nazi dominated Europe and a Japanese dominated Asia. And nowadays all we seem to get are clueless, ignorant modern day commenters such as yourself pissing over those sacrifices and effort. No wonder the ongoing constant flow of lefty insults and ingratitude towards the UK leads some British people to think we should have saved our own citizen's lives, economy and empire and instead left the nazis to it, and let them carry on raping and murdering their European conquests.
The title is all wrong. The BofB was not against the Nazi Party, it was against the Luftwaffe. Cut out all this woke political correctness and state the facts. It is a fact that many brave and highly skilled Luftwaffe pilots were certainly not Nazis, but honourable professional warriors, like Galland.
Jeremarkyjames. Hitler says you're talking bullsh!t. "The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces. The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out. The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely." But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan fell into ruin. The operation had been stopped in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory".
@@philandrews100Youve obviously never been to Canada . Id rather be speaking German than Arabic and Hindi. DO you know the number one baby name here is Muhammed? If this is what you wanted to happen then congratulations and enjoy
The attrition among the flight and section leaders like Brian Lane featured was prolific. Many knew that to operate their flights and sections at their most effective that they personally were unlikely to survive, and so it proved.
But the RAF did a much better job of pulling back experienced pilots to pass on what they knew to new pilots in the training programs, and were able to replace the losses they suffered. Losses for the Germans were much higher, and the Germans did not have a sufficient training program to stem these losses. Over the course of the daylight component of the Battle the operational combat strength of the Luftwaffe went from around 2,400 down to around 1,600. Over the same period the operational strength of RAF fighter command went from around 650 to around 700.
@@iansneddon2956RAF OTU training was severely truncated in 1940 and replacement pilots very under trained, especially in gunnery and their SA practically undeveloped.
@@bobsakamanos4469 But the rate of losses for the Germans remained much higher than the losses for RAF Fighter Command. With the Luftwaffe forces having been in combat operations for going on 4 months and suffering greater losses, their morale was dropping and they had their own replacement issues. The RAF never got as bad as the level of "training" the new Luftwaffe pilots were receiving in 1944 into 1945. I recall that the non-combat losses for the Luftwaffe spiked up to a peak in 1944 and then fell. With no increase in training it appears that German pilots who would have been crashing their aircraft at some point were not surviving combat long enough to get to that.
@@iansneddon2956 it's all relative. The loss of young lads due to lack of training is the main point and because of attrition, OTU training was cutback to speed the delivery of replacement pilots in the BoB. I always will detest governments that continue to cause that due to military underfunding and feeding their friends at the trough.
@@bobsakamanos4469 Completely agree with this sentiment. Allied (USA and UK) training hours increased by later in the war (the word "increase" seems like an understatement here). But the needs in the early war years to grow forces meant deficiencies in training, doctrine and numbers in forces that were scrambling to catch up. Germany's greatest advantage was the head start in re-armament. The massive investment in the size, training and equipment of the US military is essential to avoid being in this situation. If you wait until you need a military to start building it you end up with governments carrying out the "appeasement" of the late 1930s which only served to encourage the Nazis to go further. Yet how many NATO members have failed to meet the modest 2% spending target. Corruption has always been a factor in government and the military has never been exempt from this. Those young lads paid the price for their Government's and the British public's unwillingness (and to some extent inability) to re-arm in the face of German rearmament. How would the Battle of Britain have gone if the 2,400 operational combat aircraft the Germans sent against UK in July 1940 were met by a force of 1,500 operational modern fighter aircraft instead of the actual 650 which included some obsolete aircraft? The Chamberlain government's investment in the RAF from before the war was essential to Britain holding out and winning the battle, but how much easier it would have been if that 1939 spending had started in 1937 or earlier?
My dad recalled when a luftwaffe fighter pilot shot down over Essex , walked to the local pub to surrender, to be told the local bobby, had just left to go to the next village. But have a scrumpie (alcoholic apple cider) and something to eat before before you go lad, long story short, by the time he caught up to the bobby 2 or 3 villages later, he was well pissed. My mum could remember German POW’s walking through the local streets on Saturdays, well until the yanks arrived, locals weren’t sure they were on our side.
@stevebowman421 That story reminds me of one my dad told us about My father was a 14 year old boy during the Battle of Britain, they lived by the Oval Cricket Ground, a German Pilot was shot down and he landed in the Oval, my dad said there were hundreds of people running down the streets towards the Oval (and there are about six street converging at the ground) carrying anything they could use as a weapon, he said the poor sod must have been crapping himself, luckily for him the Police got to him first.
@@Rebelrouser1776 He was bribed to destroy Europe and the British Empire by Strakosch, just as he had been bribed by Cassel during World War I. The British Empire was on the wrong side in both conflicts.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Churchill himself openly confirmed receiving bribes from Cassel and Strakosch. See why Israel bombed British civilians during World War II.
More complicated than that . Also 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 10 Irish, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 9 Americans, 3 Southern Rhodesians and individuals from Jamaica, Barbados and Newfoundland.
@@julianshepherd2038more straightforward than that.. The Germans didn't want to really invade Britain. They were natural allies. They dedicated 9/10 of their resources to the defeat of Soviet Union and the evil of bolshevism. Britain got a lucky break.
@@athelstan927Operation Sealion was the planned Invasion of Britain, Operation Barbarossa was the planned invasion of Russia. One took place after the other one, they wasn’t running simultaneously
Not exactly. The Luftwaffe started the battle with around 2,400 operational combat aircraft against RAF Figther Command's operational strength of around 650. A little into August 1940, the Luftwaffe switched to attacking RAF ground targets with their strength of ~2,200 vs the RAF's ~750 Four weeks later the Luftwaffe with their strength of around 1,700 switched to attacking cities while the RAF strength was down to around 720 Weeks later, around the end of daylight Luftwaffe attacks, the ~1,600 operational strength of the Luftwaffe was faced with the ~700 operational strength of RAF Fighter Command If the Germans wanted to keep on destroying their air force, the British would have kept on helping them with that.
But we also stopped the nazis from opening their "death camps" on our soil, so it was a price worth paying. P.S The 1969 movie "The battle of Britain" is STILL a classic , and that STILL makes your piss boil.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 There were no such camps. Franco told the real truth about it in 1945. Britain caused all of the deaths in the forced labour camps.
@@Jeremy-y1t "there were no such camps" Hmmmm... who to believe? A neo nazi BStter or my own uncle who witnessed first hand the liberation of Bergen-Belsen? And that was a minor camp compared to the 6 death camps sited in Poland. Geobbels told the real truth about you at the Berliner Sportpalast in 1944 when he addressed the throng of dispirited nazi supporters proclaiming "the multi-account bellend called "Jeremarkyjames" talks nothing but complete sh!te".
@@Jeremy-y1t Call them what you will in your own personal delusion, the fact is they were used for the industrial scale murder of MILLIONS of jews and others deemed "undesirable" by your beloved nazi regime.
I don't know about you, but the absence of nazi death camps in the Cotswolds, Pennines & Scottish Highlands seems a worthwhile legacy of their courage and resolve.
They were tougher than us, weren't they. They survived that war an tried to build a better world after. I know my mum was always bitter that she lost a pair of twins because all the doctors where somewhere else working with casualties after a bomb braid. Sad to think
Beaverbrook was Canadian, by the way, and the RCAF provided its own squadron and pilots to the battle (albeit under RAF command). Churchill obviously had a thing for Canadians, as the spymaster Intrepid (William Stephenson) "this one is dear to my heart" was also Canadian. Britain did NOT go it alone as the popular narrative goes. 20% of pilots in the battle were from other countries. Their contributions and sacrifices should not be trivialized by ignoring them.
Please provide us with the details of the luftwaffe air assaults on Canberra, Ottawa, Delhi and Wellington? Or how the Wehrmacht stood poised to launch its invasion of the Indian sub continent? Or how the Kriegsmarine attempted to strangle "the British Empire" out of the war by enforcing a u-boat blockade of Australia and New Zealand? Oh news just coming in...... NONE OF THOSE THINGS HAPPENED because the ONLY nation facing ALL of those threats between July 1940 and April 1941 was the United Kingdom ALONE.
Britain as an island was on it's own the British as a people weren't! Nobody has ever ignored or trivialised any of the other nationalities who took part! I suggest you watch the movie 'The Battle of Britain' that was made in the late 1960s and then come back!
‘The Royal Navy was still the most powerful fleet in the world…any invasion fleet would have been destroyed as it tried to cross the Channel…’ Mmmm, well, yes, theoretically. The Nazis would only have attempted a crossing with aerial superiority. But even putting this aside, the English Channel (or Narrow Seas, as they were called) were hardly an ideal place for a massed naval operation in response, and it is doubtful that any of our capital ships would have been risked there. Especially as it was also heavily sown with minefields on both sides and, doubtless, U-boats would have concentrated there. Unfortunately, their Lordships of the Admiralty were not always at the forefront of technical innovation, or at keeping abreast of new developments. At the beginning of the war RN ships, especially lighter units like destroyers, were woefully under-equipped with AA defences and extremely vulnerable to aerial attack. As was discovered in the 1940 Norwegian campaign, even capital ships with comparatively heavy AA armament could be attacked by the Stuka dive-bomber and, as a result, the fleet had had to be completely withdrawn from coastal waters until it was out of range of the Luftwaffe. Probably, the fairest assessment is that if it had actually come to it, there would have been a bloodbath out there in the Channel, on both sides…
Taken from the "Fuhrer Directive no. 13" Issued 2 days before the start of "Operation Dynamo" (better known as the Dunkirk Evacuation). "The task of our Air Force will be to break all enemy resistance on the part of the surrounded forces, TO PREVENT THE ESCAPE OF THE ENGLISH FORCES ACROSS THE CHANNEL, and to protect the southern flank of Army Group A." How did that work out for Goering's overconfident Luftwaffe then? Let me think..... 338,000 troops removed from the Dunkirk pocket with relatively light losses to the British and French Navies in the tight confines of the Channel at its narrowest point. Don't overestimate the Luftwaffe's anti-ship capabilities. It took until 1942 for the Luftwaffe to gain the ability to air launch a torpedo, and inspite of the Mediterranean sea being SURROUNDED by Axis airfields and packed with RN capital ships, the largest ship axis air forces sank during the WHOLE of WW2 was an RN light cruiser. Rest assured the RN was just ITCHING for the Wehrmacht to dip a toe in the Channel.
