What makes the Battle of Britain such an iconic episode in our history is not just that it was a British victory, but that it was achieved against such overwhelmingly unfavourable odds. By May 1940, the combined will of the British government was that some sort of deal with Hitler would have to be done. This was what was on the table at the War Cabinet meeting of May 28. Consulting the wider Cabinet afterwards, Winston Churchill – newly appointed as prime minister – came to his own quite different conclusion that it would be more honourable for the country to go down fighting (if go down it must) and, shortly afterwards, he reconvened the War Cabinet to say precisely that.

Codenamed Operation Sealion, the German aerial attack that was to become a wholesale invasion of Britain, began in the early summer. In June and July, the RAF was forced to mount a series of defensive operations against German fighters. This phase saw the loss of 18 aircraft and 13 pilots, and was sufficiently prolonged that the outnumbered crews were already suffering from severe physical exhaustion by the time what is held to be the official battle commenced on July 10.

Battle stations

The opening phase of the battle saw the German air force testing the strength of British air defences. Ships in the Channel were attacked, and the Luftwaffe mounted broad bombing raids across a whole swathe of the south-east. This was followed by a concerted campaign against the air force bases and radar stations, with the aim of knocking out Britain’s ability to coordinate its air defences.

The next phase of the battle saw the bombing campaign widened, with ports and factories being targeted. It was intended that these would include munitions factories, as well as plants that were supplying components for the fighter planes. The action was now almost continuous, with night-time raids following up the daytime bombardments.

A significant escalation in the campaign was marked on the night of August 24-25, when a German fighter plane, having lost its way, blindly dropped its bombs before retreating. Although the pilots were allegedly unaware of it, they had dumped them over London, which was not part of their orders. RAF Fighter Command responded by ordering a bombing raid on Berlin, and from then major cities on both sides became official targets.

As the campaign entered its most vicious phase, the bombing became more or less non-stop, with the targets no longer being airfields and control stations but major industrial centres. London in particular was subjected to an onslaught of sustained ferocity that became known as the Blitz.

If there was one decisive date within this phase of the battle, it was September 15, when the biggest aerial assault ever mounted on London took place. Every wave of Luftwaffe bombers and fighters was met with equally stiff resistance from the British forces – so much so that the Nazi commander, Hermann Göring, was said to be furious with incredulity.

Change of plan

The strategic aim of the battle from the German point of view had been to neutralise Britain’s air defences before mounting a seaborne invasion across the Channel while the summer weather still favoured it. As the skies began to darken with the onset of autumn, it gradually dawned on the German High Command that time was running out, for this year at least. Before September was over, the invasion plans had been put on ice.

That didn’t mean that the attacks stopped. The night-time Blitz carried on, interspersed with occasional daylight raids – as in the first phase – across south-eastern England, but in time, this too relented. The final operation took place on the night of Halloween, after which the last historical attempt to invade Britain was abandoned. There had been no decisive defeat of the Nazi forces, but the significantly smaller numbers of the RAF had withstood the attempt to destroy the country’s air defence.

The conclusion of the Battle of Britain meant that a bridgehead against Nazi-occupied Europe remained intact on its northwestern corner, and a fresh campaign could in due course be mounted against Hitler. It is no exaggeration to say that the post-war political shape of Europe was determined over south-east England during three months or so in the summer and autumn of 1940.