The Battle of Britain

For the plan to succeed it was necessary for the German Luftwaffe to destroy the Royal Air Force so that his soldiers could land without being attacked from the air.
These one to one fights in the sky were called dogfights.
The Luftwaffe lost more planes than the RAF so Hitler gave up his plan of invasion.
In July and August the Luftwaffe and the RAF started to battle it out in the skies over southern England.
After Dunkirk and France’s surrender, Hitler’s next move was to try to invade Britain.
In a plan, codenamed Operation Sea Lion, Germany aimed to send over troop ships to land in Britain on 15th September, 1940.
The Luftwaffe also tried to bomb airfields and aircraft factories to destroy the RAF planes and any replacements being built.

The Blitz

The Blitz stopped in June 1941 when Hitler needed his planes to fight elsewhere.
This was the beginning of the Blitz.
From 7th September until 2nd November, London was bombed every single night.
After giving up his idea of invasion, Hitler began bombing raids on the cities.
On 7th September a huge raid on London left much of the city in flames.
The word Blitz came from the German word “blitz” meaning lightning.
After that other cities like Southampton, Portsmouth, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham and Coventry were also bombed regularly.
During the raids of 1940-41, 43,000 civilians were killed.