“The disastrous military events which have happened during the past fortnight have not come to me with any sense of surprise.” (Churchill)
When we look back at what occurred during the Second World War, we find many battles and fighting over most of Western Europe. One of the battles that receives a fair amount of discussion is the Battle of Britain during 1940. This battle in particular is very interesting because of the way that it was carried out. The British won due to the failures by the Germans and the advances that Britain ended up having over the Germans. The British had quite a strong lead over the Germans with their experienced military leaders, advanced aircrafts and production rates, and being able to fight at their home base.
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(Littlewood 14) By not being careful with the knowledge of the radars, the Germans flew right into armed territories that were ready to stand their ground. During August of 1940, the Germans bombed the British radar stations in hopes to hinder their ability to detect them coming and fight as well as they had been able to. The Germans were unaware of the capabilities of the radar that the British were using, thus they were unable to fully prepare themselves for the battle. All of the 1,000 radar system stations that the British owned were connected by lines of telephone and separated by eight miles, so that the personnel could alert other stations if an attack was on its way. (Cumming 692) (Littlewood 12) The radars that were being used were part of the Dowding system and had the average range ability of 80 miles, which gave a fairly short, but decent amount of time see the oncoming attack and prepare themselves. (Littlewood 12) Although they could anticipate the attack up to a certain distance, “the early warning system was unreliable,” especially when the Germans were doing their night raids in the cities. (Cumming 690) (Littlewood