With the defeat of France, the guns of Western Europe ceased. But after more than half a month of silence, the deafening sound of bomb explosions sounded again over Western Europe, and the Battle of Britain began.

After Hitler defeated France, he planned to invade Britain

"Project Sea Lion". In order to ensure the sea-crossing landing operation, the German army tried to seize air supremacy first, in order to destroy the British fortifications, eliminate the British Air Force, and clamp down on the eve of the Royal Air Force air battle in Britain As early as May 1940, Britain had foreseen that the Luftwaffe would carry out a large-scale bombing of the British mainland, so on May 19, the British Joint Chiefs of Staff put forward a defense report in the event of France's withdrawal from the war, requiring the effective strengthening of various defensive measures, especially air defense measures, The report was approved by the Wartime Cabinet on May 27.

And immediately began the necessary preparations: first, the wartime cabinet set up an aircraft manufacturing department, with Beaverbrook as the minister, and vigorously strengthened aircraft manufacturing, so that the monthly production of aircraft rapidly increased from 700 to 1,600 in August, including 470 fighters; secondly, the air defense forces will be uniformly adjusted and deployed throughout the country, with a focus on strengthening the air defense of the London area; Third, the Air Department has set up a combat training unit, set up a number of training schools, stepped up the training of air and ground crews, so that 200 new pilots can be added to the unit every month, and has also mobilized Commonwealth member states to train air crews on their behalf to form new combat units.

On the eve of the Battle of Britain, the British Air Department established an Air Defense Command, commanded by Admiral Edward Beale, to command all the fighter, anti-aircraft gun, radar and observation alert units in the country.

The fighter unit has a total of 56 squadrons and 980 fighters, of which the performance is excellent

"Hurricane" and

688 Spitfire fighters; The anti-aircraft artillery unit has a total of 7 divisions and more than 4,000 anti-aircraft guns, but less than 2,000 large-caliber anti-aircraft guns, and because the monthly output of large-caliber anti-aircraft guns is only 40, it is difficult to increase the number in a short period of time, so the British army adjusted its deployment and deployed about 700 large-caliber anti-aircraft guns in aircraft factories; There are 5 brigades of anti-aircraft blocking balloons, and more than 1,500 blocking balloons, which are tied to cars and can be quickly transferred; 2,700 searchlights.

The most important thing is that the British army also has a little-known radar unit at that time, Britain is the first country to put the radar into actual combat, to July 1940 a total of 51 radar stations have been built in the country, of which there are 38 in the southeast coastal area, accounting for about 75% of the total, forming a strict radar alert system, divided into two levels, the first layer is the medium and high altitude air defense radar system, which can effectively find the aircraft flying at an altitude of 4500 meters or less, and the second layer is the low-altitude air defense radar system, which can effectively find the aircraft flying at an altitude of 750 meters or less.

In this way, the British army could measure the approximate direction and time of the German plane's attack through radar, and direct its own fighters to meet the attack in a favorable position and time.

Before the use of radar, fighters are usually sent to patrol in the air, and the fighters discover the incoming enemy planes, and after the use of radar, every take-off of the British fighter planes is purposeful to meet the battle, which greatly reduces the consumption of aircraft, fuel and personnel physical strength, and largely makes up for the shortcomings of the insufficient number of aircraft.

Therefore, the radar is undoubtedly the most important trump card for the victory of the British army! In addition, Britain also has a National Guard force of 500,000 people, which has set up numerous air defense surveillance posts in coastal areas, and uses binoculars and simple direction finders to undertake tasks such as air surveillance, vigilance, and ambulance, and is an indispensable auxiliary force for the regular troops of the British army.

At that time, the British Fighter Command was located in Bentley Abbey, and the commander was Admiral Hugh Dowding, who was a veteran pilot who had participated in World War I.

Admiral Dowding was cautious, and he always maintained a reserve force of 280 aircraft, which would not be used until the last moment when the German landing formation entered the strait.

He was soberly aware that a large-scale air battle would be inevitable, so he always adopted a strategy of preserving strength as much as possible, and even dared to resist Prime Minister Churchill's order not to send more planes to France.

All these efforts have laid a solid material foundation for the imminent outbreak of air warfare. The British Fighter Command had four fighter groups: the 10th Brigade under the command of Major General Brand, with its headquarters in Box, responsible for defending the western regions of England; The 11th Brigade, commanded by Major General Pike, with its headquarters in Uxbridge, was responsible for defending the south-east of England, including London; the 12th Battalion, commanded by Major General Mallory, with its headquarters in Watnell, was responsible for defending the Central England region from the mouth of the Thames to Yorkshire; The 13th Brigade under the command of Major General Saul, with its headquarters in Newcastle, was responsible for the defense of the Scottish region.

