Battle of Britain - the Blitz

Historical Context Essay

Robert Clark (The Literary Encyclopedia)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Domains

Battle

Dates

Date of occurrence 1940-09-07-1941-05

Places

United Kingdom (Location)
Germany (Involved)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Following the fall of France on June 22nd 1940, Hitler hoped that the British would seek an armistice or agree to divide the world with Germany. On July 2nd, after diplomatic overtures had been rebuffed by Churchill, Hitler authorised “Operation Sea Lion”, the invasion of England across English Channel. As the invasion required air superiority, Göring ordered the Luftwaffe to destroy the Royal Air Force, promising Hitler this would take four days.

Germany had at its disposal more than 5,000 aircraft, of which 1,200 bombers and 1,000 fighters were deployed against the RAFs 1700 aircraft, of which 900 were Hurricanes or Spitfire interceptors. The latter were however superior to all the German fighters except the Messerschmitt 109 and the British had the advantage of effective radar

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

456 words

Citation: Clark, Robert. "Battle of Britain - the Blitz". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 February 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1397, accessed 25 April 2024.]

Save this article