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Overview
In May, 1940, Nazi Germany was master of continental Europe, the only European power still standing was Great Britain—and the all-conquering German armed forces stood poised to cross the Channel. Following the destruction of the RAF fighter forces, the sweeping of the Channel of mines, and the wearing down of the Royal Naval defenders, two German army groups were set to storm the beaches of southern England. Despite near-constant British fears from August to October, the invasion never took place after first being postponed to spring 1941, before finally being abandoned entirely.
Robert Forcyzk, author of Where the Iron Crosses Grow, looks beyond the traditional British account of Operation Sea Lion, complete with plucky Home Guards and courageous Spitfire pilots, at the real scale of German ambition, plans and capabilities. He examines, in depth, how Operation Sea Lion fitted in with German air-sea actions around the British Isles as he shows exactly what stopped Hitler from invading Britain.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781472814852 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury USA |
| Publication date: | 10/18/2016 |
| Series: | General Military |
| Pages: | 400 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
Robert Forczyk has a PhD in International Relations and National Security from the University of Maryland, and a strong background in European and Asian military history. He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the US Army Reserves having served 18 years as an armor officer in the US 2nd and 4th Infantry Divisions and as an intelligence officer in the 29th Infantry Division (Light). Dr Forczyk is currently a consultant in the Washington, DC area.
Read an Excerpt
We March Against England
Operation Sea Lion, 1940-41
By Robert Forczyk
Osprey Publishing
Copyright © 2016 Robert ForczykAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4728-1485-2
CHAPTER 1
Strategic Setting, June–July 1940
The Legacy of Dunkirk
Britain had not begun to prepare seriously for war until after the 1938 Munich Crisis and then most of the resources were devoted to the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, not the army. At the start of the World War II, Britain had 224,000 trained personnel in its regular army, which formed the bedrock of its ground combat capability. Although much of the army's equipment was of World War I vintage, new weapons like the Bren light machine gun and the 2-pounder antitank gun were modernizing the regular infantry divisions. However, the regulars could never provide more than a fraction of the manpower needed for a European war and Britain relied upon 173,000 regular army reservists and 200,000 personnel aligned with the Territorial Army (TA) to provide the necessary bulk – yet both groups were virtually untrained. Conscription was enacted under the provisions of the National Services Act, which would enable the British Army to add another 600,000 personnel by spring 1940.
In April 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's cabinet approved a plan to outfit 32 divisions (6 regular and 26 TA) by September 1941. The decision was made to double the size of the Territorial Army to over 400,000 men. In addition, several armoured divisions would be formed and all infantry divisions motorized. This ambitious plan envisioned increasing the size of the army ten-fold, as well as equipping them with over 200,000 motor vehicles and 7,000 tanks. Four days after the British declaration of war, First Sea Lord Winston Churchill vehemently argued to increase the army to 55 divisions, including 23 from the Commonwealth, but this suggestion was shelved. As it was, transforming over one million untrained recruits into an effective army of more than 30 divisions was a gargantuan task and the War Ministry anticipated that 20 divisions would be ready by September 1940 and 12 more by September 1941. Chamberlain's army programme made no provisions for enemy action or losses and training of the second-tier TA units was deferred. Thus, when the German Blitzkrieg opened in the west on 10 May 1940, the timetable for the British Army's expansion plan was completely wrecked. Instead, Britain went to war with an army that was intended more to demonstrate diplomatic resolve rather than to engage in large-scale combat against a skilled opponent.
Prior to the war, Chamberlain's cabinet planned to equip ten divisions for continental deployment in the event of war. On 4 September 1939, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under Lord Gort began arriving in France and initially consisted of two corps (I, II), each comprising two regular infantry divisions (1, 2, 3, 4). In December 1939, a fifth regular infantry division was sent to France, followed by five TA divisions (42, 44, 48, 50, 51) in January–April 1940. In late April, three second-line TA divisions (12, 23, 46) were also sent to France, as well as the incomplete 1st Armoured Division. By May 1940, the BEF on paper consisted of 394,165 troops in 13 infantry and one armoured division. However, only the five regular infantry divisions were adequately trained and equipped, even though civilian vehicles were still being used until sufficient military lorries became available. The newly raised TA divisions were much further behind and the equipment they were provided was obsolescent. Particularly egregious was the dearth of tactical radios at brigade level and below, which made command or control of mobile operations problematic. British training was also highly deficient in a number of regards, being still primarily geared towards 1918-style tactics and unconcerned with the possibility of air attack. British armoured units were far from combat ready, with a mix of poorly designed tank types and saddled with an incoherent doctrine. Optimistically, the British leadership hoped that the much larger French Army, which had 74 divisions facing Germany, would conduct the bulk of any ground operations until the BEF was fully trained and equipped.