Churchill articulated Chamberlains pre-war threat of war not concerning a city in a foreign land and to be continued irrespective of any invaded country being defeated. He inherited the opportunity, not from Blenheim but from Birmingham. It is an historical truth rarely voiced - Chamberlain was a civilian. Chamberlain accepted Basil Liddel Harts opinion of another war, and was invariably up to date on the rearmament front, favouring the RAF at the expense of the army, but this caused controversy in 1940 when many imagined the BEF would be an impressive force capable of crossing the Rhine on stilts.
But not only was Chamberlain favouring the RAF, but particularly RAF Fighter Command with the chain of radar stations and related infrastructure as well as expanded training programs to produce large numbers of pilots. Considering how the Battle of Britain played out, Chamberlain was not wrong. Churchill made some great speeches but the Battle of Britain was won by Chamberlain's RAF.
@@iansneddon2956indeed, an umbrella - overcome with joy, his reaction on the phone when told of fighter victory. His first flight to meet Hitler, Sept 15 - more famous two years later
Can't believe you go to the trouble of upvoting your own comments, then log out into your other accounts and then upvote them yourself again. Rest assured we know that there's no other half wits in these comments who'd be upvoting your constant nonsense, Jeremarkyjames.
The Battle of Britain was irrelevant as Hitler never intended to invade the UK. As soon as Stalin broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 28 June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa. We should have helped the anti-Communist side in World War II.
I only need to provide a SINGLE piece of verifiable information to prove my point. What better than the order issued by none other the Adolf Hitler himself? Below I've "copy and pasted" the preamble to Hitler's "Fuhrerbefehl No. 16" (Fuhrer Directive 16) issued from the "Berghof" (Hitler's "holiday home" in Bavaria) on 16th July 1940 to the German armed forces high command (OKW). The directive was transmitted over secure landlines encrypted in what the Germans believed was an unbreakable code, showing that it was NOT for the digest of the British and simply designed to initmidate them into coming to the surrender table, but was a true indication of Hitler's intent. "The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces. The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out. The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely." But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan was academic. The operation had been stopped in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory".
@@Jeremy-y1t Jeremy you silly boy.... "a draw"? I ask you !!! The German's declared intention? "to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely" The Result? The Luftwaffe lose 1700 aircraft together with most of their highly trained aircrews, and 2 years later Britain was flattening Germany city by city. I think its self evident that the Germans COMPLETELY failed to "eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany". I suggest you go get some aloe vera for your little burned wehraboo ass.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Hitler never intended to invade the UK. As soon as Stalin broke the pact in June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa. Britain was already bombing German cities and towns from 11 May 1940, long before the Battle of Britain began.
No, Britain did not invent the radar. The radar had been patented in Germany 1904 and 1906 by Christian Hülsmeyer and an article was published in technical magazines worldwide. Many countries continued the development of the radar in the following years. The building of Britain's Chain Home with the array of very large antennas and the accompanying effective warning system was brilliant though. The huge stations were built at the right time and the organization was impressive.
Yeah a lot of people still believe that radar was secret or only the allies had it. Every developed military used radar in some extent, but the Brits had by far the best integrated air defence network in the world.
The radar stations were part of the scramble to build up RAF Fighter Command from 1938-1940. It was an effort championed by Neville Chamberlain with the construction of the stations already underway when Chamberlain went to Munich. (BTW, Chamberlain was advised by the senior-most British military leaders that Britain would lose a war with Germany in 1938 and that even delaying such a war by six months would make a huge difference. So he was following the advice of his military when he capitulated at Munich. He came home, waved a paper, said something about peace, and continued re-arming.)
The RAF survived by continuing to exist, Britain lost nearly every conflict up to 1942 they just kept going, however in effectively. An ineffective RAF raid on Berlin during a visit by Molotov, the Nazis said that Britain was defeated, Molotov asked if Britain was defeated why were they were sitting in an air raid shelter. The Royal Navy would have prevented or cut off any attempted landings. With the help of the Labour coalition ministers, Churchill's moto was '' 'keep buggering on'.
The RAF won by maintaining its strength while the Luftwaffe dwindled. The Luftwaffe started with around 2,400 operational combat aircraft against the ~650 operational fighters of RAF Fighter Command The Luftwaffe ended with around 1,600 operational combat aircraft against the ~700 operational fighters of RAF Fighter Command The Luftwaffe broke itself against a wall of British resilience.
The fact the Battle of Britian was lost because of simple mistake...Is crazy.... If the bombing of london did not happen it could have been the end of fighter command.
The Luftwaffe started the battle with around 2,400 operational combat aircraft against RAF Figther Command's operational strength of around 650. A little into August 1940, the Luftwaffe switched to attacking RAF ground targets with their strength of ~2,200 vs the RAF's ~750 Four weeks later the Luftwaffe with their strength of around 1,700 switched to attacking cities while the RAF strength was down to around 720 Weeks later, around the end of daylight Luftwaffe attacks, the ~1,600 operational strength of the Luftwaffe was faced with the ~700 operational strength of RAF Fighter Command Seems it would have been worse for the Germans if they kept going after the air fields and other RAF ground targets. Would they have stopped before they got to the point where around 500 German fighters and 700 German bombers were up against around 750-800 RAF fighters?
@@iansneddon2956 Ya I have been trying to dive off into the numbers more...But the sources very pretty wildly. I have even read that the RAF had way more fighter a/c then the Luff..Shruggs.
@@MrLobstermeat Well, by the end of the Battle they certainly did. The Luftwaffe was maintaining an appearance of strength by having their pilots fly 3-4 sorties per day. This was wearing out men and equipment, and the increased sorties were resulting in increased losses. RAF flight schools were turning out around 300 new pilots per month, however, and this number was growing from September 1940 as graduates from the schools in Canada started to arrive. The Luftwaffe never came close to matching the RAF training program so their losses were never fully replaced. German losses were higher, losing around 2,000 aircraft while RAF Fighter Command lost just over 1,200. Also, as the British were outproducing Germany in aircraft by almost 2:1 in 1940, lost planes were not as much a problem as lost pilots. But flying mostly over friendly territory meant pilots bailing out and parachuting to safety. Only around 540 RAF fighter pilots were killed during the battle. Meanwhile nearly all Luftwaffe aircrew that were shot down were lost (killed or captured). From the numbers, it appears that the RAF lost more fighter planes than the Luftwaffe did, but lost fewer fighter pilots - so the effect on British operational strength was not as much as for the Germans as the battle progressed. And with many more replacement pilots arriving the RAF was growing while the Luftwaffe was rapidly shrinking.
@@Jeremy-y1t Your political heroes raped and murdered Poland for 5 years. It was only for the UK that the filth of nazism was removed from the continent.
@@gerwazywobler5630 "303 who shot down the most Germans" They didn't. They were the highest scoring Hurricane Squadron in the battle, with 603 & 609 Spitifre squadrons both scoring higher.
@@dalj4362 read the title of this video. If numbers matter to you then the polish did far better when comparing a pilot,s success rate at shooting down the enemy. Maybe you prefer to forget the others that fought in this battle.. Recently the RAF have bent over backwards to change history. Dunkirk is a good example. The only aircraft shot down near those beaches belonged to the Royal Navy, The nearest RAF aircraft was shot down near Calais. It is time the fighter command stopped trying to steal the glory of others and people may start taking them seriously. The real RAF heroes are not even spoken about
I thought I'd create a simple "visual aid" in order to assist people learning about the history of the battle of Britain. There is much ongoing debate about the nationalities and proportions of RAF fighter pilots who took part in the battle, with occasionally a furtive aspect which attempts to portray the battle as a victory of "mostly Foreign pilots". Below is an accurate graphical representation of the proportion of pilot nationalities serving within RAF Fighter Command during the summer of 1940. Each flag is roughly equivalent to 30 pilots, The numbers after each nation are the actual number of pilots from that country, and the approximate percentage of RAF Fighter Command's establishment in the summer of 1940 that they represented. 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 UK (2342) (80%) 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱 Poland (145) (5%) 🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿 New Zealand (127) (4%) 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 Canada (112) (4%) (1940 flag emoji not available) 🇨🇿🇨🇿🇨🇿 Czechoslovakia (88) (3%) 🇦🇺 Australia (32) (1%) 🇧🇪 Belgium (28) (1%) 🇿🇦 S. Africa (25) (1%) (1940 flag emoji not available) 🇺🇳 Other nations (France (13), R o Ireland (10), USA (9), Rhodesia (3), Newfoundland (1), Jamaica (1), Barbados (1)) (1%) (And just to preempt any wandering idiot lefty "Identity warriors" from protesting about "The lack of credit given to the black pilots who fought in the battle of Britain"... the pilots from South Africa, Rhodesia & the Caribbean were all of white descent).
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 once again, this portrays that all the UK pilots were RAF. They weren't The RAF have been using propaganda recently to take glory they do not deserve. Tell the truth as they have done some incredible things. There is no need to try and alter hhistory. Sadly, the true heroes of the RAF are never mentioned.
@@BikersDoItSittingDown It was after all a force of 80% British pilots, flying British designed and built aircraft and directed by a world leading British radar command and control system, ably supported by a minority of commonwealth pilots and refugee foreign pilots.
