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Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain (Luftschlacht um England, "air battle for England") was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe.

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Defence of the Reich

The Defence of the Reich (Reichsverteidigung) is the name given to the strategic defensive aerial campaign fought by the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany over German-occupied Europe and Germany during World War II against the Allied strategic bombing campaign. Its aim was to prevent the destruction of German civilians, military and civil industries by the Western Allies. The day and night air battles over Germany during the war involved thousands of aircraft, units and aerial engagements to counter the Allies bombing campaigns. The campaign was one of the longest in the history of aerial warfare and with the Battle of the Atlantic and the Allied naval blockade of Germany was the longest of the war. The Luftwaffe fighter force defended the airspace of German-occupied Europe against attack, first by RAF Bomber Command and then against the RAF and United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the Combined Bomber Offensive. In the early years, the Luftwaffe was able to inflict a string of defeats on Allied strategic air forces. In 1939, Bomber Command was forced to operate at night, due to the extent of losses of unescorted bombers flying in daylight. In 1943, the USAAF suffered several reverses in daylight and called off the offensive over Germany in October limiting their attacks to western Europe as they built up their force. During the war the British built up their bomber force, introducing better aircraft with navigational aids and tactics such as the bomber stream that enabled them to mount larger and larger attacks while remaining within an acceptable loss rate. In 1944 the USAAF introduced metal drop tanks for all American fighters including the newly arrived North American P-51D Mustang variant, which allowed fighter aircraft to escort USAAF bombers all the way to and from their targets. With a change of focus on destroying the German day fighter force, by the spring of 1944 the Eighth Air Force had achieved air supremacy over the Western Europe which was essential for Allies so they could carry out the invasion of France.The strategic campaign against Germany eased as the Allies Transport Plan focussed their resources on isolating northern France in preparation for the invasion. American strategic bombing raids in June and July 1944 seriously damaged 24 synthetic oil plants and 69 refineries, which halted 98 per cent of Germany aviation fuel plants and dropped monthly synthetic oil production to 51,000 tons. After these attacks, recovery efforts in the following month could only bring back 65 per cent of aviation fuel production temporarily. In the first quarter of 1944, Nazi Germany produced 546,000 tons of aviation fuel, with 503,000 tons came from synthetic fuel by hydrogenation. Aviation fuel stock reserves had since dropped to 70 per cent in April 1944, to 370,000 tons in June 1944, and to 175,000 tons in November. The Oil campaign of World War II led to chronic fuel shortages, severe curtailment of flying training and accelerated deterioration in pilot quality, eroding the Luftwaffes fighting capacity in the last months. By the end of the campaign, American forces claimed to have destroyed 35,783 enemy aircraft and the RAF claimed 21,622, for a total of 57,405 German aircraft claimed destroyed. The USAAF dropped 1.46 million tons of bombs on Axis-occupied Europe while the RAF dropped 1.31 million tons, for a total of 2.77 million tons, of which 51.1 per cent was dropped on Germany. With the direct damage inflicted on Germany industry and air force, the Wehrmacht was forced to use millions of men, tens of thousands of guns and hundreds of millions of shells in a failed attempt to halt the Allied bomber Offensive. The Luftwaffe's losses in this theater also sapped an enormous amount of Germany's overall warmaking potential: aircraft accounted for some 40% of German military expenditures (by Reichsmark value) from 1942 to 1944. From January 1942 to April 1943, German arms industry grew by an average of 5.5 per cent per month and by summer 1943, the systematic attack against German industry by Allied bombers brought the increase in armaments production from May 1943 to March 1944 to a halt. At the ministerial meeting in January 1945, Albert Speer noted that, since the intensification of the bombing began, 35 per cent fewer tanks, 31 per cent fewer aircraft and 42 per cent fewer lorries were produced than planned because of the bombing. The German economy had to switch vast amount of resources away from equipment for the fighting fronts and assign them instead to combat the bombing threat. The intensification of night bombing by the RAF and daylight attacks by the USAAF added to the destruction of a major part of German industries and cities, which caused the Nazi economy to collapse in the winter of 1944–45. By this time, the Allied armies had reached the German border and the strategic campaign became fused with the tactical battles over the front. The air campaign continued until April 1945, when the last strategic bombing missions were flown and it ended upon the German unconditional surrender on 9 May.

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Dornier Do 17

The Dornier Do 17 is a twin-engined light bomber produced by Dornier Flugzeugwerke for the German Luftwaffe during World War II.

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East Prussia

East Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's Free State of Prussia, until 1945.

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Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front, also known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and its successor states, and the German–Soviet War in contemporary German and Ukrainian historiographies, was a theatre of World War II fought between the European Axis powers and Allies, including the Soviet Union (USSR) and Poland.

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Ernst Udet

Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 November 1941) was a German pilot during World War I and a Luftwaffe Colonel-General (Generaloberst) during World War II.

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German Empire

The German Empire, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich or simply Germany, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when the German Reich changed its form of government from a monarchy to a republic.

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Gruppenkommandeur

Gruppenkommandeur is a Luftwaffe position (not rank), that is the equivalent of a commander of a group or wing in other air forces.

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Hauptmann

Hauptmann is an officer rank in the armies of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

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Invasion of Poland

The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, War of Poland of 1939, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union, which marked the beginning of World War II.

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Leutnant

Leutnant is the lowest Junior officer rank in the armed forces of Germany (Bundeswehr), the Austrian Armed Forces, and the military of Switzerland.

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Luftwaffe

The Luftwaffe was the aerial-warfare branch of the Wehrmacht before and during World War II.

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Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II

The Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre was a major theatre of operations during the Second World War.

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Messerschmitt Bf 109

The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force.

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Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship.

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Oberleutnant

Oberleutnant is the highest lieutenant officer rank in the German-speaking armed forces of Germany (Bundeswehr), the Austrian Armed Forces, and the Swiss Armed Forces.

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Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II.

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Organization of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945)

Between 1933 and 1945, the organization of the Luftwaffe underwent several changes.

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Osprey Publishing

Osprey Publishing is a British publishing company specializing in military history based in Oxford.

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Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.

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Staffelkapitän

Staffelkapitän is a position (not a rank) in flying units (''Staffel'') of the German Luftwaffe that is the equivalent of RAF/USAF Squadron Commander.

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United States Army Air Forces

The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and de facto aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1941–1947).

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Western Front (World War II)

The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The Italian front is considered a separate but related theatre. The Western Front's 1944–1945 phase was officially deemed the European Theater by the United States, whereas Italy fell under the Mediterranean Theater along with the North African campaign. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations. The first phase saw the capitulation of Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France, and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain. The second phase consisted of large-scale ground combat (supported by a massive strategic air war considered to be an additional front), which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy and continued until the defeat of Germany in May 1945 with its invasion.

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