On 18 December 1939, the lead elements of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division arrived at Aldershot in England – the first major Commonwealth contribution to the British war effort. Prior to the war, Canada had a tiny regular army of only 4,500 personnel, backed by a 10,000-man militia, but the decision was made to send troops to Great Britain as soon as possible. The Canadian soldiers arrived without steel helmets, equipped with worn-out Lewis Guns and 18-pounder artillery pieces; Britain would have to outfit them with virtually all their equipment, adding to the delay of outfitting the TA divisions. Furthermore, three-quarters of the Canadians were untrained recruits. By March 1940, the Canadian 1st Infantry Division grew to a 23,000-man force and a second division was being readied in Canada. Australia also promised to send a corps with two infantry divisions to join the BEF in France, and New Zealand promised one division, but most of these troops were still training in Palestine or en route when France capitulated.
When the German Western offensive began on 10 May, most of the BEF moved into Belgium along with the best French divisions, intending to block any German turning movement into northern France – as had occurred in 1914. On the same day, Winston Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. Yet the German invasion of Belgium was not the main effort – that came further south at Sedan, where Generaloberst Heinz Guderian's Panzers from the XIX Armeekorps (motorized) smashed through second-rate French divisions and quickly achieved a major breakthrough. Guderian's Panzers advanced westward to the coast and as fate would have it, the only Allied formation in their path was the 12 th Infantry Division, a second-line TA formation assigned to protect the BEF's lines of communications into Belgium. On 20 May, all three of Guderian's Panzer-Divisionen overran the dispersed British Territorials, completely demolishing the division; its battalions suffered 80 per cent losses and the division was permanently disbanded. With that minor obstacle removed, the 2. Panzer-Division reached the English Channel near Abbeville and pivoted northward. Lord Gort's BEF and three French armies were now isolated. For a few days, the Allies attempted to mount a counteroffensive to re-open land communications to the south, but these efforts failed.
As France wilted under the German onslaught, Churchill made a number of hasty decisions. He quickly realized that the BEF was in serious danger and that possession of the Channel ports was crucial to sustaining, or evacuating, Lord Gort's forces. The Royal Navy was already beginning to plan for an evacuation of the BEF, designated Operation Dynamo, but the Channel ports needed to be secured from Guderian's Panzers, sweeping in from the south. In order to demonstrate British resolve, Churchill ordered British units sent to reinforce the French garrisons in the vital ports of Calais and Boulogne. On the morning of 21 May, Colonel William Fox-Pitt's 20th Guards Brigade was dispatched from England by sea to Boulogne, where two battalions arrived the next morning. Fox-Pitt's brigade was sent so quickly that his soldiers arrived in France with only 50 rounds of rifle ammunition each, no grenades, no anti-tank mines and no vehicles. Only eight hours after the Guardsmen began disembarking, the vanguard of the 2. Panzer-Division reached the outskirts of the city. Local French troops, equipped with anti-tank guns, knocked out a few German armoured vehicles and gave time for the 20th Guards Brigade to deploy in a thin cordon around the city, which temporarily slowed the German advance. However, the 2. Panzer-Division attacked in full force on 23 May, threatening to overrun both British battalions. Initially, a signal from the British War Office instructed Fox-Pitt to 'stand fast' and 'fight it out', while British destroyers stood off the port and were ordered not to evacuate troops. By the afternoon, the Germans were clearly pushing into Boulogne and by 1800 hours Fox-Pitt was finally authorized to evacuate to avoid the destruction of his brigade. It was a near-run thing, with German tanks firing on the British destroyers entering the port, and the captain of HMS Vimy was killed by sniper fire. By 0240 hours on 24 May, the last British destroyers left Boulogne. Amazingly, two-thirds of the 20th Guards Brigade was saved, but 522 men were lost at Boulogne. Two British battalions were badly mauled, each having lost one-third of their troops and many junior officers. Furthermore, the British did not notify the French garrison that they were evacuating their brigade from Boulogne, which elicited stinging criticisms from the French who were still fighting in Boulogne. Churchill was personally offended by the criticism of French generals who said that the British were being hypocritical and selfish, urging the French to stand and fight while evacuating their own troops.