Inspiring victory for those defending their country. I cannot help but thinking the what ifs of history, had the Britons manage to hold off Anglo-Saxons, or had Anglo-Viking Harold Godwinson succeeded defending Britain against the Normans, would they be hailed as the few who defended their country? Or, had the invasion not been canceled and succeeded, would the Nazis in Britain would be assimilated into a totally different culture from the continent like the Anglo-Saxons and Normans before them? Of course noting that Nazis were probably more evil than Anglo-Saxons, Normans and Vikings combined. By the way, the font show is good for a few sentences, but I think don't push it too far.
The beginning of the blitz was a lost German bomber not Churchill deciding to bomb Berlin. A lost bomber was the cause of the blitz and leading to the horrific events such as Dresden
For 2 weeks PRIOR to the "lost bomber" the luftwaffe had been hammering RAF Fighter Command sector airfields around London such as Kenley, Biggin Hill, Northolt and Hornchurch, (ALL within the boundary of "Greater London" within which Hitler had specifically banned luftwaffe bombing) and HUNDREDS of innocent British civilians had ALREADY been killed or wounded as "collateral damage" during these attacks...... BEFORE the navigational error of the Heinkel that jettisoned its bombs over south London.
Britain is an island nation. What you're saying is akin to "As I man I am human, but as a person I am not". P.S Britain WAS alone between July 1940 and April 1941.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Easter 1941 Germany suffered its first defeat in battle. It was at Tobruk, North Africa. It was the 9th Australian Division that gave germany its first defeat in battle.
@@Neil-yg5gm While the Australians besieged at Tobruk made a world famous defence under the Schoolteacher Leslie Morshead, It WASN'T the German's "first defeat". The 1900 aircraft they lost in their failed attempt to subdue the British isles and the RAF boot that was inserted up their arseholes at that time takes that accolade.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 ""While the Australians besieged at Tobruk made a world famous defence "" World famous? Nobody knows that Australia took part in WW2. I should have said it that Tobruk was the Germans ARMY. first defeat in WW2
@@Neil-yg5gm Well here am I, a ordinary retired fireman from Liverpool UK who just responded with some knowledge of the tenacious defence of the Australians? What more do you want? I clearly remember watching a documentary on the very subject here in the UK last year. Episode 9 of "Narrow Escapes of WW2" "Morshead holds Tobruk". Rest assured the WHOLE of WW2 history is slowly being removed from public consciousness... its up to individuals (and maybe the parents of younger kids) to find their own information as today's state "ejukashun sistims" are now more interested in telling kids that men and women and women are men and teaching advanced fellatio techniques to 6 year olds.
The Battle of Britain was a draw. It encouraged Britain to continue a war it could not win, that resulted in the complete destruction of Europe and the British Empire. Siding with Communism in 1939 was fatal for Britain's interests.
"The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces. The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out. The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely." But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan fell to ruin. The operation had been smashed in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory". I wonder if the citizens of Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden thought the "battle of Britain" was a "draw" in 1945?
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The OKW started preparing for Barbarossa as soon as Stalin broke the pact in June 1940. We should have allied with Germany against the only threat.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. You coax us back from doom. Thank you.
This kind of cleanly produced, quality and concise content puts anything being shown on TV to shame.
Really, I find that Dan Snow is utterly devoid of his father's gravitas.
@@grahamcook9289 In what way does Dan Snow illustrate that he is devoid of gravitas.
@@Petal4822 Because he is nothing more than secondary school history teacher with a famous father. He has nothing new to add, no insights or perspectives. He will say and do anything for a bit of filthy lucre. He debases himself, the subject and his famous name.
My Da was a Southern California boy with a pilot’s license who went to Britain as a volunteer & became a Flight Lieutenant in the 71st Eagle Squadron. He told me the Spitfire was as close to perfect as a plane could get, with all of the controls & instruments positioned to make operating it almost instinctive. He had flown Hurricanes as well, but the Spitfire was the plane he loved the most.
Your dad was a very brave man.
@daneelolivaw602, Thank you for your kind words, but Da didn’t consider himself brave. He came home with crippling survivor’s guilt & PTSD; his nightmares woke me up in the middle of the night throughout my childhood. War, even for the best of reasons - stopping fascist imperialism was certainly that - is a horrible thing which does terrible damage to the lives of those who survive it as well as destroying the lives of those who don’t.
@@robina.gardner2970
My father was not old enough to join the Army in WW2, but my Grandfather was a soldier in the British Army, in the Highland Light Infantry, and although this was a Scottish Regiment, my Grandad was a cockney boy from London, He fought right through the War, some of it with the British 8th Army, (The Desert Rats) including El-Alamein, in North Africa, and then up through Italy.
When i started work at Fifteen years old, one of my bosses was a Lancaster Bomber Pilot in the War, he was just nineteen years old, I have a friend, who's dad was one of the first troops to Liberate the Belsen Concentration Camp, he too was just Nineteen years old, both of these men, and my Grandad, much like your dad, did not consider themselves as brave. I do.
I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for them all.
Thank you for your reply.
@@daneelolivaw602 I also have the utmost respect for anyone who volunteers to fight against imperialism &/or authoritarianism, & even more respect for those who volunteer for a fight which is not directly theirs. The imperialist ambitions of people (using that term quite loosely) like Putin & Xi frankly terrify me. If anyone whom you mentioned is still living, please convey to them my respect & deepest thanks for their service.
He wasn't called Art something? Was he? I've read about him fighting in Malta and was also from California and thanks from this side of the pond
This is the first documentary video I have personally come across that mentions the Royal Navy regarding Germany's plans to invade. So much attention is concentrated on the RAF (which I agree should be the case) that many documentaries forget that the Royal Navy wouldn't just float about in the North Sea and let Germany tow those invasion barges uncontested. Air superiority or not, the Germans would be mauled by the home fleet and they knew it.
Wars are one from the air! The RN could not save Singapore let alone GB!
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz Please explain how the Kreigsmarine with its 2 light cruisers, 5 destroyers and 7 torpedo boats was going to prevent the RN Home fleet from wiping out any German STUPID enough to attempt a channel crossing at 2 knots in a TOWED canal barge?
Minefields? The British NIGHTLY cleared away german minefields with their 150 coastal minesweepers AND their squadron of Wellington DWI aerial magnetic minesweepers. Together they were so effective that coastal convoys were still sailing through the Dover Straits at night, right the way through the battle of Britain.
The Luftwaffe? Is that the same Luftwaffe that it was promised would prevent the BEF from being rescued from the Dunkirk pocket? How did that go? Oh yes.... 338,000 Allied troops evacuated with relatively light losses to the British & French navies.
It's interesting to note that the Lutwaffe had already suffered significant losses during the battle of France. In 1 month and a half during the battle of France the Lutwaffe lost 1.290 aircraft, almost as much as during the 3 months of the battle of Britain.
And the battle for the Netherlands. Decimated their paratroops and shot down at least 170 fighter planes.
The exploits of French and non-British allied pilots in 1940 are all too often forgotten, alas. I can't imagine what would have happened if the Germans had suffered fewer losses in May-June 1940...
Too often forgotten? Never seemingly not mentioned would be more accurate. You can even see the nationalities of all the pilots on Wikipeadea. @@MarquisVincentBissetdeGramont
@@MarquisVincentBissetdeGramont "The exploits of French and non-British allied pilots in 1940 are all too often forgotten," No they're not. But you have to remember that over 80% of Fighter command pilots during the BoB were of BRITISH birth.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 My comment mainly concerns the aerial combats in May-June 1940 on the Western Front (many foreign pilots also fought during the Battle of Britain).
The Average age of those RAF lads was just 20 years old, going into the skys against experienced veterans. Greatest generation.
I'm amazed at how young a lot of the soldiers/airmen/sailors were during the war. Even senior officers were sometimes shockingly young.
I guess you grow up quick when circumstances demand it. Either that or you end up a footnote.
"Greatest generation" who sold their Empire to the Americans for pennies on the dollar just to have their great grandchildren forced to live with foreign migrants.
All 18 yr olds should receive military training today. Society would benefit greatly instead of falling apart and becoming emotionally frail.
@@bandit6272
I worked for a company in London in the 1970s, one of the directors of the company, a lovely man, was a Lancaster Pilot in the war, he flew missions over Germany, he was 19 years old. 19 years old.
i stared at him barely able to take my eyes off of him, when he told us, he asked me if i was ok, i could barely speak to him i was so moved.
He said it was nothing, it needed doing, he said, "i had to help the country out". 19.
We were so lucky to have people like him.
Always amazed at how great a speaker Churchill, the words and his delivery calmed the warfighter and the civilian supporting the fighter and country.
Churchill said,
"By being so long in the lowest form (at Harrow School) i gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But i was taught English, Thus i got into my bones the essential structure of the British sentence, which is a noble thing".
I think a lot of people are thankful for those extra English lessons.
The Battle of Britain shows how technology and the spirit of resistance can change the fate of a war. A lesson that's still valid today.
explain how the battle of Britain was a turning point? And what kind of technology do you mean?
Germans had radar In those days.
The spirit of resistance is also due to propaganda keep that in mind.
Hitler being unable to break Britain in operation sea lion directly lead to Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union in operation Barbosa. The Battle of Britain was also the first major defeat of the Germans in the war and showed that the Germans could be beaten and put an unbreakable will and belief in the British people that victory would be achieved, and that Britain would never fall to Nazi Germany. Hitlers invasion of the Soviet Union followed operation sea lion (due to knowing Britain could not launch a counter offensive until 1942 in mainland Europe at the earliest but could not invade Britain let alone take her like the rest so turned his attention east) Hitler making this error, the biggest of his life *InvadingRUSSIA* also gave the British vital time to mobalize, and strengthen there military while boosting morale.