Of the four brigades, the strongest were the 11th and 12th Brigades, especially the 11th Brigade defending London, with 270 of the most state-of-the-art

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The Spitfire fighter accounts for almost 40% of all advanced aircraft in the British army. The British army divided the whole country into four air defense zones, each of which was divided into a number of air defense divisions, with each air defense zone deploying a fighter brigade and air defense divisions deploying two to three fighter squadrons.

The characteristics of the British army's domestic air defense are: unified command in terms of troops, centralized use, comprehensive defense, highlighting key points, and in-depth echelon allocation; Fighter aircraft are the mainstay, supplemented by anti-aircraft guns, arresting balloons and searchlights.

The greatest difficulty of the British army was the shortage of pilots; due to the emphasis on the quality of pilots before the war, there were very few schools for training pilots, and in addition to the losses in the war, the number of pilots began to crisis; Admiral Dowding opened new training schools and stepped up the training of air and ground crews, and on the other hand, he recruited pilots from France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland, and other occupied countries in Britain to join the British Air Force, and also seconded 68 pilots from naval aviation units and recruited air and ground crews from the British Commonwealth countries.

Thanks to his unremitting efforts, by the beginning of August 1940, the number of British Air Force pilots had risen to 1,434, and each aircraft was equipped with a ground crew composed of a mechanic, a mechanic's assistant, a fitter, a fitter, and a radio mechanic, who could complete the sortie inspection in 35 minutes, and prepare the next take-off of the freshly landed aircraft in 12 minutes, and prepare the personnel for the air battle that was about to begin.

The small test of the butcher's knife in the British air battle entered July, the German army began pre-war preparations, the transfer of air units from the mainland to France, the Netherlands, Belgium and other countries, the expansion of front-line airfields, the mobilization and assembly of troops, and the replenishment of personnel and materials, all took time.

However, the Luftwaffe did not want to wait and began a tentative attack with a small number of troops while preparing for the war.

Beginning on 10 July, the Germans launched attacks targeting ships sailing in the southern ports of Britain and the English Channel, and the Germans had two operational objectives: first, to understand the British air defense capability and find out the deployment of the British Air Force; The second is to lure British planes into battle and consume the strength of the British army in air combat.

Due to the large consumption on the European continent and the need to rest and replenish, the British army adopted a strategy of avoiding war, only meeting the battle with a small group of aircraft, and at the same time testing the tactics of radar-guided interception in air combat.

From July 10 to August 12, the Germans flew 5,376 sorties, dropped 1,473 tons of bombs, sank 4 British destroyers and 18 transports, and 186 German planes were shot down and 135 were damaged.

The British lost 148 aircraft. On the whole, this phase of the operation was completely tentative and limited in scale.

At the same time, the command organ of the Luftwaffe began to formulate an operational plan, and in late July, the 2nd and 3rd air forces, the main forces participating in the war, jointly drafted a plan, on 29 July, the Air Force Operations Bureau studied this plan, on 1 August the 2nd and 3rd Air Groups submitted a revised plan according to the opinions of the Operations Bureau, on 1 August Hitler and the chief of the General Staff Jodel jointly issued the 17th Directive on a full-scale air attack on Britain, and on 2 August Air Force Commander Goering issued an air force combat order, Göring is scheduled to launch the first large-scale air raid on August 10, which will begin on this day

"Eagle Day" is the code name. At the beginning of August, the Luftwaffe had assembled 2,669 aircraft to fight against the British, including 933 Messerschmitt-109 fighters, 375 Messerschmitt-110 fighters, 346 Junkers-87 dive bombers, and 1,015 Junkers-88, Henkel-111, and Dornier-17 bombers.

On August 10th, the weather in the south of England was very bad,

The "Eagle Day" attack had to be postponed. On August 11 and August 12, the weather still did not improve much, the Germans dispatched some planes to attack the British radar station, five were seriously damaged, and one was completely destroyed, because the Germans mainly bombed the antenna of the radar station instead of the core control room, the British were able to quickly repair it, and the German radio detection department quickly discovered the radar signal and thought that the attack on the radar station was useless, so it soon terminated the attack on the radar station, making a big mistake.

