The Battle of Britain was one of the most unique and decisive battles in history. Fought almost entirely in the air, the defeat of Britain’s Royal Air Force would have opened the door to an invasion of Britain and the total subjugation of western Europe under the Swastika. Fortunately, the British defenders prevailed in what is remembered as their finest hour but while much is discussed about the battle for the skies, less is known about the efforts made to actually carry out the invasion had the German Luftwaffe won the Battle of Britain. This is the story of the trials and tribulations of the German preparations for Operation Sea Lion; the invasion of Britain. Welcome to Wars of the World.
00:00 Introduction
01:07 Conception
07:21 Too Many Cooks
14:14 The Closing Window
19:25 Could Sea Lion Have Succeeded?
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History Should Never Be Forgotten…
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This remains one of the great "what if" scenarios of WWII, although given with hindisight we know what enormous resources the Allies required for a successful invasion in Normandy, and that was with the US and UK, who had far more naval power than Germany, it seems likely they simply never had the resources to prosecute a full invasion. And even if the UK lost air superiority, I don't doubt the RN would still have committed everything to repelling any such attempted invasion, regardless of cost. The Nazi strategy was in line with their Blitzkreig, quick attacks, overrun the enemy, not to dig in for a protracted campaign like this. That said, to the people in 1940s Britain, it must have looked terrifyingly likely, given how quickly Western Europe had been taken, it must have been terrifying thinking that any day those jackboots may be wading ashore on British beaches. Not for the first time, I am in awe of the sheer determination of those who came before us to risk everything to protect these islands.
It was always East, that Hitler, intended to go. All the German high command new it would be a total failure.
They just did not have the shipping capacity, or the navy assets needed to protect what they had to deliver enough troops to get and maintain a decent bridgehead,
I always wonder, how much effect the Battle of Britain had on Operation Barbarossa. All those Losses in men and equipment.
not sees losing to Russia again, now in Ukraine
No.. just no… even with zero airforce the Germans had no way of preventing their invasion barges being smashed by the Royal navy… end of…
Hitler did this wrong. What he needed to do is have his soldiers dress in civivilian clothes and sneak into Britain one at a time. When they got there they would say they were Jewish refugees from Germany who were escaping from the persecution of the NAZIs.
They would get food and shelter from the English.
When enough of them got into England and they got guns somehow, Then they would join the war.
after destroying the RAF, could the Luftwaffe have then destroyed British war industries, oil & port facilities, then the RN home port at Scapa Flow, Scotland (Fleet Air Arm & surface combatants) enough to sustain a multi-mode invasion?
Hitler’s bad assumption: Hitler assumed that Britain would make peace with Germany.
“He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle", journalist Edward R. Morrow said of Churchill. 💯✌‼
I believe it to be all bluff . Royal Navy was to powerful for it to be attempted . An amphibious landing requires superiority of the the sea ,and air. The U.S. learned this in the Pacific theater . Hitler couldn't do it on his best day .
Ah the days when we had a Royal Navy that put protection of our shores as its priority, following the destruction of the Kriegsmarine 's destroyer fleet.at Narvik.
Operation Sea Lion was never a realistic possibility. RAF Fighter Command if they felt defeat was near planned to withdraw beyond the range of the Luftwaffe to await the invasion. The Royal Navy would have launched suicidal attacks on the German invasion fleet in the channel and the British were prepared to use chemical weapons to defeat the invaders.
It would have been a defeat on almost the same level as Stalingrad.
Fuck youtube's unnecessary censorship.
There’s no scenario where Germany is able to invade and occupy Great Britain
A curate's egg.
Not to my taste.
☘👿
Tasmania
The mere scale of the Operation Overlord of June 1944 showed that a Gerrman invasion of Great Britain in 1940='41 stood no chance of having success.
That makes Operation Sea Lion a mere diversion of Hitler's plans for invading the Soviet Union in 1941…
Making Stalin think that Nazi-Germany was dealing with Great Britain first.
Like the RN would just let that happen??🙄
I would recommend reading "The Most Dangerous Enemy" by Stephen Bungay. It is an excellent statistical review of the Battle of Brittain, demonstrating the huge edge the UK actually had in manufacturing, efficient use of resources, well thought out tactical and strategic planning and excellent logistics. It also touches on the huge Naval disparity which would not have been significantly damaged by the Lufwaffe which had almost no anti-shipping experience and which would have crushed a German landing force.
One might also conside rthe eargaming done by British and German Military Staff officers at Sandhurst in the 1970s which proved over and over again that a German invasion would have failed utterly with huge casualties.
Both painter and Napoleon faced the same problem with the brits
If Hitler had gone ahead with the full scale invasion of Britain the war would have come to an end in 1941 or 42 at the latest. So many Germans would have been killed and wounded that the invasion would have had to have been called off. The British Navy would have decimated the Germans every day. This is even more likely to happen given the equipment being sent to Britain from the USA.
I think there's a good chance it would of succeeded, and it would of made Germany's invasion of Russia a lot easier.
An evil German dictator wanted to conquer Europe and rule the world. His name was Klaus Schwab.
Yes I very much agree the plan would of failed even if the 1st waves of troops were successful in capturing a beachhead, and moved inland etc.
Holding the British isles is another matter, and does not seem feasible to me.
A lesson in biting off more than one can chew in regards to stretching his forces far to thin.