BTW dont know if you are aware but the Germans may have had have radar in the Battle of Britain (1939-1940), but they had no idea how effective it was when applied to ones defense and anticipation. Which is why they would find themselves outnumbering the RAF 5 to 1 and 4 to 1 and getting mauled in the main. The British could see the Germans soon as they were approaching the French coast, the Germans werent aware the British could see them and the formation before they were in the channel😂If that makes sense. This is mainly because the Germans mainly used a ground radar system known as FREYA which was way less effective than the system the Airborne radar the British deployed especially for defensive combat. @@Hooibeest2D
In addition to radar, they were able to decipher the encrypted German messages which they considered inviolable-this too is technology.
@@flyinghigh2724No your out of your depth! Try some research! USSR was Hitlers ideological war!
During WWII, the Luftwaffe was primarily designed to support the Blitzkrieg, i.e. to protect armoured vehicles and troops from enemy aircraft and to carry out ground attacks. Faced with Great Britain, protected by the English Channel and the Royal Navy, the Germans tried to conduct a strategic air campaign using totally unsuitable aircraft (such as the "Stukas"), which enabled Great Britain to thwart the Germans' plans. This was the main reason for the German defeat in the Battle of Britain.
Churchill's speeches always give me goose bumps!
Bomber command aircrew were betrayed by Churchill at the end of the war.
If anything inspires me, it's the sound of his voice.
Yup it should give you goosebumps does justice to the monster he is...ntg more than a fat old racist war criminal
Whatever his other faults (according to our modern sensibilities) the one thing nobody can take from him is his ability to spin a good speech to inspire. In that regard, he's arguably one of the finest orators of the 20th century.
Mussolini's speeches are impressive as well!
145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 10 Irish, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 9 Americans, 3 Southern Rhodesians and individuals from Jamaica, Barbados and Newfoundland.
@@Johnsgotti95but you've lost the real war
Take a look out your windows as I am.....
A melting pot of nationalities trying to preserve the free world in Europe - and revenge for Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and France.
@@normynorm2945 Oh give it a rest you 🤡
Ha ha
Thought Americans won battle of Britain
Well that's what an American said to me
Showed him the stats
Yes. Let it be known, the Battle of Britain was won by both the British and MANY HONOURABLE fighters that CHOSE to join in.
The young man on the thumbnail was Flight Lieutenant Brian Lane, who as a 23 year old in 1940, was TWICE temporarily placed in charge of 19 squadron as its former commanding officer had been killed in action. He was just TWENTY THREE years old when he took that HEAVY front line responsibility on his young shoulders. His photo is often seen in books on the subject of the battle and you can CLEARLY see the utter EXHAUSTION on his young face.
In December 1942 he was shot down off the Dutch coast.... his body was never found.
It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage documentary about the Britain 🇬🇧 Air battle.....thank you 🙏 ( history Hit) channel.
I have said it several times before in my youtube comments to BoB videos, that this battle changed the course of the war. If It had been lost and Britain had capitulated, then Germany would have had free reign against the Russians. America wouldn't have been able to help. There would be no bombing of German held territory both day and night, no Africa campaign. no battle of the Atlantic, no one supplying Russia with weapons and more importantly - intelligence. Germany would have been able to throw all their recourses at the Russian campaign, and I think very probably have won. Look how long it all the allies working together, to defeat them.
what are you babbling about? churchill would have just fled to canada and continued the war using the rest of british empire to mobilise resources against europe. the british empire would have bombed britian itself into ruble. the commonwealth forces and the americans would have still invaded africa and the war in russia would have still resulted in a stalemate with germany still struggling due to its oil shortages while the soviets had plenty of their own.
@@Gingerphile00 America would have had no interest in invading Africa, why would they? With Britain out of the picture, they would just have to do business with the new European superpower. Don't forget there was a significant part of the US population that was of German decent. Also they would still have had to deal with Japan.
@@Gingerphile00 Clearly you have never read any detailed history of the second world war. You also haven't read any number of the excellent biographies on Churchill by those that worked with him and knew him. Your freedom to speak ill of those who gave you your freedom is the sign of a poor education and poor intellect.
Fortunately, the Germans could not win against Great Britain, not least because the English Channel (and the Royal Navy) made Blitzkrieg impossible.
@@Gingerphile00 My word Josh, your level of nonsense knows utterly NO bounds !!!
Indeed Churchill, the UK govt and the Royal Navy did all have plans to evacuate to Canada if Britain fell, but WHERE do you get the nonsense that "the british empire would have bombed britain itself into rub(b)le"?
Please tell me what large bombers did the British Commonwelath possess and which airbases would they be flying from in order to pound Britain into rubble?
As for a nazi / soviet stalemate, rest assured that Stalin & his cronies would have been eating their borscht with a wooden spoon sitting in a cave in Mongolia by 1943 if it hadn't been for the UK still holding out against nazism in western Europe.
You have to admire the diction and the class of oration of Churchill, the way he spoke was so powerful, even though he used large words that some would not understand, he placed emphasis on the simple words to incite the people .
Britain's finest hour. Truly amazing and inspiring stuff.
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
At about a minute, that looks like a P-40, which didn't participate in the BoB.
An excellent documentary and some aerial combat footage I don't recall seeing before. Many thanks.
I pass the Polish War memorial on my way to work at Northolt Aerodrome
WE WILL REMEMBER YOU
We remember ALL the pilots, from all around the world, EQUALLY. We will remember THEM.
Could I, as a Polish woman, ask you for a favor? If it won't get you in trouble, could you light a candle at this memorial on your way to work?
Great video. Have to give a shout out to the graphics design team at History Hit. The animated words of Churchill’s iconic speeches were strikingly good. Great job!
@@stephengraham5099 It is a video and not a podcast. Visuals for me were well done. But, as you said, to each their own.
Archive footage was shown under Churchill's words.
There are numerous memorials to the battle. The most important one are the Battle of Britain Monument in London and the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-le-feme in Kent.
The saffer Sailer Malan was an ace. Thanks for assisting the RAF.
South Africa should have remained neutral, like Ireland.
It was Britain's first stand. The RAF was the FIRST line of defence against invasion, not the last.
their line of defense was a vast global empower the plundered resources of countries of different continents.
@@Gingerphile00 cry about it
@@Gingerphile00 Repeating the same thing does not make it true. Explain how a vast empire would protect the beaches of Hastings, Eastbourne and Pevensey from Nazi invasion. I am genuinely curious.
@@Gingerphile00 I am sure your indoctrinators would be proud of you.
@@Gingerphile00Too many children are taught by lefties! Who pays for your council house, immigrants?
'The Royal Air Force takes these films to record how various enemy types stand up to the fire of our fighters. Apparently they don't. Watch this...' Outstanding
Whenever I watch documentaries on the Battle of Britain, I immediately think of Reginald Mitchell, we should think if it were not for him where would we be and for all the pilots of the spitfire!
great video as always I do love how Dan is so Enthusiastic.
A time when the country and its people were proud to be British
This is why it isn't now.
I just want to register my admiration, again, for Churchhill's way with words. All these years later and his speeches still hit.
Someone went a bit wild with the transitions and graphics on the Churchill part.
They were very irritating, and why do they have to use frequency modulation ( I think that is what it's called) for Wing Commander Neil's contribution at 14.20.
I agree, I wanted to look at the images of London, not irritating graphics.
Thankws for sharing.
The graphic representations of the speeches are fantastic!
That's one word for them.
Fantastically distracting and annoying
@@timganotis7875 Totally agree. And unnecessary too.
The people who did the graphics should be made Garter Knights. Well done! Loved your work!
The best quote of the Battle of Britain I've heard is from an RAF fighter Ace, who when asked what was his favorite fighter aircraft said, 'To fly in a Spitfire, but to fight in a Hurricane'.
No RAF fighter pilot wanted a Hurricane when Me109s were around. They all knew the superiority of the Spitfire.
Thanks for posting
To my knowledge, this documentary is the first one to bring up the Royal Navy in relation to Germany's invasion intentions. Many movies overlook the Royal Navy's unwillingness to allow Germany to tow those invasion barges unopposed in the North Sea because of the excessive focus on the Royal Air Force (which I also believe should be the case). The Germans were well aware that the home fleet would annihilate them regardless of their air superiority.
A bygone age and irrelevent in todays wars!
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz Irrelevant? Oh you mean because your heroes got their arses well and truly kicked ? As for Irrelevent It was Britain alone in 1940-41 that SAVED Europe from 1000 years of nazi tyranny. THAT'S how relevent the BoB was.
@@JohnSmith-ei2pzWhat’s that got to do with the Battle of Britain?
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz There’s a "Third World” war in progress now ~ and ‘The West’ is losing it too!
"The Anglo-sphere is committing mass suicide". quote from ~ Victor Davis Hanson - Hoover Institution 04/09/2021
Correct, but Germany never intended to invade at that time, despite what was printed in the media back then or since.
fantastic watch
Top 10 scoring RAF Fighter Command Sdqs during the battle of Britain.
1st - 603 (City of Edinburgh) Sqd (Spitfire) - 57½ confirmed kills.
2nd - 609 (West Riding) Sqd (Spitfire) - 51½ confirmed kills.
3rd - 303 (Kościuszko) Sqd (Hurricane) - 45 confirmed kills.
4th - 41 Sqd (Spitifre) - 44¾ confirmed kills.
5th - 501 (County of Gloucester) Sqd (Hurricane) - 40½ confirmed kills.
6th - 92 (East India) Sqd (Spitfire) - 40.2 confirmed kills.
7th - 602 (City of Glasgow) Sqd (Spitfire) - 36 confirmed kills.
7th - 54 Sqd (Spitfire) - 36 confirmed kills.
9th - 43 (The Fighting Cocks) Sqd (Hurricane) - 35.2 confirmed kills.
10th- 601 (County of London) Sqd (Hurricane) - 35 confirmed kills.
Top 6 RAF Fighter Command Sqd (Me-109 kills)
1st - 603 (City of Edinburgh) Sqd (Spitfire) - 47 confirmed kills.
2nd - 41 Sqd (Spitifre) - 34 confirmed kills.
3rd - 501 (County of Gloucester) Sqd (Hurricane) - 30½ confirmed kills.
