The remainder, thirteen 28cm and five 24cm (9.4in) pieces, plus additional motorised batteries comprising twelve 24cm guns and ten 21cm weapons, could be fired at shipping but were of limited effectiveness due to their slow traverse speed, long loading time and ammunition types. 2. [140], At least 20 spies were sent to Britain by boat or parachute to gather information on the British coastal defences under the codename "Operation Lena"; many of the agents spoke limited English. In August 1940 Germany's Luftwaffe undertook a mission to bomb numerous RAF airfields. "[58], In 1940 the German Navy was ill-prepared for mounting an amphibious assault the size of Operation Sea Lion. The remaining population would have been terrorised, including civilian hostages being taken and the death penalty immediately imposed for even the most trivial acts of resistance, with the UK being plundered for anything of financial, military, industrial or cultural value. At this conference, he gave the Luftwaffe the opportunity to act independently of the other services, with intensified continuous air attacks to overcome British resistance; on 16 September, Gring issued orders for this new phase of the air attack. [81] The LWS was demonstrated to General Halder on 2 August 1940 by the Reinhardt Trials Staff on the island of Sylt and, though he was critical of its high silhouette on land, he recognised the overall usefulness of the design. But was invasion imminent or was this part of a. [34] The initial assault would have also included two airborne divisions under Luftwaffe command,[35] and the special forces of the Brandenburg Regiment, controlled by the Abwehr. The Navy intended that all four invasion fleets would return across the Channel on the night of S plus two, having been moored for three full days off the South coast of England. They bombed off-target and hit many homes, killing civilians, so Winston Churchill responded immediately with a bombing raid on Berlin the very next night. Around 1,300 of the 22nd Air Landing Division had been captured (subsequently shipped to Britain as prisoners of war), around 250 Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft had been lost, and several hundred elite paratroops and air-landing infantry had been killed or injured. What if Hitler Had Invaded Britain? - The New York Times In the preceding months, the German Army had already swept across much of the continent. Its aim was to find out what might have happened had Nazi Germany launched Operation Sea Lion, their planned invasion of southeast England during World War II, in September 1940. [28][29], The Luftwaffe announced on 29 July that they could begin a major air attack at the start of August, and their intelligence reports gave them confidence of a decisive result. Intensified air attacks against shipping and the economy could affect food supplies and civilian morale in the long term. 1. Anti-German newspapers were to be closed down.[169]. [99], During the summer of 1940, both the British public and the Americans believed that a German invasion was imminent, and they studied the forthcoming high tides of 59 August, 27 September, 16 October, and 30 October 4 November as likely dates. Here are ten shocking ways the Second World War could have unfolded differently than it did. The change in emphasis of the bombing from RAF bases to bombing London, however, turned Adlerangriff into a short-range strategic bombing operation. Navigation underwater was accomplished using a directional gyrocompass or by following instructions radioed from the transport barge. If British losses became severe, the RAF could simply have withdrawn northward and regrouped. Only nine MTBs were lost to air attack out of 115 sunk by various means throughout the Second World War. The appearance of preparations for Sea Lion was to be continued to keep political pressure on Britain, and a fresh directive would be issued if it was decided that invasion was to be reconsidered in the spring of 1941. Hence, Sea Lion landings in Kent and Sussex would have been initially opposed by XII Corps of Eastern Command with three infantry divisions and two independent brigades and V Corps of Southern Command with three infantry divisions. All agents were quickly captured and many were convinced to defect by MI5's Double-Cross System, providing disinformation to their German superiors. However, although spectacular success had been achieved in the airborne assault on Fort Eben-Emael in Belgium, German airborne forces had come close to disaster in their attempt to seize the Dutch government and capital of The Hague. [155] At another point, Hitler had on one occasion described the English lower classes "racially inferior". 