Second World War

'Radar and the excellent new fighters account for Britain's victory in the Battle of Britain'.

How far do you agree with this judgement?

The Battle of Britain which started on the 10th of June and officially ended on the 30th of October is usually divided into five phases: The Channel Battle, The Operation Eagle, the classic phase of aerial bombardment between the Luftwaffe and Royal Air Force(RAF), the Battle of London and finally a series of minor raids. The outcome of the battle was Britain's victory. Also, it ended with Germany loosing 1100 planes and Britain 650 planes. Although Germans were successful in the third phase of the battle, but Hitler and Goering were not happy that the progress was so slow. On the 18th of April it was clear that Germans were not going to gain air superiority over the British as they had hoped. One of the reasons for the Germans failure was the introduction of radar warning system and the new fighters. However, there are other reasons that contributed to the success of Britain and it would be inadequate to claim that it was only radar and new fighters that were the reason of British success.

The radar, invented by Robert Watson-Watt, was invaluable to the men who fought the Battle of Britain. It was a British invention. Although Germans produced radars of their own by 1940, they were no help to Luftwaffe in conducting offensive operations. The radar allowed Britain to track incoming German warplanes and gave Fighter Command enough time to get airborne and attack them. The pilots of Fighter Command needed to be in the air as soon as possible in order to stop the enemy from getting to London. It was radar that gave them this time. It also allowed pilots to stay in air longer as the pilots could be given precise bearings and they would not waste time and fuel looking for the enemy. Due to the use of radar, Germans lost the power of surprise.

However, there were people, such as Winston Churchill, who claimed that radar did not contribute to the victory of the Battle of Britain. He argued that the war was fought using eyes and ears since the air force at the time also used binoculars and portable telephones to help watch for any German airplanes coming to attack Britain. By 1940, over 1000 Royal Observer Corps were established (ROC). Another reason why Britain succeeded is the fact that British fighters could land for fuel, whereas German fighters could not. The German fighters were also limited in the way that they could not reload their guns if they ran out of ammunition, whereas British could. Thus, it could be argued that the fact that the battle was in Britain worked in favour of Britain as they had easier access to resources than Luftwaffe.

One event concerning radar greatly aided Britain. The head of the Luftwaffe - H.Goering - ordered an end to the raids on radar bases as he thought that they were too unimportant to matter. As a result of this, the radar station at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight functioned throughout the battle and gave Fighter Command vital information regarding German targets.

The information regarding the numbers of planes shot is rather vague as British claimed that they had shot 2,698 German planes