4th - 303 (Kościuszko) Sqd (Hurricane) - 30 confirmed kills.
5th - 54 Sqd (Spitfire) - 28 confirmed kills.
6th - 610 (County of Chester) Sqd (Spitfire) - 24 confirmed kills.
Produced from the most comprehensive research ever conducted of RAF records, Luftwaffe quartermaster-general loss returns, and by the records of the location of aircraft crashed on land, carried out by John Alcorn and Dr Alfred Price in 1999-2000.
Fake figures.
@@Jeremy-y1t Are the figures of +1700 Luftwaffe aircraft lost, the vast majority complete with their highly trained prewar "experten" aircrews, also fake?
I wonder who all those thousands of men in Luftwaffe uniforms we transported to Canada in 1940/41 were then?
Hahahahaha
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Canada should have joined the Axis in 1936.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The RAF lost 1,744 planes during the Battle of Britain.
@@Jeremy-y1t 951 to be precise jeremarkyjames.... with the majority of their pilots returning to active service within a year. Suck it up lad, suck it up.
Great stuff guys, I loved the graphics
Once again, you guys knocked it out of the park with another brilliant documentary, well done!
Salute
Churchill's words bring shivers.
Funny... the video announcer said the Spit flew at 387 mph. Tgat is completely untrue at that stage of the war. It flew at approximately 348-350 mph.
Possibly a bit of propaganda for morale purposes?
It had silly 0.303 m/guns pathetic!
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz Ask the +1500 Luftwaffe aircraft shot down in summer 1940 if they though 8 x .303s were "pathetic".
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684Hearsay does not work! The RAF were well known for their bs kill rate! Just like the Luftwaffe!
@@JohnSmith-ei2pz No the figure of 1500 luftwaffe aircraft is from LUFTWAFFE records... if you include all the Luftwaffe aircraft lost during the battle due to accidnets and other causes it's over 1733 destroyed & 643 damaged.
As for the comparison of RAF and Luftwaffe aircraft armaments. The Me109E had....
2x 7.92mm MG17s above the engine each with 1000 rounds of ammo. The MG17 had a rate of fire of 1200rpm which gave 50 seconds of fire.
2x 20mm MG FF cannon in the wings with just 60 rounds of ammo each. The MG FF even with its relatively low rate of fire of 540rpm gave just over SIX SECONDS of potent but low density fire.
So after those 6 seconds of fire the 109E had 44 seconds of relatively ineffective 2 x 7.92mm MG fire left, effectively making the average Me 109E a one (or sometimes two) punch wonder.
The RAF fighter's 16 seconds of EIGHT .303 Brownings each firing 300 rounds at 1150rpm looks a LOT less anaemic when viewed like that.
With regards to dogfighting the nazi's MG FF itself was far from an ideal weapon. As well as its low rate of fire, it's low muzzle velocity meant that when used in a "turning battle" or at high angles of deflection it was an incredibly difficult weapon to achieve hits with. It was best employed in "Boom and Zoom" tactics, where a diving 109 would fall on an unsuspecting British fighter and shred it before it had time to react.... Experienced 109 pilots were loath to get into a "turning fight" with a Spitfire or Hurricane.
In defence of the 8 x .303s of the British fighters and their lack of outright destructive power, one RAF pilot (either Al Deere or Adolph Malan, I can't remember) voiced the opinion of many RAF pilots when they was recorded as saying they preferred to send a German bomber back to France, riddled with bullet holes, both engines smoking with its aircrew dead and dying rather than shooting it down outright.
So interesting.....I enjoy learning more about WW2.
Respect to any pilot from anywhere if the fight the king and country they are on equal to any native Brit in those planes
Amazing bravery 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 🇦🇺
🇳🇿 🇵🇱 more I’m missing I’m. Sure
Aircraft we are not talking woodwork!
Yes we STILL honour the 595 NON British pilots (who supported the +2400 BRITISH pilots), flying British planes and directed by a pioneering BRITISH command and control system.
Why is the introduction of radar in the documentary using a backing track of underwater sonar ping sounds?
Just because you have 50 different fonts doesn’t mean you have to use them. Very annoying.
Great program
Why didn't you mention the real reason Churchill bombed Berlin in late August? because the Luftwaffe mistakenly bombed London.
I assume you're referring to the navigational error by the Heinkel which dropped its bombs over south London on 23rd August 1940.... what about the REPEATED luftwaffe raids against RAF FIghter Command sector stations such as Biggin Hill, Kenley, Hornchurch & Northolt, which had been taking place for the previous two weeks, and ALL of which were within the boundary of Greater London, and during those attacks HUNDREDS of innocent British civilians had been killed and wounded by "collateral damage".
The bombs mistakenly dropped on south London on the 23rd were simply the "final straw".
Julius Meimberg, Battle of Britain veteran said, ‘It’s all exaggerated, Churchill succeeded in creating this myth that so few did so much for so many. When you look at how we fought against the Americans later, the Battle of Britain was very little in comparison.’
More Brit hating nonsense eh, Nick? What you're saying is a nazi pilot who was thoroughly TROUNCED during the battle of Britain said that they weren't trounced. The Germans failure to knock Britain out of WW2 in 1940/41 was PIVOTAL.... don't try to paint it any other way, sonny.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The Battle of Britain was irrelevant as Hitler never intended to invade the UK.
As soon as Stalin broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 28 June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa.
We should have helped the anti-Communist side.
@@MarkHarrison733 More BS Mark. Fuhrer Directive No. 16 proves you're talking as much BS as you ALWAYS do.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The directive was a deliberate bluff.
@@Jeremy-y1t The idea of a "bluff" is that you make it known to the recipient otherwise how can you bluff them? Hitler's directive no.16 in particular was sent from his mountain retreat, "The Berghof" on 16th July 1940 to OKW "Armed forces High Command" using the "Lorenz" encyphering device sent over secure land lines.
As the British decryption efforts had not yet broken into the Lorenz encyption network in 1940, how exactly were the British supposed to know the contents of Hitler Directive No.16?
The conclusion is that it wasn't "a bluff", but Hitler's decree to his armed forces high command to prepare for an invasion of the UK.
Also was the Luftwaffe's loss of over 1700 aircraft together with most of their highly trained, prewar "Experten" aircrews during the battle of Britain also a "bluff"?
Even with all his faults, and he had many, the FREE WORLD owes it’s(the apostrophe in this instance is to show possession) continued existence to Sir. Winston S. Churchill. Yes, the USA and other countries provided materials, supplies and later men, but it was Churchill’s iron will that kept the world free.
I know right? he only had THE WORLDS LARGEST OCEANIC EMPIRE at his command
@@Gingerphile00 Virtually NONE of which was involved in the defence of Britain in 1940-41.
Team work and good luck.
They defeated Germany not a political party. lt was Germany's War Machine.
It was a draw.
@Jeremy-y1t when you see how they helped destroy our lndustry. Ascot gas water heaters replaced by Junkers. Ronson replaced by Braunn. It was more like a draw. We helped replace their factories with new ones.
@@Jeremy-y1t "A Draw". Hahahaha.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Britain lost 1,744 planes.
Very well presented
The Battle of Britain was a draw.
No it wasn't Jeremarkyjames. The nazis set out to "eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."
They failed COMPLETELY in that task and in the process squandered 1700 of their aircraft together with their highly trained aircrews for nothing.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Hitler never intended to invade the UK. As soon as Stalin broke the pact in June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa.
We should have allied with Germany against the only threat.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Britain and France destroyed themselves and their empires by siding with Communism in 1939.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The UK lost 1700 aeroplanes.
@@Jeremy-y1t RAF Fighter Command ended the Battle of Britain with more and better fighters than they started with, better tactics and more experience aircrew. The Luftwaffe lost a large number of aircraft and crew that German production was NOT keeping up with. By EVERY measure, the RAF won the Battle of Britain.
As the great Duke said after Waterloo - 'it was the closest damned run thing I did ever see'. Wise words from a great general.
,
Waterloo was a German victory.
@@Jeremy-y1t More accurately, it was a German and British victory and a French defeat. The battle would not have come off as it did without both the British and German forces.
@@walkergarya Germany won the battle.
@@walkergarya Have you guessed that "Jeremy" (aka Mark Harrison / James Richards) is a nazi fanboi / Brit hater?
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 We should have allied with Germany in 1901.
Regarding the title, they were not fighting the Nazis. No amount of semantic wordplay will change the past. They were at war with Germany.
It's not a battle of Britain documentary unless you see flappy gun ports! I'm waiting!
Julius Meimberg, Battle of Britain Luftwaffe veteran said, ‘It’s all exaggerated, Churchill succeeded in creating this myth that so few did so much for so many. When you look at how we fought against the Americans later, the Battle of Britain was very little in comparison.’
Quote *Park’s leadership, and his men’s bravery,*
*denied the Luftwaffe air superiority.* *After*
*the war when the Nazi’s most senior army*
*commander, Field Marshal von Rundstedt,*
*was asked* *which Battle he regarded as*
*most decisive* *he replied* *"The Battle* *of*
*Britain"*
All Nations Together - A Battle of Britain resource.
Said after losing 1700 aircraft in 3 months..... the previously all conquering Luftwaffe gets its arse PUBLICLY kicked and tries to laugh it off.... Hahahahaha
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Not to mention the first German defeat.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The numbers make it clear, the operational combat strength of the Luftwaffe went from around 2,400 down to around 1,600. Meanwhile the operational strength of RAF fighter command went from around 650 to around 700. The Luftwaffe broke themselves against a brick wall of British resilience.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Hitler never intended to invade the UK, and as soon as Stalin broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 28 June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa.
We should have allied with Germany against the only threat.
Churchill, perhaps the last of the English generation,
Churchill was a traitor.
Eh? I'm pretty sure there's about 57 million of actually.
@@martinputt6421 John Cleese confirmed the truth about England.