You have put more effect into detailing 'OPERATION SEA LION" then the Germans ever did. Hitler wanted peace with Great Britain so that he could go after his primary foe the Soviet Union. The possibility of across channel invasion was great propaganda for both sides. There was no way in h*ll Hitler was going to delay his invasion of Russia to attempt a cross channel invasion of Britain and possibly bring America into the war.
You go on about Gr. Admiral Raeder meeting Hitler at the Berghof 6:05 and there are plenty of people there & Raeder isn't one of them
The army forces that were earmarked for Operation Sealion would become German 6th Army during the war with the Soviet Union. Had Hitler attempted Sealion the soldiers who froze to death in Stalingrad would have drowned in the English Channel instead.
Well done.So many of these history vlogs are over-simplistic, poorly informed, or the facts/analysis is just plain wrong.
Being very interested in WW2, here is my tuppence worth –
BoB –
The RAF overestimated the strength of the Luftwaffe & their kills;
These numbers sort of cancelled each other out and resulted in a pretty accurate idea of the true situation.
The Luftwaffe underestimated the RAF's strength & over estimated their kills;
the result was they were shocked in September when they were still being intercepted by dozens of fighters.
RAF losing the BoB –
Although my personal belief is that Churchill would have been forced out, & the UK may have come to terms
(NOT surrender*), any invasion would have been disastrous for the Nazis.
British propaganda radio very kindly gave German troops English lessons on what to say when they hit the beaches
which would have been set aflame –
I am burning/Thou art burning/ We are burning/ You (singl/pl)/They are burning.
* Years ago some idiot historian speculated that Britain would need to have surrendered the RN for peace terms.
Yeah. That's right – they would have given up their last external means of defence on the promise of a pathological
liar like Hitler!
People may argue that the wargames in 1974 was just one exercise, & others could have delivered an opposite result.
But, unless you live in a multiverse you only get one bite at the cherry.
The late 50s comment that I did not know about until now, confirms the findings.
unique: Being the only one of its kind
"The battle of Britain was one of the most unique" fucked things up from the get go
Churchill's bunker in London is preserved as a museum. When I visited, there was a 1940 wall map of the British Isles with all the potential invasion beaches marked. It was a reminder that worst-case preparations were needed back then.
the germans would have got their arses kicked
There could be much better use of the medium, rather than just providing all 'b' roll making this essentially an audio essay; the simple addition of some maps of relevant areas when you are discussing geography and listing landing grounds and such…. It would be a simple but valuable addition raising the quality of your videos, the maps can be free with numbers added to landmarks as simple as that, or pictures of terrain when discussing particulars of location. Lots of potential and very good already, and thank you for the video.
OMG, terrified shaking immediately. IRRITATION. Nothing is "most unique". Uni is from the Latin for one. It is unique. If you want to emphasize it with "most", the English language is chock full of good verbs. Terrifying, intense, … oh, look up synonyms yourself.
Lazy language. And dull.
All comes down to the morale of the British army in the event of a successful landing, i think they would have folded, look at Crete 👀
The invasion would have failed nonetheless. I'm not particularly interested in handing out compliments to the british, but an invasion of britain wouldn't have possible with Germany's lacking navy. Germany was NOT good at performing landings. It sucked at it, and when they tried to invade overseas, it was using paratroopers, which we saw the results of in crete. Amphibious assaults are NOT easy. The channel is extremely treacherous, many landing crafts have been lost to that sea regardless of enemy intervention. The Germans, who had no experience in any of that, would have faile especially considering british coasts.
With hindsight and wargaming we can see that a German conquest of Britan would have been almost impossible.
At the things looked very different. Even today you can see traces of the three Stop Lines built across England to delay the invasion. The creation of Auxillary Units to form resistance stay behind units was no joke.
It's funny how eighty years ago we could stop the might of Germany from invading our shores and now we can't even stop a flotilla of small boats. Those who lost their lives defending these shores must be turning in their graves.
hit ler was fooled into thinking the brits would oppose them, all they had to do was jump in their boats and claim asylum. not only would the Wehrmacht be given five star accommodation, they would be given pocket momey as well
In the last section "Could Sea Lion Have Succeeded?", there is a photo of soldiers marching along a dock. To their left is a rail line, while on their right is the dock. Does anyone know where this photo was taken?
While I was an undergraduate in the 1970s, I spent three months in Augsburg working at MBB. I spent a short period in a department where the manager spoke English with an Oxford accent. He had studied at Oxford Uni and spent months getting in and out of barges as he and his comrades readied to cross the channel. He told me that had they succeeded in the invasion, he would be part of the South of England administration. They were serious about their intent to cross the channel.
Whilst I agree entirely with the broad sentiment of commentary below, one has to consider circumstances. Britain was no doubt in a serious situation, people didn't know what would happen next , this included the government and military commanders. For example my father had a phone call to day the French has formerly surrendered, at that moment a Luftwaffe aircraft flew over, which they fired at. His fellow RAF colleague exclaimed "My god, they're coming straight over!" It later seemed that it was there on recon and the beaches remained quiet, as did the sea lanes. However they were of course ignorant of that, things must of been very scary during 1940.
Impromptu plan
he saw the women and changed his mind.
I said it then, and I'll say it now. Come and have a go if you think your hard enough
A Good Book to anyone interested is Hitler's Armada on the subject