While the action at Boulogne was developing, Churchill's War Cabinet ordered Brigadier Claude Nicholson's 30th Infantry Brigade (two regular and one TA infantry battalion, one tank regiment with 48 tanks) to proceed from Dover by ferry to stiffen the defence of Calais. Nicholson's brigade arrived on 22 May and had barely disembarked its combat echelons when the 10. Panzer-Division began attacking Calais from the south. Amazingly, Nicholson's brigade was able to hold off the 10. Panzer-Division for three days but, unlike Boulogne, Churchill ordered that the hard-pressed brigade would not be evacuated. He intended to demonstrate his cold-blooded resolve to his anxious French allies, vacillating members of his own War Cabinet, and the remorseless German enemy. Nicholson's brigade made its last stand on 26 May and was overrun; about 300 British troops were killed and 2,900 captured. At the cost of an infantry brigade, Churchill had made his point to all – he intended Great Britain to fight on no matter the cost.
Meanwhile, the headlong German advance was temporarily halted on the night of 23/24 May when German troops were within 9D miles of Dunkirk. Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of Heeresgruppe A, had become nervous that his Panzer-Divisionen were over-extended and vulnerable to an Allied counterstroke, even though the trapped Allied armies were in fact conducting a fighting retreat to Dunkirk. Generaloberst Günter von Kluge, commander of 4. Armee, pressed hard to slow down the advance in order to let the infantry divisions catch up, and von Rundstedt agreed and ordered Guderian's Panzers to halt. The next day, Hitler concurred and issued his own Haltbefehl (Halt Order), which was intended to conserve the Panzers for the next phase of operations in France. It was not until 26 May that the Halt Order was rescinded, giving the BEF a vital 48-hour reprieve. Although some historians, such as B. H. Liddell Hart, have attempted to suggest that Hitler deliberately slowed the advance upon Dunkirk in order to allow part of the BEF to escape as a political gesture, this idea does not hold water. First, the Halt Order occurred before Operation Dynamo had actually begun – Hitler had no way of knowing that the British could evacuate so many troops off the beaches. Second, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe, assured Hitler that his aircraft could prevent an evacuation and, on the morning of 27 May, 300 of his bombers demolished the port facilities in a massive raid. In German minds, the BEF was now trapped and not going anywhere. Hitler intended to annihilate the BEF, not allow it to escape.
British, French and Belgian troops fought desperately to maintain a defensive perimeter around Dunkirk while the Royal Navy began the evacuation using everything that could float. At first, Churchill and his War Cabinet believed that Operation Dynamo would rescue only about 50,000 troops before the Germans overran the perimeter, but the Herculean effort made by the Royal Navy greatly exceeded expectations. During the period 26 May to 4 June, a total of between 315,000 and 338,000 Allied troops were evacuated from Dunkirk, of which approximately 186,581 were British troops. Another 35,000 British support troops had been evacuated prior to Operation Dynamo commencing. All five of the regular divisions were in poor condition after Dunkirk, but the evacuated TA divisions were in much worse shape. In order to pull off this miracle, the Royal Navy committed 40 of its destroyers, and these vessels suffered repeated enemy air and S-Boat torpedo attacks, resulting in six destroyers sunk and 23 damaged. Although many of the destroyers were stationary or heavily loaded with troops, Dunkirk made it clear that the Luftwaffe was a serious threat to the Royal Navy in the English Channel. Finally, the Royal Air Force also made an all-out effort to protect the evacuation, committing well over 200 fighters per day, but suffered the loss of 83 fighters (36 Spitfires and 47 Hurricanes). Operation Dynamo saved the bulk of a disarmed BEF at the cost of heavy losses of the ships and planes that would be most needed to defend Britain's shores from the threat of German invasion.
