Blunder that lost Germany the war
IN AUGUST 1940, when a terrified and disorientated German bomb-aimer released his deadly payload on civilian houses in South London and miles from his airfield target, he little knew he had just lost the war for Germany. Churchill’s retaliation on Berlin provoked Hitler and Goering to abandon their successful diminishing of Fighter Command resources and to redirect their assault on London. Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, head of Fighter Command, knew the nation was days from disaster. Even though Britain was producing more aircraft than the Nazis suspected, the stock of fresh RAF pilots had diminished exponentially. Had the Luftwaffe maintained attacks on airfields, factories and the attrition of fighter aircraft and so defeated the RAF, the seaborne Wehrmacht invasion would have commenced. The Royal Navy would have been powerless to prevent a beachhead on the South Coast without air superiority. Churchill would have lost a vote of no confidence and his likely replacement, Lord Halifax, would have sued for an Armistice or surrender, while the Royal Family were whisked away to the safety of Canada. In the U.S., the influential pro-German and isolationist lobbies in the Senate and House of Representatives may well have altered the opinion of President Roosevelt, regardless of his sympathies with Britain. If the U.S. were still refusing to lift its oil embargo, would Japan have attacked Pearl Harbour and South-East Asia a year later in 1941? Possibly, if they still needed raw materials, but would Hitler have declared war on the U.S., as he inexplicably did after Pearl Harbour? This seems improbable if the Continent was secure under Fascist control. What would have been the consequences of a defeat of the RAF during the summer of 1940? In the Mediterranean, there would not have been British and Commonwealth armies to prevent Mussolini seizing North Africa, Egypt and the Suez Canal. The delays in the Balkans that hampered the Russian advance to Moscow and the disastrous winter campaigns of 1942-43 might not have happened. Britain’s surrender and American isolationism would have seen no Lend Lease or U.S. aid to Britain and no D-Day. European freedom would be lost, the Final Solution would continue uninterrupted and with nothing to prevent the Nazis losing their access to ‘heavy water’ from Norway, they could have won the race to build the first atomic bomb and threaten the world.
Though the U.S. would have retaliated against a Japanese attack in 1941, Emperor Hirohito’s unopposed armies could have taken all of South-East Asia and India before the U.S. was able to build a military opposition. Australia and New Zealand could not have held out for long. In occupied Britain, there would have been book burnings, deportations and pogroms. The Battle of Britain, from July to September 1940, was not only the first major battle fought in the skies, but was of major importance to world history. The defeat of the Luftwaffe by the RAF changed the political, social and economic map of the planet. And all because of a confused German bomber crew.
PAUL A. LEAdER, Cirencester, Glos.