Radar was hardly a secret When Generalfeldmarschall Miltch met Dowding for Lunch at Bentley Priory He asked Dowding how he was getting on with radio detection,The war would be won or lost in the Atlantic,not over southern England.
There wouldn't have been a Battle of the Atlantic if the Battle of Britain was lost.
@@Smoshy16Not sure how the RAF could br defeated when only a small propotion of available fighters were stationed in southern England,protection of the industrial midlands and north was the main priority.
@@terryoneil6209 Where do you get the "only a small propotion of available fighters were stationed in southern England" nonsense from?
RAF Fighter Command 11 Group covering Kent / Surrey / Sussex commanded 27 fighter squadrons (out of a total of 64 RAF fighter squadrons or 42% of Fighter Command's TOTAL force). These facts are easily searchable on the internet, try looking details up instead of making up complete nonsense and trying to pass it off as "fact".
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 I am not going to argue numbers in what was a fluid conflict, but the main point I was making is that the RAF could not loose. infact they only had to avoid defeat until October, the RAF had more available fighters at the end of the conflict than in July,with fighter production increasing only a shortage of pilots was becoming a short term concern.Dowding in his book has no mention of any BoB just a page and half to what he refers to the ''summer air battles over southern England'' Battles of little significance and no stratigic importance.
@@terryoneil6209 I know you're not "going to argue numbers"... instead you just make them up to justify the nonsense of your argument.
So what that Dowding never assigned the name "the battle of Britain"? The summer air battles that were the prelude to German invasion plans happened. End of.
As for your "Battles of little significance and no stratigic importance" I only need to provide a SINGLE piece of verifiable information to prove my point. What better than the order issued by none other the Adolf Hitler himself? Below I've "copy and pasted" the preamble to Hitler "Fuhrerbefehl No. 16" (Fuhrer Directive 16) issued from the Reichchancellery on 16th July 1940 to the German armed forces high command (OKW).
The directive was transmitted in what the Germans believed was an unbreakable code, showing that it was NOT for the digest of the British and simply designed to initmidate them into coming to the surrender table, but was a true indication of Hitler's intent.
"The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces.
The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies
Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England
Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out.
The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."
But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan was academic. The operation had been stopped in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory".
Lets then look at what would have happened if the United Kingdom, as the LAST power then opposing nazism in the world, had instead chosen to surrender, there would have been:
NO D-Day and war in the Meditteranean to draw sizeable wehrmacht resources from the war on the Eastern Front.
NO strategic bombing of German cities and war industries.
NO interdiction of German global sea trade by the Royal Navy.
NO massive supply of weapons and war materiel from the west to the USSR, once their former allies nazi Germany had turned on them.
NO utterly crucial strategic intelligence courtesy of Britain's (not Poland's before you say it) "ULTRA" program.
With the result that the USSR would have collapsed somewhere in 1942/43, leaving the nazis in control of the whole of Europe, where their extermination camps would STILL be operating on European soil today, and the US would have been left isolated between a nazi dominated Europe and a Japanese dominated Asia.
And nowadays all we seem to get are clueless, ignorant modern day commenters such as yourself pissing over those sacrifices and effort. No wonder the ongoing constant flow of lefty insults and ingratitude towards the UK leads some British people to think we should have saved our own citizen's lives, economy and empire and instead left the nazis to it, and let them carry on raping and murdering their European conquests.
interesting video, thanks for sharing
The title is all wrong. The BofB was not against the Nazi Party, it was against the Luftwaffe. Cut out all this woke political correctness and state the facts. It is a fact that many brave and highly skilled Luftwaffe pilots were certainly not Nazis, but honourable professional warriors, like Galland.
Looking at pictures of Luftwaffe planes. There's this weird X on their tails but the arms are bent. Those freedom X's?
Hitler never intended to invade the UK.
As soon as Stalin broke the pact on 28 June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa.
Jeremarkyjames. Hitler says you're talking bullsh!t.
"The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces.
The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies
Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England
Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out.
The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."
But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan fell into ruin. The operation had been stopped in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory".
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 That directive was a deliberate bluff while the Axis prepared for Barbarossa.
The Battle of Britain was a draw.
@@Jeremy-y1t Your lies do not rewrite history.
@@walkergarya We should have allied with Germany against the only threat.
@@Jeremy-y1t No shyte for brains, for all of Stalin's faults, he did not invade most of Europe.
Hitler was a total asshole and needed to be defeated.
Looking at modern day Britain, they really shouldn’t have bothered
There always has to be one. Congratulations, you're the one.
Make it two been to Canada lately
Come and visit our third world caliphate
Cheer up! It could be worse...
@@philandrews100Youve obviously never been to Canada . Id rather be speaking German than Arabic and Hindi. DO you know the number one baby name here is Muhammed? If this is what you wanted to happen then congratulations and enjoy
In 2024 Britain is cleaner, more green, better standard of living, longer life expectancy etc etc. Oh and far better food.
The attrition among the flight and section leaders like Brian Lane featured was prolific. Many knew that to operate their flights and sections at their most effective that they personally were unlikely to survive, and so it proved.
But the RAF did a much better job of pulling back experienced pilots to pass on what they knew to new pilots in the training programs, and were able to replace the losses they suffered.
Losses for the Germans were much higher, and the Germans did not have a sufficient training program to stem these losses.
Over the course of the daylight component of the Battle the operational combat strength of the Luftwaffe went from around 2,400 down to around 1,600.
Over the same period the operational strength of RAF fighter command went from around 650 to around 700.
@@iansneddon2956RAF OTU training was severely truncated in 1940 and replacement pilots very under trained, especially in gunnery and their SA practically undeveloped.
@@bobsakamanos4469 But the rate of losses for the Germans remained much higher than the losses for RAF Fighter Command. With the Luftwaffe forces having been in combat operations for going on 4 months and suffering greater losses, their morale was dropping and they had their own replacement issues.
The RAF never got as bad as the level of "training" the new Luftwaffe pilots were receiving in 1944 into 1945. I recall that the non-combat losses for the Luftwaffe spiked up to a peak in 1944 and then fell. With no increase in training it appears that German pilots who would have been crashing their aircraft at some point were not surviving combat long enough to get to that.
@@iansneddon2956 it's all relative. The loss of young lads due to lack of training is the main point and because of attrition, OTU training was cutback to speed the delivery of replacement pilots in the BoB. I always will detest governments that continue to cause that due to military underfunding and feeding their friends at the trough.
@@bobsakamanos4469 Completely agree with this sentiment. Allied (USA and UK) training hours increased by later in the war (the word "increase" seems like an understatement here). But the needs in the early war years to grow forces meant deficiencies in training, doctrine and numbers in forces that were scrambling to catch up. Germany's greatest advantage was the head start in re-armament.
The massive investment in the size, training and equipment of the US military is essential to avoid being in this situation. If you wait until you need a military to start building it you end up with governments carrying out the "appeasement" of the late 1930s which only served to encourage the Nazis to go further.
Yet how many NATO members have failed to meet the modest 2% spending target.
Corruption has always been a factor in government and the military has never been exempt from this.
Those young lads paid the price for their Government's and the British public's unwillingness (and to some extent inability) to re-arm in the face of German rearmament.
How would the Battle of Britain have gone if the 2,400 operational combat aircraft the Germans sent against UK in July 1940 were met by a force of 1,500 operational modern fighter aircraft instead of the actual 650 which included some obsolete aircraft?
The Chamberlain government's investment in the RAF from before the war was essential to Britain holding out and winning the battle, but how much easier it would have been if that 1939 spending had started in 1937 or earlier?
My dad recalled when a luftwaffe fighter pilot shot down over Essex , walked to the local pub to surrender, to be told the local bobby, had just left to go to the next village. But have a scrumpie (alcoholic apple cider) and something to eat before before you go lad, long story short, by the time he caught up to the bobby 2 or 3 villages later, he was well pissed. My mum could remember German POW’s walking through the local streets on Saturdays, well until the yanks arrived, locals weren’t sure they were on our side.
@stevebowman421
That story reminds me of one my dad told us about
My father was a 14 year old boy during the Battle of Britain, they lived by the Oval Cricket Ground, a German Pilot was shot down and he landed in the Oval, my dad said there were hundreds of people running down the streets towards the Oval (and there are about six street converging at the ground) carrying anything they could use as a weapon, he said the poor sod must have been crapping himself, luckily for him the Police got to him first.
Nice to see a video on Sir Keith Park
The British are a resilient and fierce people and Churchill was the perfect PM during World War 2.
Churchill was a traitor.
@MarkHarrison733 how so? By inspiring his people during the deadliest war and loving his country?
@@Rebelrouser1776 He was bribed to destroy Europe and the British Empire by Strakosch, just as he had been bribed by Cassel during World War I.
The British Empire was on the wrong side in both conflicts.
@@Rebelrouser1776 Don;t react to this delusional nazi fanboi. He's completely "hatstand" and out of touch with reality.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Churchill himself openly confirmed receiving bribes from Cassel and Strakosch.
See why Israel bombed British civilians during World War II.
Simple answer…We (Great Britain) had the worlds first IADS……
Jajaja Yeah... Jajaja
More complicated than that .
Also 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 10 Irish, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 9 Americans, 3 Southern Rhodesians and individuals from Jamaica, Barbados and Newfoundland.
@@julianshepherd2038more straightforward than that.. The Germans didn't want to really invade Britain. They were natural allies. They dedicated 9/10 of their resources to the defeat of Soviet Union and the evil of bolshevism. Britain got a lucky break.
@@athelstan927What a stupid comment... blocked.
@@athelstan927Operation Sealion was the planned Invasion of Britain, Operation Barbarossa was the planned invasion of Russia. One took place after the other one, they wasn’t running simultaneously
finest hour indeed
Truly he mobilized the English language and sent it to war.
Love your work 👍
It was a close run thing.
Not exactly.
