The Super Summary of World History (64 page)

The reports of strong German breakthroughs were correct. German armored units struck through the forest sweeping past the surprised and ill-prepared defenders. The German spearheads crossed the Muse River and turned west moving quickly toward the English Channel. German aircraft dominated the sky, bombing Allied columns moving south and disorganizing units in front of the German onslaught. Allied air attacks on German bridges constructed on the Muse River failed, resulting in heavy aircraft losses. French tanks supported their infantry; thus, only small groups of tanks were operating within the infantry units. The Germans assembled their tanks into large dominant armored strike forces comprised of many tanks using combined arms warfare. They overwhelmed the small confused tank units comprising French and British armored opposition. The German armored units hit like a wrecking ball, demolishing all before them.

As German mechanized units pushed forward against panicked opposition the far away French High Command lost touch with the front, mainly because modern communication equipment was lacking (such as telephones or radios).
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French lack of mechanization prevented rapid movement, and inadequate French communication prevented rapid reorganization; consequently, they failed to stop the fast moving Germans.

Soon the Germans reached the sea trapping a number of Allied divisions. The British Army retreated to the port of
Dunkirk
on the orders of Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force. Lord Gort gave the command without London’s authorization but saved the British Army by the decisive decision. For unknown reasons, Hitler stopped the Axis advance on the port.
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During the delay, the English army managed to escape by sea through the efforts of the British Navy and hundreds of civilian boats sailing into action to save the troops trapped at the seaside. When the Germans resumed their advance the rescue of three hundred and forty thousand troops from Dunkirk was complete (about one hundred thousand were French). After a pause to refit, the Wehrmacht carried out the second phase of their plan storming past Paris into the remainder of France. The French reorganized into hedgehog redoubts, but they lost so many units in previous combat they stood no chance. After Dunkirk the British withdrew all RAF
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aircraft to defend their island home. France objected, but England could not afford to lose its air force fighting in France. France had no strategic reserve (why is obscure), and the nation’s fighting spirit was gone.

The campaign in France ended on June 25, 1940. The Germans allowed the French to keep a small part of their nation in the south of France,
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but the Germans governed the rest. Hitler wanted the French Atlantic ports for his submarines. France’s empire still existed, but France elected to surrender without moving the fight to their empire. The French Empire became a German puppet, although the Free French under General Charles de Gaulle continued to fight the Germans from England. The French suffered another indignity, although the British administered this blow when Churchill, Britain’s new Prime Minister, ordered the French fleet sunk to prevent its use by the Nazis. France was furious.

With France defeated Hitler may have assumed England would desire peace. Churchill, Britain’s Prime Minister, emphatically said no. Many speculated about Germany invading England, even though it was autumn and only a few weeks of good weather (if it could be called that) remained. No invasion could be mounted without air superiority. Accordingly, Hitler launched coordinated air attacks on England’s RAF that entailed bombing airfields and aircraft industries. This air action was the
Battle
of
Britain
.

Battle of Britain

August
to
October
1940

Starting in August 1940, the German Luftwaffe began concentrated daylight attacks on English airbases and its aircraft industry. Hitler’s goal was to destroy the RAF and then stage an invasion of England. Well . . . maybe. From the start the Germans were at a disadvantage.
As
designed,
the
only
use
of
the
Luftwaffe
was
to
support
the
German
Army;
thus,
close
air
support
was
their
mission,
not
bombing
an
enemy
nation
into
submission.
German aircraft were short ranged, the bombers were two-engine affairs with almost nonexistent defensive firepower, and they carried light bomb loads. Up against modern fighters such as the Spitfire or Hurricane they were absolutely inadequate.
General
Kesselring
knew the weaknesses of the equipment, and, as one of the architects of the air assault, limited their key operations to southern England. Royal Air Force production areas were bombed, but this was more difficult than getting at the airfields. Air warfare against cities was not new as WWI saw numerous long-range bombing raids; nonetheless, air attacks on a world power to attain air superiority was new. Kesselring understood and followed Clausewitz’s principles (defeat the enemy’s army in the field).
[225]
He wanted to defeat the Royal Air Force by destroying its bases of operation, pilots, aircraft, and ability to construct aircraft.

Radar
was England’s technological ace in the hole. Although primitive, the English radar stations detected incoming flights of bombers, supplying information on course and speed. Britain’s Fighter Command, under Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, then launched the intercepting fighters. The ME-109s sent to protect the bombers could not stay long over the target, thus, protecting the bombers was problematic. Furthermore, each German pilot shot down was lost to death or captivity, whereas the English pilots shot down could be recovered to fight again (unless KIA).
[226]
From the start the Luftwaffe took a beating. Nonetheless, the experienced Nazi pilots shot down numerous RAF aircraft, and the bombers damaged the airfields significantly. Dowding worried he might lose the fight allowing Germany to gain air superiority over Southern England.

However, fate intervened, and Hitler ordered the bombing switched to London thereby wrecking the German staff’s planning at the moment victory winged into view. This violated Clausewitz’s principle of defeating the enemy’s army (air force in this case) before doing anything else. London was further away from Luftwaffe air bases resulting in more time over enemy territory, with its flack and fighters, and less time over the target. The new raids caused extensive damage to London and the Luftwaffe, in addition to allowing the RAF to recover their losses then attack with renewed vigor. As winter approached and losses worsened, the Luftwaffe suffered defeat by Hitler’s decision, radar, and English determination. The fact that British bombing raids heavily damaged the Nazi invasion barges is another seldom-discussed key factor. Fighter Command won the battle by just surviving.

