At the end of June 1940 The Second World War defense of the United Kingdom by the Royal Air Force began against an onslaught by the German Air Force Luftwaffe. Also known as “The Battle of Britain”, The Battle of Britain has been described as the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces. The Battle of Britain also has an unusual distinction in that it gained its name prior to being fought. The name is derived from a famous speech delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons on June 18, more than three weeks prior to the generally accepted date for the start of the battle.The officially recognized dates are 10 July – 31 October 1940, overlapping with a period of large scale of attacks …show more content…
As the battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in World War II aircraft production and ground infrastructure. Eventually the Luftwaffe resorted to attacking areas of politics and using terror bombing strategies Germany was forbidden military air forces by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, but developed aircrew training in civilian and sport flying. From 1923 the Deutsche Luft Hansa airline developed freight aeroplanes convertible into bombers, and in 1926 the secret Lipetsk fighter-pilot school began operating. Erhard Milch organised rapid expansion, and following the 1933 Nazi seizure of power his subordinate Robert Knauss formulated a deterrence theory incorporating Douhet's ideas and Tirpitz's "risk theory", which proposed a fleet of heavy bombers to deter a preventive attack by France and Poland before Germany could fully …show more content…
The latter was under Hugh Dowding, who opposed the doctrine that bombers were unstoppable: the invention of radar at that time could allow early detection, and prototype monoplane fighters were significantly faster. Priorities were disputed, but in December 1937 the Minister in charge of defence coordination Sir Thomas Inskip decided in Dowding's favour, that "The role of our air force is not an early knock-out blow" but rather was "to prevent the Germans from knocking us out" and fighter squadrons were just as necessary as bomber