17 For the conduct of air and sea warfare against England", "German Weapons Operation Sealion (Seelwe) The German Invasion of Britain 1940", "Next Week May See Nazis Attempt British Invasion", "History World Wars: The German Threat to Britain in World War Two", "Hitlers Unternehmen "Seelwe": Invasion der Amateure", "The Invaders reach Berkshire: Article from Daily Telegraph", "Britain's Nazi King Revealed July 16th, 2009: digiguide.tv", "Demand Five | watch Revealed, Series 2 - episode 3, Britain's Nazi King", 1940 Mein Kampf: Operation Sea Lion Edition, Why Sealion is not an option for Hitler to win the war, Kriegsmarine nautical charts, private collection, It's Startling How Close the Nazis Came to Invading Britain, Film made by a German engineer of various Sealion invasion craft, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Sea_Lion&oldid=1161731237, Eventual cancellation and diversion of German, Italian, and other Axis forces for. [157] Hitler decreed that Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of Winston Churchill, was to serve as the overall headquarters of the German occupation military government. An inflatable rubber hose around the turret ring created a waterproof seal between the hull and turret. The Kriegsmarine wanted the front to be as short as possible, as it regarded this as more defensible. [145] In the Game, the Germans were able to land almost all their first echelon forces on 22 September 1940, and established a beachhead in south-east England, capturing Folkestone, and Newhaven, even though the British had demolished the facilities of both ports. A radio antenna was also attached to the float to provide communication between the tank crew and the transport barge. [75], The Tauchpanzer or deep-wading tank (also referred to as the U-Panzer or Unterwasser Panzer) was a standard Panzer III or Panzer IV medium tank with its hull made completely waterproof by sealing all sighting ports, hatches and air intakes with tape or caulk. [5], In September 1939, the successful[6] German invasion of Poland infringed on both a French and a British alliance with Poland and both countries declared war on Germany. The code name for the invasion was Seelwe, "Sea Lion". However, despite firing on frequent slow moving coastal convoys, often in broad daylight, for almost the whole of that period (there was an interlude in 1943), there is no record of any vessel being hit by them, although one seaman was killed and others were injured by shell splinters from near misses. This work was assigned to the Organisation Todt and commenced on 22 July 1940. No decision had been reached on the choice between immediate decisive action and a siege. Though the Type A barges could disembark several medium tanks onto an open beach, this could be accomplished only once the tide had fallen further and the barges were firmly grounded along their full length; otherwise a leading tank might topple off an unsteady ramp and block those behind from deployment. If all the landings were to be made at high water across a broad front, they would have to be made at different times along different parts of the coast, with the landings in Dover being made six hours after any landings in Dorset and thus losing the element of surprise. Dr Andrew Gordon, in an article for the Royal United Services Institute Journal[128] agrees with this and is clear in his conclusion the German Navy was never in a position to mount Sealion, regardless of any realistic outcome of the Battle of Britain. Orders were therefore issued to assemble and begin emplacing every Army and Navy heavy artillery piece available along the French coast, primarily at Pas-de-Calais. Both versions were widely reported in the American press and in William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary, but both were officially denied by Britain and Germany. It could then deploy if the Germans launched an invasion. However, the pre-emptive destruction of a large part of the French fleet by the British at Mers-el-Kbir by the French themselves ensured that this could not happen. 21 on 18 December 1940 instructing the Wehrmacht to be ready for a quick attack to commence his long planned invasion of the Soviet Union. [137] British intelligence further calculated that Folkestone, the largest harbour falling within the planned German landing zones, could handle 150 tons per day in the first week of the invasion (assuming all dockside equipment was successfully demolished and regular RAF bombing raids reduced capacity by 50%). In fact they had neither the tools or the training". Operation Sealion: Why Was Hitler's Planned Invasion Of Britain Shortly after the withdrawal of British forces from the European continent in the Dunkirk evacuation (late May-early June 1940), Germany's armoured forces completed their blitzkrieg invasion of France. World War II had begun. [115] As early as July 1939, Beppo Schmid, the Luftwaffe's intelligence chief, had concluded that air attack alone could not defeat Britain and a land invasion would be