Eagle Day British air battle was much hyped

The "Eagle Day" attack finally began on August 13, and the history of war regards August 13 to August 23 as the first stage of the British campaign, and the main purpose of the German army in this stage is to destroy the main force of the British Air Force.

In addition to using fighter planes to cover bombers to attack British airfields, the Germans also used fighters to form safari groups specifically to find British fighters for air combat.

On August 13, as the weather was still not ideal, some fighters did not take off as planned, and the start was a little chaotic.

The Germans flew 1,485 sorties throughout the day, raiding seven airfields in southern Britain during the day and attacking British aircraft factories at night.

The British flew 727 sorties, particularly in Portland and Southampton, where 47 German aircraft were shot down and more than 80 damaged, with only 12 British losses

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"Spitfire", the damage suffered by the airfield was insignificant. On 14 August, the weather was still overcast, and the Germans carried out only sporadic attacks in small groups.

On August 15, because of the bad weather for several days, Goering summoned the commanders of the air forces to the official residence of Karin Hall Manor for a military meeting, but the weather suddenly cleared, and the highest-ranking officer of the air force command, Colonel Paul Deichmann, chief of staff of the 2nd Air Force, decisively ordered the attack with the responsibility of a soldier, who would have thought that this day would become the largest German sortie in the Battle of Britain!

The 2nd and 3rd Air Groups almost poured out, and the 5th Air Force also sent aircraft into battle for the first time, so that the Germans attacked from both the north and the south at the same time.

The 5th Air Force in the north thought that the British army's defense in the northeast was relatively empty, and due to range restrictions, it only sent 34 Messerschmitt-110 fighters to cover 63 Henkel-111 and 50 Junkers-88, but was unexpectedly attacked head-on by a total of 84 fighters from seven squadrons of the British 13th Group, and Captain Restmann, the captain of the 1st Group of the 76th Fighter Regiment of the German fighter air command, was shot down before he could adjust his flight status.

This elite unit, which was well-known in the Luftwaffe, suffered heavy losses under British aircraft strikes due to the heavy and small number of Messerschmitt-110 fighters, and a total of 7 Messerschmitt-110, 16 Henkel-111 and 6 Junkers-88 were shot down, with a battle loss rate of more than 20%, and the 5th Air Force never participated in the Battle of Britain again.

In the fierce fighting in southern England, the German army invested 975 fighters and 622 bombers, launched four waves of air raids, and violently bombed five British airfields and four aircraft factories.

The battle continued until dark, with about 2,000 German sorties and 75 shot down, 974 sorties by the British, 34 lost in air battles, and 21 bombers destroyed on the ground, with major damage to the airfields of Martelsham and Linny.

This day was the most intense day since the beginning of the Battle of Britain and was called

On "Black Thursday", according to the proportion of losses on both sides, it would be difficult for the Germans to destroy the British Air Force by virtue of their existing numerical superiority.

On 16 August, the Germans made another major sortie, but achieved little success. On 17 August, the Germans carried out harassing air strikes with only sporadic small fleets.

On 18 August, the Germans launched a powerful offensive and met with stubborn resistance from the British, who shot down 71 planes while the British lost only 27.

After a period of actual combat testing, the British Air Force affirmed the large formation operation, with Admiral Stanmore, the deputy chief of staff of the Air Force, replacing Dowding, and the 12th Group Captain Mallory replacing Pike, as the commander of the Fighter Command and the commander of the 11th Group, respectively.

On September 15, after eight days of adjustment and replenishment, the British Air Force dispatched 19 squadrons of more than 300 fighters to meet a large group of 200 German bombers and 600 fighters heading to London.

Fifty-six German planes were shot down throughout the day, including 34 bombers, another 12 crashed with wounds on the way back and landing, and 80 planes landed with bullet wounds, and the British lost 20 planes in air combat

"Hurricane" and 6 units

"Spitfire", and 7 more were seriously injured and scrapped. On this day, at the turning point of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe finally realized that it did not have air supremacy in southern Britain and was not able to carry out air strikes as it wanted during the day, and the British Air Force was not only not destroyed, but also very strong!

Prime Minister Winston Churchill personally visited the command center of the 11th Brigade to supervise the battle, and he called this day the most intense day in the history of world air warfare!

After the war, Britain designated September 15 as British Air War Day to commemorate this glorious victory!

On 16 and 17 September, the British Air Force launched bombers to launch a fierce attack on the German ships and troops assembled along the coast for landing, sinking and damaging nearly 100 ships, and inflicting heavy losses on the Germans in personnel and materials, forcing Hitler to order a halt to the build-up of ships along the coast on September 18.

