Battle Of Britain Essay Research Paper The — страница 8

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dwellings.? (MacVane, John. On the Air in World War II. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1979. 15). The early bombings of the third phase were concentrated on the East End. After a few days, German bombers moved to the West End and even managed to land two bombs on Buckingham Palace. This eliminated the feeling that only the poor were being punished. This helped to bring a sense of unity among the British people, and if anything, helped the British war cause. By the end of September, more than half of London?s population, mostly women and children, had left the city (MacVane 31). The daylight campaign against London had done a great amount of damage but not the massive effect that the Luftwaffe had anticipated: The great attack of 7 September was only surprise in that London

proper was heavily attacked for the first time. On the 15th the weather improved and London was again heavily attacked by day. Thereafter, the bombing attacks by day in southeast continued to be made but they were comparable neither with those of the 15th, much less than the 7th. It is broadly the case, therefore, that by the middle of the month the German daylight offensive had lost much of its dangerousness (James 293). Adolf Galland spoke of his commander?s disappointment in their bombings of London and his failure to drain the RAF of its reserves when he said, ?Goering was shattered, I assured him that in spite of the heavy losses we were inflicting on the enemy fighters, no decisive decrease in their numbers or in their fighting efficiency was noticeable? (Mosley Battle

141). In the last few engagements over London, German pilots were told that no more than one-hundred British planes would engage, yet twice that number was reached within half of an hour of German engagement. Germany on September 9, 11, and 14 used about 200 bombers on the first set of bombing with smaller numbers on the latter two to raid London during the day. The Germans planned the heaviest bombing to occur on September 15th. Two elements of bombers headed for London and were soon met by more than 300 British aircrafts that were sent by Dowding. Germany was able to drop a significant amount of bombs on London comparable to September 7th, yet lost 60 bombers doing it. The lack of dominance by the Luftwaffe, the prominence of the RAF, and the lack of any clear victories forced

Hitler to conclude on September 17, that air supremacy was lacking. He concluded that the Luftwaffe was not within measurable distance of creating the right conditions for invasion. Because of these overwhelming factors, Hitler postponed invasion indefinitely, dispersed his invasion fleet and halted the assembly of invasion craft (Collier 142-144). With the apparent halting of all plans to invade Britain, Goering would make a decision that would mark the end of the third phase and the start of the fourth phase of the Battle of Britain. With only mixed results and heavy losses to his squadrons, Goering abandons confrontational daylight bombing and cloaks his attacks under the cover of night. The fourth and final phase of the war began as Hitler called off Operation Sealion (Franks

108). The German Air Force decided to abandon daylight bombings for the costs were too great. This decision changed the coarse of the air war drastically. Goering’s Luftwaffe was to abandon all bombings except at night (Mosley Battle 142). Goering was determined to leave a lasting impression on Britain. The name for the night raids was the blitz. If Goering could not annihilate the RAF, he would try to gain victory through intimidation Britain’s citizens. Herbert Agar wrote, “On October 7 Goering defined the aims of the blitz: ‘Progressive and complete annihilation of London’, paralyzing Britain’s war potential and civil life, and ‘the demoralization of the civil population of London and its provinces’” (Agar, Herbert. The Darkest Year Britain Alone. New York:

Doubleday and Company Inc, 1973. 125). Under a cloak of darkness, Germany’s air force lost the ability to visually confirm a target, of necessity they invented a method of allowing the planes to fly a set, previously designed path towards their target. A pilot would fly on a beam from radio-transmission towers in France that emitted a continuous hum as long as the pilot stayed on the beam?s coarse. If the pilot veered slightly off coarse, a series of dots and dashes would be heard. When near the target, a second beam emitted from a separate tower intercepted the original beam and the pilot would hear a difference in sound. This meant that he would now time his run to a given time interval and drop his bombs. This ingenious system was called the Knickebein or crooked leg. This