Invasion?

Watching documentaries on the Battle of Britain, we hear the narrator deeply intone that should Britain lose the crucial air battle a Nazi invasion would surely follow. This idea is pure propagandistic humbug. The RAF was hard pressed, but it retained valuable options beyond total destruction. Germany lacked the resources to invade England even if it won the air battle by a wide margin. Plus, the battle started in August, far too late to seriously contemplate an invasion because of the approach of winter and bad weather.

If Fighter Command was being destroyed, it could pull its aircraft out German range and await the invasion while rebuilding its strength. Also waiting out of range would be the English Navy with its aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and more. Upon sighting a German invasion armada, it would sail into action with all available land, sea, and air support.
[227]
Even with total air superiority, Germany could not have overcome such an onslaught of British ships and aircraft.
[228]
The Battle of Britain was history’s first struggle to gain air superiority over another nation’s territory. The Germans failed while significantly damaging their air force. This hampered Luftwaffe operations in Russia the following summer. Hitler may have been trying to get England to quit the war through this air effort; however, who can know the mind of Adolf Hitler?

The Battle of the Atlantic

September
1939
to
May
1943

As the Luftwaffe suffered defeat over Britain, the war’s longest campaign started in the Atlantic.
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However, Germany lost the
Battle
of
the
Atlantic
before it started. This was a
technological
fight
from the first, and at the start of the campaign the Germans held several advantages.
Admiral
Karl
Donitz
(also Doenitz), the German U-boat commander, devised a new way of waging war with submarines. Donitz recognized the two highest hurdles for submarine warfare were spotting a convoy and then successfully attacking it. Believe it or not, finding the convoy was the hardest part, but once found the submarines needed to sink several ships to gain victory. First, a line of scout submarines (sub) was deployed to spot convoys. After a sub acquired a convoy they radioed the position, speed, and direction of the ships to U-boat headquarters in France. Second, German HQ radioed a number of subs and ordered their convergence on the convoy for a large coordinated attack designed to inflict maximum damage while overwhelming the convoy escort. Donitz’s
wolf pack
concept gave the Germans a critical advantage during the first months of the war. The problem in modern war is technological and tactical advantages disappear fast.

The Germans lost before they started because they
produced
so
few
modern
oceangoing
submarines
prior
to
September
1939.
The majority of their subs were coastal types, designed for shallow water and not cruising on open seas. In the critical prewar years Germany produced few oceangoing subs, and one year they produced just ONE U-boat. During the essential months of 1939, Germany had
twelve
oceangoing subs, and struggled to keep
four
U-boats on the western approaches to England.
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Even with so few U-boats, ace German captains sank numerous British merchant ships. The Royal Navy swiftly took countermeasures to avoid the wolf packs through the code breakers by just routing the convoys around the subs with known locations. With so few subs an effective picket line was impossible. The few U-boats available at war’s outbreak doomed the Nazi effort. Donitz needed
three
hundred
oceangoing U-boats for his campaign. The admiral possessed
twelve
, about 4 percent of his needs.

Documentaries on the Battle of the Atlantic show German U-boats attacking from under water in daylight. In fact, few attacks occurred this way. Underwater, a U-boat was very slow and could not keep up with a convoy; therefore, Germans carried out their attacks at night on the surface. U-boats stayed on the surface when searching for convoys and, once the quarry was spotted, tracked it at a safe distance while surfaced. Underwater, the U-boats found it impossible to spot or track convoys; thus, surface operations were imperative. After a Wolf Pack assembled, the German U-boat captains awaited darkness then skillfully approached the convoy, on the surface, avoiding the escorts. Once in close, the subs, gliding low in the sea, either fired their torpedoes outside the convoy perimeter, or—if expert and fearless—sailed into the convoy itself,
between
the
lines
of
ships,
and commenced their attack from point blank range.

For the first few months of the war an extremely small set of brilliant U-boat commanders accounted for the majority of English shipping losses. As these superb captains and their crews were destroyed Britain’s shipping losses declined, illustrating the impact of a few extraordinary men.

By 1943, the technological advantage lay completely with the Allies as new submarine detection and fighting methods forever shifted the tide. The increasing Allied ability to place aircraft above the convoys ended the U-boats’ operational effectiveness, and Allied shipping losses fell significantly. To illustrate: in 1942 Allied shipping losses were 8,245,000 tons, for the loss of 85 U-boats; in 1943 Allied shipping losses were 3,611,000 tons for the loss of 287 U-boats. The tide turned dramatically in May of 1943 and Germany lost the undersea struggle.

All this Allied technological innovation and its rapid deployment was assisted by decisions at the
Casablanca
Conference
in January 1943, where Roosevelt and Churchill met to co-ordinate strategy
.
The leaders
agreed
the
U-boat
was
the
number
one
menace
to the Allied cause and directed extra resources to defeat the German undersea navy. Interestingly, their second priority was defeating the Luftwaffe, hence showing the technological orientation of the Allies. Meanwhile, Hitler’s U-boats lacked resources until it was far too late in the battle because Hitler put other priorities ahead of the Atlantic struggle. In fact,
98
percent
of Allied shipping crossed the Atlantic without incident. This victory is directly attributable to the Allied emphasis on defeating the U-boat threat as their
first
priority. Nonetheless, from 1939 and up through May 1943, the Germans were causing major concerns with their U-boat offensives. During the Battle of the Atlantic, the Germans sank 2,603 Allied ships for the loss of over seven hundred submarines. In Operation Drumbeat alone the United States lost three hundred and ninety seven ships between January and June of 1942.