required [116] Adolf Galland, who became commander of Luftwaffe fighters later in the war, claimed invasion plans were not serious and that there was a palpable sense of relief in the Wehrmacht when it was finally called off. [80], The German Army developed a portable landing bridge of its own nicknamed Seeschlange (Sea Snake). During the Dunkirk evacuation, few warships were actually sunk, despite being stationary targets. It was supposed to take place in September 1940 and, had it been successful, would have completed Adolf Hitler 's domination of western Europe. Despite the fact that it never ended up happening, a Nazi invasion of England was kind of a common sense inevitability for a while during the beginning of World War 2. The story was later expanded to include false reports that the British had set the sea on fire using flaming oil. The British army forces, delayed in moving units from East Anglia to the South East by bomb damage to the rail network south of London, were nevertheless able to hold onto positions in and around Newhaven and Dover, sufficient to deny their use by German forces. On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler bombard Poland on land and from the air. VI-17 VI-18. Hitler wanted the air attack to commence early in August and, if it succeeded, the invasion was to start around 25 August before weather deteriorated. In his fictional alternate history Invasion: the German invasion of England, July 1940, Kenneth Macksey proposes that the Germans might have succeeded if they had swiftly and decisively begun preparations even before the Dunkirk evacuations, and the Royal Navy for some reason had held back from large-scale intervention,[129] though in practice the Germans were unprepared for such a speedy commencement of their assault. The Schwimmpanzer II Panzer II, at 8.9 tons, was light enough to float with the attachment of long rectangular buoyancy boxes on each side of the tank's hull. (1988). Once the barge anchored, the crew would extend the internally stowed ramp using block and tackle sets until it was resting on the water's surface. The tank's engine was converted to be cooled with seawater, and the exhaust pipes were fitted with overpressure valves. Consequently, the main Home Forces mobile reserve force was held back around London, so as to be able to move forwards to protect the capital, either into Kent or Essex. Inside Operation Sea Lion: The Nazis' Aborted Plan To Invade Britain Soviet forces were driven back more than 600 miles to the gates of Moscow, with staggering losses. 10 Shocking Ways the Second World War Could Have Ended - Gizmodo His assessment concurs with that emerging from the 1974 Sandhurst Sea Lion wargame (see below) that the first wave would likely have crossed the Channel and established a lodgement around the landing beaches in Kent and East Sussex without major loss, and that the defending British forces would have been unlikely to have dislodged them once ashore. [12][17] At a meeting that day, OKH Chief of General Staff Franz Halder heard from Secretary of State Ernst von Weizscker that Hitler had turned his attention to Russia. The boxes were machined from aluminium stock and filled with Kapok sacks for added buoyancy. For simplicity's sake, the Germans designated any barge up to the size of a standard peniche as Type A1 and anything larger as Type A2.[65]. He prefaced the order by stating: "As England, despite her hopeless military situation, still shows no signs of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare, and if necessary to carry out, a landing operation against her. As the first tank rolled forward onto the ramp, its weight would tilt the forward end of the ramp into the water and push it down onto the seabed. They agreed that minefields and U-boats could limit the threat posed by the Royal Navy; Schniewind emphasised the significance of weather conditions. [15] British parliamentarians still arguing for peace negotiations were defeated in the May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis, but throughout July the Germans continued with attempts to find a diplomatic solution. [77], By the end of August the Germans had converted 160 Panzer IIIs, 42 Panzer IVs, and 52 Panzer IIs to amphibious use. Wooden slides were also installed along the barge's hull to accommodate ten assault boats (Sturmboote), each capable of carrying six infantrymen and powered by a 30hp outboard motor. After that, light easterly winds prevailed which would have assisted any invasion craft travelling from the Continent towards the invasion beaches. In our last installment, we discussed. The first echelon would land on the beaches on S-tag itself, preferably at daybreak around two hours after high tide. On reaching the English coast, the powered barges would be cast-off, to beach themselves under their own power; the unpowered barges would