The Luftwaffe started the battle with around 2,400 operational combat aircraft against RAF Figther Command's operational strength of around 650.
A little into August 1940, the Luftwaffe switched to attacking RAF ground targets with their strength of ~2,200 vs the RAF's ~750
Four weeks later the Luftwaffe with their strength of around 1,700 switched to attacking cities while the RAF strength was down to around 720
Weeks later, around the end of daylight Luftwaffe attacks, the ~1,600 operational strength of the Luftwaffe was faced with the ~700 operational strength of RAF Fighter Command
If the Germans wanted to keep on destroying their air force, the British would have kept on helping them with that.
So it wasn’t all that long ago that leadership was about more than lining one’s own pockets.
Don't be so sure about that.
By the end of the battle Britain had lost its independence forever.
But we also stopped the nazis from opening their "death camps" on our soil, so it was a price worth paying.
P.S The 1969 movie "The battle of Britain" is STILL a classic , and that STILL makes your piss boil.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 There were no such camps.
Franco told the real truth about it in 1945.
Britain caused all of the deaths in the forced labour camps.
@@Jeremy-y1t "there were no such camps" Hmmmm... who to believe? A neo nazi BStter or my own uncle who witnessed first hand the liberation of Bergen-Belsen? And that was a minor camp compared to the 6 death camps sited in Poland.
Geobbels told the real truth about you at the Berliner Sportpalast in 1944 when he addressed the throng of dispirited nazi supporters proclaiming "the multi-account bellend called "Jeremarkyjames" talks nothing but complete sh!te".
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 They were just internment and forced labour camps.
@@Jeremy-y1t Call them what you will in your own personal delusion, the fact is they were used for the industrial scale murder of MILLIONS of jews and others deemed "undesirable" by your beloved nazi regime.
Given how things have changed, they probably wish they hadn’t bothered
I don't know about you, but the absence of nazi death camps in the Cotswolds, Pennines & Scottish Highlands seems a worthwhile legacy of their courage and resolve.
A true battle by the free for the free world
Britain was denying half of the world its freedom in 1940.
They were tougher than us, weren't they. They survived that war an tried to build a better world after. I know my mum was always bitter that she lost a pair of twins because all the doctors where somewhere else working with casualties after a bomb braid. Sad to think
Background music and sounds belong just there...
Wonderful as always, but please drop the unnecessary, distracting texts of Churchill's speeches.
Beaverbrook was Canadian, by the way, and the RCAF provided its own squadron and pilots to the battle (albeit under RAF command). Churchill obviously had a thing for Canadians, as the spymaster Intrepid (William Stephenson) "this one is dear to my heart" was also Canadian. Britain did NOT go it alone as the popular narrative goes. 20% of pilots in the battle were from other countries. Their contributions and sacrifices should not be trivialized by ignoring them.
Please provide us with the details of the luftwaffe air assaults on Canberra, Ottawa, Delhi and Wellington? Or how the Wehrmacht stood poised to launch its invasion of the Indian sub continent? Or how the Kriegsmarine attempted to strangle "the British Empire" out of the war by enforcing a u-boat blockade of Australia and New Zealand?
Oh news just coming in...... NONE OF THOSE THINGS HAPPENED because the ONLY nation facing ALL of those threats between July 1940 and April 1941 was the United Kingdom ALONE.
Britain as an island was on it's own the British as a people weren't! Nobody has ever ignored or trivialised any of the other nationalities who took part! I suggest you watch the movie 'The Battle of Britain' that was made in the late 1960s and then come back!
Noone said we did it alone but the vast majority were british and we are proud of that. We are thankfull to the over 500 that fought alongside us.
‘The Royal Navy was still the most powerful fleet in the world…any invasion fleet would have been destroyed as it tried to cross the Channel…’
Mmmm, well, yes, theoretically.
The Nazis would only have attempted a crossing with aerial superiority.
But even putting this aside, the English Channel (or Narrow Seas, as they were called) were hardly an ideal place for a massed naval operation in response, and it is doubtful that any of our capital ships would have been risked there.
Especially as it was also heavily sown with minefields on both sides and, doubtless, U-boats would have concentrated there.
Unfortunately, their Lordships of the Admiralty were not always at the forefront of technical innovation, or at keeping abreast of new developments.
At the beginning of the war RN ships, especially lighter units like destroyers, were woefully under-equipped with AA defences and extremely vulnerable to aerial attack.
As was discovered in the 1940 Norwegian campaign, even capital ships with comparatively heavy AA armament could be attacked by the Stuka dive-bomber and, as a result, the fleet had had to be completely withdrawn from coastal waters until it was out of range of the Luftwaffe.
Probably, the fairest assessment is that if it had actually come to it, there would have been a bloodbath out there in the Channel, on both sides…
Yes they cannot even stop dingies today!
Taken from the "Fuhrer Directive no. 13" Issued 2 days before the start of "Operation Dynamo" (better known as the Dunkirk Evacuation).
"The task of our Air Force will be to break all enemy resistance on the part of the surrounded forces, TO PREVENT THE ESCAPE OF THE ENGLISH FORCES ACROSS THE CHANNEL, and to protect the southern flank of Army Group A."
How did that work out for Goering's overconfident Luftwaffe then? Let me think..... 338,000 troops removed from the Dunkirk pocket with relatively light losses to the British and French Navies in the tight confines of the Channel at its narrowest point.
Don't overestimate the Luftwaffe's anti-ship capabilities. It took until 1942 for the Luftwaffe to gain the ability to air launch a torpedo, and inspite of the Mediterranean sea being SURROUNDED by Axis airfields and packed with RN capital ships, the largest ship axis air forces sank during the WHOLE of WW2 was an RN light cruiser.
Rest assured the RN was just ITCHING for the Wehrmacht to dip a toe in the Channel.
Churchill articulated Chamberlains pre-war threat of war not concerning a city in a foreign land and to be continued irrespective of any invaded country being defeated. He inherited the opportunity, not from Blenheim but from Birmingham. It is an historical truth rarely voiced - Chamberlain was a civilian.
Chamberlain accepted Basil Liddel Harts opinion of another war, and was invariably up to date on the rearmament front, favouring the RAF at the expense of the army, but this caused controversy in 1940 when many imagined the BEF would be an impressive force capable of crossing the Rhine on stilts.
But not only was Chamberlain favouring the RAF, but particularly RAF Fighter Command with the chain of radar stations and related infrastructure as well as expanded training programs to produce large numbers of pilots. Considering how the Battle of Britain played out, Chamberlain was not wrong. Churchill made some great speeches but the Battle of Britain was won by Chamberlain's RAF.
@@iansneddon2956indeed, an umbrella -
overcome with joy, his reaction on the phone when told of fighter victory.
His first flight to meet Hitler, Sept 15 - more famous two years later
See why Lehi and the Irgun bombed British civilians during World War II.
Can't believe you go to the trouble of upvoting your own comments, then log out into your other accounts and then upvote them yourself again. Rest assured we know that there's no other half wits in these comments who'd be upvoting your constant nonsense, Jeremarkyjames.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 See why Israel supported Argentina in 1982.
I am learning to praise myself.
The Battle of Britain was irrelevant as Hitler never intended to invade the UK.
As soon as Stalin broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 28 June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa.
We should have helped the anti-Communist side in World War II.
I only need to provide a SINGLE piece of verifiable information to prove my point. What better than the order issued by none other the Adolf Hitler himself? Below I've "copy and pasted" the preamble to Hitler's "Fuhrerbefehl No. 16" (Fuhrer Directive 16) issued from the "Berghof" (Hitler's "holiday home" in Bavaria) on 16th July 1940 to the German armed forces high command (OKW).
The directive was transmitted over secure landlines encrypted in what the Germans believed was an unbreakable code, showing that it was NOT for the digest of the British and simply designed to initmidate them into coming to the surrender table, but was a true indication of Hitler's intent.
"The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces.
The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies
Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England
Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out.
The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."
But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan was academic. The operation had been stopped in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory".
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The Battle of Britain was a draw.
The directive was a delibertae ruse while the Axis prepared for Barbarossa.
@@Jeremy-y1t Nope. You are attempting, and failing, to rewrite history.
@@Jeremy-y1t Jeremy you silly boy.... "a draw"? I ask you !!!
The German's declared intention? "to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely"
The Result? The Luftwaffe lose 1700 aircraft together with most of their highly trained aircrews, and 2 years later Britain was flattening Germany city by city.
I think its self evident that the Germans COMPLETELY failed to "eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany".
I suggest you go get some aloe vera for your little burned wehraboo ass.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Hitler never intended to invade the UK.
As soon as Stalin broke the pact in June 1940 the OKW started preparing for Barbarossa.
Britain was already bombing German cities and towns from 11 May 1940, long before the Battle of Britain began.
Not so much ''The Greatest'' but is was damned important to the UK 🙂
Great video but Dan Snow is very inept.
No, Britain did not invent the radar. The radar had been patented in Germany 1904 and 1906 by Christian Hülsmeyer and an article was published in technical magazines worldwide. Many countries continued the development of the radar in the following years. The building of Britain's Chain Home with the array of very large antennas and the accompanying effective warning system was brilliant though. The huge stations were built at the right time and the organization was impressive.
Yeah a lot of people still believe that radar was secret or only the allies had it. Every developed military used radar in some extent, but the Brits had by far the best integrated air defence network in the world.
The radar stations were part of the scramble to build up RAF Fighter Command from 1938-1940. It was an effort championed by Neville Chamberlain with the construction of the stations already underway when Chamberlain went to Munich.
(BTW, Chamberlain was advised by the senior-most British military leaders that Britain would lose a war with Germany in 1938 and that even delaying such a war by six months would make a huge difference. So he was following the advice of his military when he capitulated at Munich. He came home, waved a paper, said something about peace, and continued re-arming.)