The Battle of Britain took place from 16 to 19 September, and due to bad weather, the Germans carried out only small air raids, and the results were small.

In order to reduce the loss of aircraft, Goering ordered the air raid on London to be changed from day to night from October 1, and in view of the British fighters' emphasis on attacking bombers and ignoring the characteristics of fighters, Messerschmitt-109 bombs were added during the day to carry out sneak attacks.

At first, it worked, and the Messerschmitt-109, which had been equipped with bombs, reached the target without hindrance, and the bombing was successful one after another.

The British immediately learned their lesson and intercepted any German aircraft, but because the Messerschmitt-109 was very bulky and vulnerable to bombs, and suffered great losses, the Germans had to stop this tactic.

In October, the Germans continued their terrorist air raids on London, trying to force Britain to submit with huge material losses and deaths, but under the heavy air raids, the citizens of London continued to work, live and play as usual, and maintained the optimism and humor of the British, and a tailor posted on the door of the shop during the bombing

"Business as usual" note, and when his small shop was blown up, he hung it on the rubble

A note saying "business is more business-as-usual"! On October 12, Hitler decided to will

The "Sea Lion Plan" was postponed until the spring of 1941, and the plan to land in Britain was actually abandoned, and the so-called postponement was only a cover for the eyes and ears of the people, because the German high command had already decided to invade the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, and it was naturally impossible to attack Britain again.

On 25 October, the Italian Air Force also sent planes to join the British air raids, but the Italian pilots were frightened by the sight of the British anti-aircraft artillery fire, and still dropped their bombs and fled.

It was not until November 10, when the British shot down an Italian plane for the first time, that it became known that Italy had also taken part in the air battle.

In the third phase, from 7 September to October, Germany's attempt to force Britain into submission through a terrorist air raid on London was completely thwarted, during which the Germans lost 433 aircraft and the British lost 242.

In fact, this stage of the air battle had already declared the defeat of Germany in this air campaign. The German army was not willing to accept such a defeat, but continued to carry out night air raids on London and expanded to Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool, Southampton and other cities, and the British campaign entered the fourth stage, in which the purpose of the German air raids was no longer to destroy the British air force, but to carry out air raids on British industrial cities to weaken the British military industry and create the illusion of attacking Britain, on the one hand, it could contain a large number of British army, navy and air force on the mainland, and on the other hand, it could also cover the preparations for the attack on the Soviet Union.

In this phase, the most typical battle was on the night of November 14, codenamed "Moonlight Sonata" air raid on Coventry, the base of the British aviation industry. 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 German army detect this

"Super secret", the British wartime cabinet decided that everything would be business as usual, neither to increase the air defense of Coventry, nor to raise the alarm in advance to evacuate the civilian population!

That night, the Germans flew a total of 449 Heinkel-111 bombers, due to the fact that the Germans used the code name

The radio navigation technology of "X-wax paste", the bombing was very accurate, 394 tons of explosive bombs and 56 tons of incendiary bombs fell in the center of Coventry, and the Germans also dropped 127 time bombs to disrupt the rescue operation of the British, more than 50,000 buildings in Coventry were blown up, 554 people were killed, 864 people were seriously injured, 12 factories producing aircraft parts were seriously damaged, resulting in a 20% reduction in British aircraft production, and the water and electricity supply in the city of Coventry was interrupted for 35 days before it was restored, and the losses were quite heavy.

The British took off 120 night fighter sorties to intercept them, and the anti-aircraft artillery unit fired more than 12,000 shells, but only one German plane was shot down or damaged.

From a purely military point of view, this air raid was very successful, and because it possessed the typical characteristics of strategic bombing, it was praised by many military experts as strategic bombing

The "prototype" has a very far-reaching influence and significance in military history. After discovering that the German army was using radio navigation technology to improve the accuracy of night bombing, the British army quickly took targeted measures and established a number of special radio stations to deliberately misforward or strongly interfere with the German radio navigation signals, and through these early electronic countermeasures, the bombing accuracy of the German radio navigation was reduced by 80%, and the German army was lured to drop a large number of bombs into no man's land.

At the end of 1940, due to the heroic resistance of British fighters, anti-aircraft guns and other units, the German losses were getting bigger and bigger, and in order to reduce the losses of aircraft, the German air raids gradually changed from day to night, and the scale and intensity gradually decreased