be taken inshore as far as possible by the tugs and anchored, so as to settle on the falling tide, their troops unloading some hours later than those on the powered barges. This 'Operation Sea Lion Edition' was finalised and printed in the summer of 1940. [10][11], Germany's swift and successful occupation of France and the Low Countries gained control of the Channel coast, facing what Schmid's 1939 report called their "most dangerous enemy". Germany invades Poland - Date & Year - HISTORY [69], The aircraft engines were mounted on a platform supported by iron scaffolding at the aft end of the vessel. Hitler had two ways to pacify Britain: first, he could break Britain militarily (invasion); second, he could convince Britain to withdraw (negotiation). The first wave of the landing would have consisted of thirteen infantry and mountain divisions, the second wave of eight panzer and motorised infantry divisions and finally, the third wave was formed of six further infantry divisions. [96], The British military was well aware of the dangers posed by German artillery dominating the Dover Strait and on 4 September 1940 the Chief of Naval Staff issued a memo stating that if the Germans "could get possession of the Dover defile and capture its gun defences from us, then, holding these points on both sides of the Straits, they would be in a position largely to deny those waters to our naval forces". The success of the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, on 9 April 1940, had relied extensively on the use of paratroop and glider-borne formations (Fallschirmjger) to capture key defensive points in advance of the main invasion forces. The equipment for dropping the wires was fitted to the Bf 110 aeroplanes and tested. [51] Hitler initially declined any such aid but eventually allowed a small contingent of Italian fighters and bombers, the Italian Air Corps (Corpo Aereo Italiano or CAI), to assist in the Luftwaffe's aerial campaign over Britain in October and November 1940.[52]. Work continued on the various amphibious warfare developments such as purpose-built landing craft, which were later employed in operations in the Baltic. [19], Jodl set out the OKW proposals for the proposed invasion in a memorandum issued on 12 July, which described operation Lwe (Lion) as "a river crossing on a broad front", irritating the Kriegsmarine. All troops would be loaded onto their barges from French or Belgian ports on S minus two or S minus one. Rations for two weeks were to be provided to the German troops of the first wave because the armies had been instructed to live off the land as far as possible in order to minimise supply across the Channel during the initial phase of the battle. Once the invasion was called off by Adolf Hitler most copies were distributed to English speaking POW camps. [18], On 2 July, the OKW asked the services to start preliminary planning for an invasion, as Hitler had concluded that invasion would be achievable in certain conditions, the first of which was command of the air, and specifically asked the Luftwaffe when this would be achieved. [20] To the surprise of Von Brauchitsch and Halder, and completely at odds with his normal practice, Hitler did not ask any questions about specific operations, had no interest in details, and made no recommendations to improve the plans; instead he simply told OKW to start preparations. [124] He added, "There were indeed some who on purely technical grounds, and for the sake of the effect the total defeat of his expedition would have on the general war, were quite content to see him try. The very next day the Chiefs of Staff, after discussing the importance of the defile, decided to reinforce the Dover coast with more ground troops. Once the tank rolled off, the ramp would bob back up to a horizontal position, ready for the next one to exit. The result was Germany losing its entire invasion force. See British army anti invasion preparations. The Luftwaffe made 21 deliberate attacks on small torpedo boats during the Battle of Britain, sinking none. Others pushed for blockades that would cripple the English economy. [76], Experiments conducted at the end of June and early July at Schilling, near Wilhelmshaven, showed that the submersible tanks functioned best when they were kept moving along the seabed as, if halted for any reason, they tended to sink into the seabed and remain stuck there. The fleet of defeated France, one of the most powerful and modern in the world, might have tipped the balance against Britain if it had been captured by the Germans. Hitler's . Nevertheless, both the German Army and Navy undertook a major programme of preparations for an invasion: training troops, developing specialised weapons and equipment, and modifying transport vessels. [127] Robinson argues the massive superiority of the Royal Navy over the Kriegsmarine would have made