What happened in the Battle of Britain?

The Battle of Britain got its name before the battle had even begun. Winston Churchill (the Prime Minister of Great Britain) knew that Germany was planning to invade them. France had already been invaded and Great Britain was next. The plan to invade Great Britain was called Operation Sea Lion.

Churchill gave a speech before the battle saying: "the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin". On 10 July 1940, the Battle of Britain had begun. 

Great Britain had an excellent navy that protected the seas. Germany thought it would be easier to first destroy the British Royal Air Force (the RAF). This would get rid of any chances of the RAF shooting and sinking German ships. Once the RAF were gone, Germany would invade by land. Germany had more planes than Great Britain and thought it would be easy to defeat the RAF. The leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, offered Britain a peace treaty before the battle but Great Britain wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

The German Air Force (the Luftwaffe) attacked British ships and planes but they soon discovered how good the RAF was. The Luftwaffe decided to bomb British airport runways and radar. Radar was very important because it helped the British know when and where German planes were going to attack.

Germany was getting frustrated. The RAF was still not defeated, so they came up with a new plan. They wanted Britain to surrender so they started bombing towns and cities. 

Two types of aeroplanes were used: bombers (which dropped bombs on towns and cities) and fighters (which attacked enemy planes).

London was bombed 57 nights in a row. The series of bombings was called ‘The Blitz’  from the German word ‘blitzkrieg’, meaning lightning war. Many buildings were destroyed and thousands of people died. A third of London was destroyed.

The Germans mostly attacked at night. To stop them seeing where the towns and cities were, Great Britain enforced a blackout. This meant all lights had to be turned off. People were warned by loud sirens when an enemy plane was on its way. When they heard the siren they would stop what they were doing and run for shelter.

Even though a lot of the country was destroyed, the RAF kept fighting back and in May 1941, the Blitz ended.

Although the Germans had more planes and pilots, the British were able to fight them off and win the battle. On October 30th, 1940, the Battle of Britain ended. Hitler stopped bombing London. He needed his planes and bombs to invade Russia.

Around 1000 British planes were shot down during the battle and over 1800 German planes were destroyed.

The Battle of Britain was over but the war hadn’t ended. Great Britain would continue to fight Germany for the next 5 years.