In his inauguration speech, Churchill made it clear that:

"Our policy is to use all the power God has given us, on land, at sea and in the sky, to fight against the forces of darkness and evil that have never been seen before in the history of mankind!"

After several attempts to persuade him to no avail, Hitler could not help but be embarrassed and angry, and ordered a plan to invade Britain.

On July 15, 1940, the Royal Air Force Fighter Aviation Command (Commander Hugh ?) Air Admiral Dowing) has 4 air groups under its command, with a total of 55 squadrons.

The 13th Air Group in the north was commanded by Thor and consisted of 14 squadrons; The 12th Air Group in the center was commanded by Parker and had 22 squadrons.

The 11th Air Group in the southeast was represented by Trafford? Commanded by Limalori with 14 squadrons; The 10th Air Group in the south-west was commanded by Brand and consisted of 4 squadrons.

The Army's anti-aircraft artillery, with Pyle as its commander, also received operational command from Dowding. By the beginning of August, the RAF had 700 fighters and 500 bombers at its disposal for combat.

Of the 1,600 aircraft produced in August, 470 were Hurricanes and Spitfires (a total of 19 squadrons were reequipped with Spitfires by the summer of 1940, of which only 6 squadrons were equipped with Spitfires with Sispano cannons).

Only the Spitfire was able to take on the BF109, and since the Hurricane had not performed well in previous European battles, most of them were used to directly attack the incoming Hinkel bombers.

The Battle of Britain was launched by three Luftwaffe air forces: the 2nd Air Force under the command of Field Marshal Kesselring, the 2nd Air Force under the command of Field Marshal Speerer and the 5th Air Force under the command of Air General Stumpf.

The main types of aircraft equipped are single-engine Me109 fighters, twin-engine Me109 fighters, high-altitude aircraft and Stuka dive bombers, and a total of 2,669 combat aircraft have been assembled.

The German side had a clear numerical advantage in combat readiness. A total of 850 fighters from 656 Bf109Es and 168 Bf110s are staring at the other side of the strait.

But the British Air Force was not targeting these fighters, but more than 1,200 bombers.

Because, only to prevent it from entering British airspace, is the main purpose. But for Dowding, who is in charge of the air defense mission of the British homeland, the numerical disadvantage really hurts his brain.

But for Britain itself, the situation of the war did not necessarily present a one-sided posture. This is because they have their own secret weapon in which they have an advantage -- the "radar" that has not been put into actual combat for a long time.

Without him, the impact of the war might have been frustrating to the British. From the 30s, with the emphasis on homeland air defense, the British Air Force embarked on a program to be able to monitor the native airspace 24 hours a day.

At this time, the British radio engineer Watson? Watt turned the principle of radio detection into a practical technique by using the principle that radio waves "bounce" off metal objects as they encounter them during their propagation.

In February 1935, good results were achieved in the experiments. Beginning in May 1935, 70-foot-high radio antennas were erected along Britain's long coastline, and "close attention" was carried out day and night to "keep a close eye on its airspace." It has been officially equipped since 1940 and named RADAR (radar) by its abbreviation.

Since then, the British Air Force has gradually rationalized and coordinated the use of radar and fighter aircraft. What's even more gratifying is that it can locate its own aircraft in a state of flight and lead to the airspace where enemy aircraft appear.

At this point, British radar observers could easily observe the exact location of their own aircraft and enemy aircraft, even if they were deployed.

In terms of air early warning in World War 2, Britain was the first to use radar to have a practical effect.

But no one could have imagined that such a "monster" with an antenna would become one of the greatest obstacles to the realization of Germany's plan to conquer Britain.

But what the Germans did not expect was that British intelligence had managed to intercept and read the Luftwaffe's radio coded letters.

Although the "Ingmar" code had not yet been cracked at that time, the cipher system used by the Luftwaffe was successfully cracked by using the code interpreter "Utra".

Intelligence superiority partially alleviated the numerical inferiority, but the RAF was still faced with a brutal war.

After June 1940, an air battle over the Strait of Dover was delayed.

In addition, it was the prelude to the British air war in which electronic warfare, intelligence warfare, psychological warfare, propaganda warfare, and verbal warfare were mixed with the British and German sides.

The Battle of Great Britain was divided into four phases. In the most critical phase of the Battle of Britain from July to October 1940, the German army flew about 46,000 sorties, dropped about 60,000 tons of bombs, shot down 1,733 planes of various types, damaged 943 planes, and lost about 6,000 aircrews.

The British Air Force lost 915 aircraft and 414 pilots, with a ratio of 0.527:1 and 0.069:1 in the ratio of aircraft losses to Britain and Germany.

What is particularly tragic is that the British army has accurately grasped the German army's air attack plan in advance by deciphering the German army's top secret, the Enigma cipher machine.

But in order not to let the Germans discover this "super secret", the British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to go on business as usual, neither increasing the air defense of Coventry nor raising the alarm in advance to evacuate the civilians! (Churchill was really vicious.) ）

That night, the Germans dispatched a total of 449 Heinkel-111 bombers, and the bombing was very accurate due to the German use of radio navigation technology codenamed "X-Wax".

394 tons of explosive bombs and 56 tons of incendiary bombs landed in the centre of Coventry, and the Germans also dropped 127 time-lapse bombs to disrupt the British rescue operation.

More than 50,000 buildings were destroyed in Coventry, 12 factories producing aircraft parts were severely damaged, resulting in a 20% reduction in British aircraft production, and the water and electricity supply in Coventry city was interrupted for 35 days before it was restored.

The victory in the Battle of Britain encouraged the British military and the people, especially the US government, which had maintained a policy of "neutrality" in the European war after the defeat of France, to clearly stand on the side of Britain and promote the establishment of the Anglo-American alliance.

The Battle of Britain was the first air war in the history of human warfare, which proved that strategic large-scale air raids will directly affect the course of war, showed the important position of air supremacy in modern warfare, and proved the strategic significance of air defense.

Due to the victory of the Battle of Britain, Britain was saved, and Britain's insistence on the War of Resistance dragged the German army into a fatal long-term and protracted war, and became a springboard for the British and American counteroffensive on the European continent in the future, so that the German army fell into the dilemma of fighting on both fronts.

Since the Luftwaffe could not complete the plan to seize air supremacy, landing in Britain, forcing the British

The government's intention to surrender or cooperate with Germany could not be carried out. The Luftwaffe lost more than two thousand aircrews and almost two thousand aircraft of all types.

Although it did not affect the overall strength, for Germany, which had very limited resources, these losses could not be fully recovered before the war against the Soviet Union.

Germany lost the opportunity to make peace with Britain politically, nor could it resolve the possible threat posed by Britain in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters.

[The week of the line has begun, and the fallen leaves are all kinds of requests. 】

……