Sea Lion a disaster. Attacks were then to be made on ports and food stocks, while leaving alone ports to be used in the invasion, and "air attacks on enemy warships and merchant ships may be reduced except where some particularly favourable target happens to present itself." It was originally intended for use by Army engineers to assist with river crossings. Folkestone (to the east) and Newhaven (to the west) were the only cross-channel port facilities that would have been accessible to the invasion forces; and much depended on these being captured substantially intact or with the capability of rapid repair; in which case the second wave of eight divisions (including all the motorised and armoured divisions) might be unloaded directly onto their respective quaysides. In the Norwegian campaign, despite eight weeks of continuous air supremacy, the Luftwaffe sank only two British warships: the light cruiser HMSCurlew and the destroyer HMSGurkha. In the summer of 1940, the headquarters staff of the British Army's Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces tended to consider East Anglia and the East coast to be the most likely landing sites for a German invasion force, as this would have offered much greater opportunities to seize ports and natural harbours, and would be further from naval forces at Portsmouth. Reprisal attacks of terror bombing had the potential to cause quicker capitulation but the effect on morale was uncertain. This meant that, at best, the nine German infantry and one airborne division landed in the first wave would receive less than 20% of the 3,300 tons of supplies they required each day through a port, and would have to rely heavily on whatever could be brought in directly over the beaches or air-lifted into captured airstrips. Returning to sea, the convoys would head west towards Scotland before turning around at about 21:00 on the following day. 9 Instructions For Warfare Against The Economy of the Enemy, "Directive No. For the successful German invasion of Norway, German naval forces (assisted in places by thick fog) had simply forced an entry into key Norwegian harbours with motor launches and E-boats against stiff resistance from the outgunned Norwegian army and navy, and then unloaded troops from destroyers and troop transports directly onto the dockfronts at Bergen, Egersund, Trondheim, Kristiansand, Arendal and Horten. Dnitz stated, "[W]e possessed neither control of the air or the sea; nor were we in any position to gain it". View history Operation Sea Lion was a major wargame conducted at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1974. [25] Nor did Directive 16 provide for a combined operational headquarters, similar to the Allies' creation of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) for the later Normandy landings, under which all three service branches (Army, Navy, and Air Force) could work together to plan, co-ordinate, and execute such a complex undertaking. How Nazi Germany Could Have Won the War in The West (Get Churchill to Listed in rough chronological order. 16, setting in motion preparations for a landing in Britain. . On 4 July, after asking General Erich Marcks to begin planning an attack on Russia, Halder heard from the Luftwaffe that they planned to eliminate the RAF, destroying its aircraft manufacturing and supply systems, with damage to naval forces as a secondary aim. [108], On 12 October 1940, Hitler issued a directive releasing forces for other fronts. Between May 26 and June 4, 1940, the British were able to evacuate more than 330,000 allied troops from the French beach at Dunkirk, aided considerably by a flotilla of fishing boats, pleasure. [44] Others argue the Luftwaffe achieved little in the air battle and the RAF was not on the verge of collapse, as often claimed. With Germany's occupation of the Pas-de-Calais region in northern France, the possibility of closing the Strait of Dover to Royal Navy warships and merchant convoys by the use of land-based heavy artillery became readily apparent, both to the German High Command and to Hitler. Author James Hayward has suggested that the whispering campaign around the "failed invasion" was a successful example of British black propaganda to bolster morale at home and in occupied Europe, and convince America that Britain was not a lost cause. On 10 July, he advised the War Cabinet that the possibility of invasion could be ignored, as it "would be a most hazardous and suicidal operation"; and on 13 August that "now that we were so much stronger", he thought "we could spare an armoured brigade from this country". Of these, only about 800 were powered albeit insufficiently to cross the Channel under their own power. Providing armour support for the initial wave of assault troops was a critical concern for Sea Lion planners, and much effort was devoted to finding practical ways of rapidly