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info http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-britain http://www.ducksters.com/history/world_war_ii/battle_of_britain.php https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Britain-European-history-1940 Battle of Britain tactics In order to invade Britain, the Germans had to have control in the air over the English Channel, otherwise the RAF and the Royal Navy would have been able to destroy their invasion force before it reached the shore. It has been postulated by many naval experts that due to the type of flat-bottomed barge built by the Germans, simply
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Believing that the British early warning system had been destroyed and the coastal towns sufficiently 'softened up' for an invasion, the Luftwaffe began the next stage of their plan.
On 13 August (called Adlertag or Eagle Day by the German High Command), massive raids began on the airfields of 11 Group. The aim was to destroy the RAF, either in the air or on the ground, in South East England. To put pressure on the British defences, the Germans sent high and low level raids to different targets at the same time.
Sometimes low level raids sneaked past the battered but still working radar stations, and the first warning the British fighter pilots had was bombs landing on their airfield. Particularly good in the low-level role was the Dornier Do 17 and its derivatives, several of their raids succeeded in achieving complete surprise and escaping any form of
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On one night raid, some aircraft bombed civilian areas of London by mistake; a mistake which was to become a crucial turning point in the Battle. Attacks on civilian centres were something which had been specifically banned by Hitler, who was still hoping at this time that the hopelessness of the situation would cause the British to sue for a negotiated peace. The German High Command knew that widespread civilian casualties would only harden the resolve of the nation to fight on. In reply to this accidental attack, the British bombed Berlin. Fears grew that cities would be raided more often, so children were evacuated again in a second mass exodus to places of safety in the country, as they had been during the Phoney War of