The RAF survived by continuing to exist, Britain lost nearly every conflict up to 1942 they just kept going, however in effectively. An ineffective RAF raid on Berlin during a visit by Molotov, the Nazis said that Britain was defeated, Molotov asked if Britain was defeated why were they were sitting in an air raid shelter. The Royal Navy would have prevented or cut off any attempted landings. With the help of the Labour coalition ministers, Churchill's moto was '' 'keep buggering on'.
The RAF won by maintaining its strength while the Luftwaffe dwindled.
The Luftwaffe started with around 2,400 operational combat aircraft against the ~650 operational fighters of RAF Fighter Command
The Luftwaffe ended with around 1,600 operational combat aircraft against the ~700 operational fighters of RAF Fighter Command
The Luftwaffe broke itself against a wall of British resilience.
The fact the Battle of Britian was lost because of simple mistake...Is crazy.... If the bombing of london did not happen it could have been the end of fighter command.
Simplistic to the point of incorrectness.
The Luftwaffe started the battle with around 2,400 operational combat aircraft against RAF Figther Command's operational strength of around 650.
A little into August 1940, the Luftwaffe switched to attacking RAF ground targets with their strength of ~2,200 vs the RAF's ~750
Four weeks later the Luftwaffe with their strength of around 1,700 switched to attacking cities while the RAF strength was down to around 720
Weeks later, around the end of daylight Luftwaffe attacks, the ~1,600 operational strength of the Luftwaffe was faced with the ~700 operational strength of RAF Fighter Command
Seems it would have been worse for the Germans if they kept going after the air fields and other RAF ground targets. Would they have stopped before they got to the point where around 500 German fighters and 700 German bombers were up against around 750-800 RAF fighters?
@@iansneddon2956 Ya I have been trying to dive off into the numbers more...But the sources very pretty wildly. I have even read that the RAF had way more fighter a/c then the Luff..Shruggs.
@@MrLobstermeat Well, by the end of the Battle they certainly did. The Luftwaffe was maintaining an appearance of strength by having their pilots fly 3-4 sorties per day. This was wearing out men and equipment, and the increased sorties were resulting in increased losses. RAF flight schools were turning out around 300 new pilots per month, however, and this number was growing from September 1940 as graduates from the schools in Canada started to arrive. The Luftwaffe never came close to matching the RAF training program so their losses were never fully replaced. German losses were higher, losing around 2,000 aircraft while RAF Fighter Command lost just over 1,200.
Also, as the British were outproducing Germany in aircraft by almost 2:1 in 1940, lost planes were not as much a problem as lost pilots. But flying mostly over friendly territory meant pilots bailing out and parachuting to safety. Only around 540 RAF fighter pilots were killed during the battle. Meanwhile nearly all Luftwaffe aircrew that were shot down were lost (killed or captured).
From the numbers, it appears that the RAF lost more fighter planes than the Luftwaffe did, but lost fewer fighter pilots - so the effect on British operational strength was not as much as for the Germans as the battle progressed. And with many more replacement pilots arriving the RAF was growing while the Luftwaffe was rapidly shrinking.
Interesting version of history.
The few❤
Look on history of raf 303 squadron
They were 1 squadron amongst nearly 70 !!! So what?
@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 watch a video about 303 who shot down the most Germans
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The UK betrayed Poland in 1939, 1944 and 1945.
@@Jeremy-y1t Your political heroes raped and murdered Poland for 5 years. It was only for the UK that the filth of nazism was removed from the continent.
@@gerwazywobler5630 "303 who shot down the most Germans" They didn't. They were the highest scoring Hurricane Squadron in the battle, with 603 & 609 Spitifre squadrons both scoring higher.
Why do the RAF take full credit for this. It was a multi service and multi national air force that fought it!
@@dalj4362 read the title of this video. If numbers matter to you then the polish did far better when comparing a pilot,s success rate at shooting down the enemy. Maybe you prefer to forget the others that fought in this battle..
Recently the RAF have bent over backwards to change history. Dunkirk is a good example. The only aircraft shot down near those beaches belonged to the Royal Navy, The nearest RAF aircraft was shot down near Calais. It is time the fighter command stopped trying to steal the glory of others and people may start taking them seriously. The real RAF heroes are not even spoken about
Does this include the Royal Navy pilots?
I thought I'd create a simple "visual aid" in order to assist people learning about the history of the battle of Britain. There is much ongoing debate about the nationalities and proportions of RAF fighter pilots who took part in the battle, with occasionally a furtive aspect which attempts to portray the battle as a victory of "mostly Foreign pilots". Below is an accurate graphical representation of the proportion of pilot nationalities serving within RAF Fighter Command during the summer of 1940.
Each flag is roughly equivalent to 30 pilots, The numbers after each nation are the actual number of pilots from that country, and the approximate percentage of RAF Fighter Command's establishment in the summer of 1940 that they represented.
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 UK (2342) (80%)
🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱 Poland (145) (5%)
🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿🇳🇿 New Zealand (127) (4%)
🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 Canada (112) (4%) (1940 flag emoji not available)
🇨🇿🇨🇿🇨🇿 Czechoslovakia (88) (3%)
🇦🇺 Australia (32) (1%)
🇧🇪 Belgium (28) (1%)
🇿🇦 S. Africa (25) (1%) (1940 flag emoji not available)
🇺🇳 Other nations (France (13), R o Ireland (10), USA (9), Rhodesia (3), Newfoundland (1), Jamaica (1), Barbados (1)) (1%)
(And just to preempt any wandering idiot lefty "Identity warriors" from protesting about "The lack of credit given to the black pilots who fought in the battle of Britain"... the pilots from South Africa, Rhodesia & the Caribbean were all of white descent).
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684
once again, this portrays that all the UK pilots were RAF.
They weren't
The RAF have been using propaganda recently to take glory they do not deserve.
Tell the truth as they have done some incredible things. There is no need to try and alter hhistory.
Sadly, the true heroes of the RAF are never mentioned.
@@BikersDoItSittingDown It was after all a force of 80% British pilots, flying British designed and built aircraft and directed by a world leading British radar command and control system, ably supported by a minority of commonwealth pilots and refugee foreign pilots.
Excellent video spoiled by the graphics.
Inspiring victory for those defending their country.
I cannot help but thinking the what ifs of history, had the Britons manage to hold off Anglo-Saxons, or had Anglo-Viking Harold Godwinson succeeded defending Britain against the Normans, would they be hailed as the few who defended their country? Or, had the invasion not been canceled and succeeded, would the Nazis in Britain would be assimilated into a totally different culture from the continent like the Anglo-Saxons and Normans before them? Of course noting that Nazis were probably more evil than Anglo-Saxons, Normans and Vikings combined.
By the way, the font show is good for a few sentences, but I think don't push it too far.
The beginning of the blitz was a lost German bomber not Churchill deciding to bomb Berlin. A lost bomber was the cause of the blitz and leading to the horrific events such as Dresden
For 2 weeks PRIOR to the "lost bomber" the luftwaffe had been hammering RAF Fighter Command sector airfields around London such as Kenley, Biggin Hill, Northolt and Hornchurch, (ALL within the boundary of "Greater London" within which Hitler had specifically banned luftwaffe bombing) and HUNDREDS of innocent British civilians had ALREADY been killed or wounded as "collateral damage" during these attacks...... BEFORE the navigational error of the Heinkel that jettisoned its bombs over south London.
Britain as an island stood alone the British as a nation didn't!
Britain is an island nation. What you're saying is akin to "As I man I am human, but as a person I am not".
P.S Britain WAS alone between July 1940 and April 1941.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Easter 1941 Germany suffered its first defeat in battle. It was at Tobruk, North Africa. It was the 9th Australian Division that gave germany its first defeat in battle.
@@Neil-yg5gm While the Australians besieged at Tobruk made a world famous defence under the Schoolteacher Leslie Morshead, It WASN'T the German's "first defeat".
The 1900 aircraft they lost in their failed attempt to subdue the British isles and the RAF boot that was inserted up their arseholes at that time takes that accolade.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 ""While the Australians besieged at Tobruk made a world famous defence ""
World famous? Nobody knows that Australia took part in WW2.
I should have said it that Tobruk was the Germans ARMY. first defeat in WW2
@@Neil-yg5gm Well here am I, a ordinary retired fireman from Liverpool UK who just responded with some knowledge of the tenacious defence of the Australians? What more do you want? I clearly remember watching a documentary on the very subject here in the UK last year. Episode 9 of "Narrow Escapes of WW2" "Morshead holds Tobruk".
Rest assured the WHOLE of WW2 history is slowly being removed from public consciousness... its up to individuals (and maybe the parents of younger kids) to find their own information as today's state "ejukashun sistims" are now more interested in telling kids that men and women and women are men and teaching advanced fellatio techniques to 6 year olds.
The Battle of Britain was a draw.
It encouraged Britain to continue a war it could not win, that resulted in the complete destruction of Europe and the British Empire.
Siding with Communism in 1939 was fatal for Britain's interests.
"The Fuhrer And Supreme Commander Of The Armed Forces.
The Fuhrer's Headquarters. 16th July, 1940. 7 copies
Directive No. 16 -- On Preparations For A Landing Operation Against England
Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out.
The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."
But as we both know the first phase of the operation, that being the battle of Britain, was smashed, meaning the rest of the plan fell to ruin. The operation had been smashed in its first phase. What would be described in common parlance as "A resounding British victory".
I wonder if the citizens of Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden thought the "battle of Britain" was a "draw" in 1945?
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Britain had ceased to matter by the 1930s. The US and the USSR were the only two powers after 1945.
@@Jeremy-y1t We know that, Mark.... Now let's discuss your ORIGINAL point you made in your first post, and what a complete pile of BS it was.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 The OKW started preparing for Barbarossa as soon as Stalin broke the pact in June 1940. We should have allied with Germany against the only threat.
@@Jeremy-y1t We decided we didn't want death camps in the UK, and so saw to it that your nazi idols burned in hell.
Those motion graphics for the speech are incredibly distracting and totally unnecessary.