getting tanks onto the invasion beaches in support of the first echelon. Reichsmarschall Hermann Gring, head of the Luftwaffe, responded with a single-page letter in which he stated, "[A] combined operation having the objective of landing in England must be rejected. [134] In fact, in Russia in 1941, when engaged in heavy fighting (at the end of a very long supply line), a single German infantry division required up to 1,100 tons of supplies a day,[135] though a more usual figure would be 212425 tons per day. This directive remained in force in the first phase of the Battle of Britain. towed) inland waterways vessels as they shuttled slowly between the Continent to the invasion beaches and any captured harbours. The Germans converted 52 of these tanks to amphibious use prior to Sea Lion's cancellation. [161] Others state that Nazi planners envisaged the institution of a nationalities policy in Western Europe to secure German hegemony there, which entailed the granting of independence to various regions. [22][23], Hitler's directive set four conditions for the invasion to occur:[24], This ultimately placed responsibility for Sea Lion's success squarely on the shoulders of Raeder and Gring, neither of whom had the slightest enthusiasm for the venture and, in fact, did little to hide their opposition to it. There is a large corpus of works set in an alternate history where the Nazi invasion of Great Britain is attempted or successfully carried out. In addition, the Kriegsmarine had allocated its few remaining larger and more modern ships to diversionary operations in the North Sea. It was proposed to build enough tractors that one or two could be assigned to each invasion barge, but the late date and difficulties in mass-producing the vehicle prevented this.[81]. Jeschonnek proposed large bombing attacks so that responding RAF fighters could be shot down. The ANTON minefield (off Selsey Bill) and the BRUNO minefield (off Beachy Head), each totalling over 3,000 mines in four rows, would have blocked off the invasion beaches against naval forces from Portsmouth, while the counterpart CAESAR minefield would have blocked off beach 'B' from Dover. The Kriegsmarine had taken some small steps in remedying the landing craft situation with construction of the Pionierlandungsboot 39 (Engineer Landing Boat 39), a self-propelled shallow-draft vessel which could carry 45 infantrymen, two light vehicles or 20 tons of cargo and land on an open beach, unloading via a pair of clamshell doors at the bow. [130] The German official naval war historian, Vice Admiral Kurt Assmann, wrote in 1958: "Had the German Air Force defeated the Royal Air Force as decisively as it had defeated the French Air Force a few months earlier, I am sure Hitler would have given the order for the invasion to be launched and the invasion would in all probability been smashed". [55], On 13 August 1940, Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations in the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) wrote his "Assessment of the situation arising from the views of the Army and Navy on a landing in England." [152] Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg hoped that after the victorious conclusion of the war against the USSR, Englishmen would be among the Germanic nationalities who would join the Germanic settlers in colonising the conquered eastern territories. [100] The British prepared extensive defences, and, in Churchill's view, "the great invasion scare" was "serving a most useful purpose" by "keeping every man and woman tuned to a high pitch of readiness". On 28 July he told OKW that ten days would be needed to get the first wave of troops across the Channel, even on a much narrower front. Germany's Luftwaffe Bombing of Britain | War History Online [78], As part of a Kriegsmarine competition, prototypes for a prefabricated "heavy landing bridge" or jetty (similar in function to later Allied Mulberry Harbours) were designed and built by Krupp Stahlbau and Dortmunder Union and successfully overwintered in the North Sea in 194142. [71], As a consequence of employing all of their available cruisers in the North Sea deception operation, there would have been only light forces available to protect the vulnerable transport fleets. Recognising the need for an even larger craft capable of landing both tanks and infantry onto a hostile shore, the Kriegsmarine began development of the 220-ton Marinefhrprahm (MFP) but these too were unavailable in time for a landing on British soil in 1940, the first of them not being commissioned until April 1941. The RSHA also felt that Harold Nicolson might prove useful in this role. [123], In his history of World War II, Churchill stated, "Had the Germans possessed in 1940 well trained [and equipped] amphibious forces their task would still have been a forlorn hope in the face of our sea and air power.