Even if re-equipped in Britain, the brief campaign in France and Belgium demonstrated that the British Army was fundamentally unprepared to conduct the kind of combined-arms warfare as practised by the Germans. Twice the BEF mounted large-scale tank attacks, both of which were costly failures. The first attack was conducted by 'Frankforce' – a jury-rigged team consisting of 4th and 7th Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) from the 1st Army Tank Brigade (88 tanks), two battalions of infantry and two artillery batteries – against the 7. Panzer-Division at Arras on 21 May. Although the 2H-hour long counterattack gave the Germans a considerable fright, it ultimately failed and the British lost 53 out of 88 tanks engaged, including 14 of 16 Matilda II tanks. Both tank regiment commanders were killed and the 4th RTR was effectively destroyed. The second attack was launched by the 1st Armoured Division against the 2. Infanterie-Division (mot.) south of Abbeville on 27 May; the attack failed, with 65 British tanks knocked out and 55 inoperative due to mechanical faults. Thus, the combat experience accumulated by the British Army during the brief campaign in France did little to add to the development of an effective doctrine for mobile warfare.
The dust had not even settled from the Dunkirk fiasco when Churchill decided to reinforce failure by organizing a second BEF to assist in the defence of France. Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, just rescued with his II Corps from Dunkirk, was ordered back to France to take charge of the 51st Infantry Division (TA) and 1st Armoured Division, which were south of the Somme River. In addition, Churchill decided to send the 52nd Infantry Division (TA) and the 1st Canadian Infantry Division to join Brooke's command. Brooke had no chance to organize his scattered forces before the second phase of the German offensive vaulted over the Somme. Most of Major General Victor Fortune's 51st Infantry Division was cornered by German Panzers near St Valery on 12 June, resulting in the surrender of two brigades with 10,000 troops. Two days later, the first Canadian brigade arrived in Brest just as the Germans were marching into Paris. Brooke recognized that the situation was rapidly unravelling, which Churchill finally accepted and agreed to evacuate the second BEF from western French ports in Operation Ariel. The Canadian brigade landed at Brest was forced to evacuate after just 48 hours in France; although the Canadians saved their artillery, they abandoned all 216 of their vehicles (including brand-new Ford F15 CMP trucks) due to lack of transport. It was a humiliating and costly debut, for no military gain.
British materiel losses in France were catastrophic. At Dunkirk alone, the British Army lost 2,347 artillery pieces (55 per cent of its total inventory), 509 2-pounder anti-tank guns (60 per cent of its total) and 615 tanks (47 per cent of its total). In addition, the British abandoned 63,879 vehicles, as well as 76,000 tons of ammunition and 165,000 tons of petrol. Much of this materiel was incorporated into the German inventory for their own use. The loss of military trucks was particularly crippling since Britain only produced a total of 89,582 military trucks in 1940 and a similar amount in 1941; this meant that only a small portion of the British Army would be fully motorized for the next year. Some equipment was salvaged and returned to Britain – almost entirely from the second BEF — including 322 artillery pieces/ anti-tank guns, 22 tanks and 4,739 vehicles. The 5th Royal Tank Regiment of 1st Armoured Division was particularly fortunate and managed to ship 7 of its 52 tanks back to England. Altogether, the British Army lost 722 tanks in France. However, the important point here is that the only fully equipped divisions in the British Army had been in France and now they were virtually denuded of equipment. The TA units left in England were, at best, partly equipped and trained.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from We March Against England by Robert Forczyk. Copyright © 2016 Robert Forczyk. Excerpted by permission of Osprey Publishing.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Strategic Setting, June–July 1940
Chapter 2: Improvising an Invasion Force
Chapter 3: Diplomacy, Espionage and Intelligence
Chapter 4: Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe Capabilities Against England, 1940–41
Chapter 5: Countdown to Sea Lion
Chapter 6: British Anti-invasion Capabilities, 1940–41
Chapter 7: Feasibility of S-Tag, 25 September 1940
Chapter 8: The Isle of Wight Gambit
Chapter 9: Siege Operations against Great Britain, October 1940–May 1941
Chapter 10: Sea Lion Redux, May 1941
Chapter 11: Hidden Benefits of Sea Lion: Germany Gains an Amphibious Capability for other Theatres
Chapter 12: The Reckoning
Glossary
Appendices
Notes
Bibliography
Index