233: Sleeping Sea Lion

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In the aftermath of Battle of Britain Day, both sides struggled to understand what had really changed in the aerial war over Britain. While the Luftwaffe leadership blamed their fighter pilots for the costly losses on September 15th, faulty intelligence drastically underestimated RAF strength at just 177 fighters when the actual number was 659—a miscalculation that would prove decisive. As the German high command faced the reality that their air campaign had failed to achieve air superiority, the logistical challenges of Operation Sea Lion became insurmountable, from RAF Bomber Command’s devastating “Battle of the Barges” to the impossible timeline for moving armored divisions across the Channel. On September 17th, Hitler quietly postponed the invasion—not with fanfare, but with a bureaucratic whimper that effectively ended Germany’s hopes of conquering Britain in 1940. The final daylight raids of September would see the Luftwaffe’s grand campaign dissolve into desperate, costly attacks that only confirmed Fighter Command’s continued strength, marking the end of one of history’s most crucial air battles.

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Summary

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 233 - After the Battle of Britain Pt. 1 - Sleeping Sea Lion. This week a big thank you goes out to Michael, Christopher, and Felippe for supporting the podcast by becoming members. Members get access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast’s episode plus special member only episodes roughly once a month. Head on over to historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members to find out more. With the advantages we have when looking back at history we know that September 15th, 1940, forever immortalized as Battle of Britain day would be the last maximum effort day for the Luftwaffe in their attempts to decisively cripple the RAF and its ability to respond to a possible German invasion, which was codenamed Operation Sea Lion. However, at the time, on both sides of the English Channel it was far from clear that, as the sun set on the 15th, those types of aerial engagements would not be seen again. On the British side, they were completely reactive to German plans, if the Luftwaffe wanted to launch more raids they were doing all that they could to prepare for them. On the German side, the situation was generally unclear, but the Luftwaffe leaders would proceed on the the 16th and after as if their mission had not really changed, and if anything it was now more critical with the possibility of an invasion in question. And so for the rest of September the fighting would continue, not the same as before, but every day still unclear as to exactly how different the new status quo was .

On the 16th there would be another meeting of Luftwaffe leadership, staff, and commanders to try and determine exactly what had gone wrong on the 15th and what could be done moving forward. The major topic discussed was one of blame though, and at first the blame fell directly on the shoulders of the German fighter groups. The theory, from Goering and other Luftwaffe commanders was that the fighters were not taking advantage of the opportunities put before them, and gaining more decisive victories over the RAF. This type of blame did not go over well with the fighter group leaders, who could counter any blame placed upon them with two very clear facts. The first and most important was that they felt that their performance had been continually degraded throughout the campaign by the demands of bomber escort which put them in unfavorable positions against the more free roaming RAF Fighter squadrons. The second fact was that the RAF had changed their tactics, and over the previous days they had concentrated their response in ways that they had not done before, with larger numbers of squadrons all hitting at the same time, making it far more difficult for the escorting fighter groups to keep them away from the bombers. While these were problems for the German fighter pilots, the simple fact was that they were also simply less of them than there had been months earlier. To try and address this issue the decision was made to bring in more 109s from other areas of Germany to reinforce Luftflotte 2. Along with this the entire 8th Fliegerkorps would join as well, to try and make up for the fact that Luftflotte 2s groups had been hit hard and there were not enough replacement aircraft and pilots available to make good their losses. The theory was that, even if Sea Lion was not going to happen, these forces would allow the Luftwaffe to break British morale by themselves. This seems like a wildly optimistic view, and it was, but it was also rooted in once again a faulty set of intelligence. On the 16th the latest Luftwaffe estimates for RAF fighter strength was just 177, which meant that they would be unable to meet more Luftwaffe operations as strongly as they had on the 15th because they simply did not have the aircraft remaining. Also according to those intelligence reports, they had only been able to launch the large operations on the 15th by committing almost every fighter in their inventory. The Luftwaffe number of 177 was a bit off, because the actual number was 659. The difference between the two numbers was wide enough that it decisively impacted strategic planning, and that is why the Luftwaffe was still planning on continuing its air assault on September 16th, although it would not be able to for several days due to weather.

The optimistic estimates of RAF strength would be testing occassionally in the weeks that followed . For example on the 18th there would be three raids that would take place, however they were often met by very strong British fighter responses. For example one raid would be met by 8 RAF squadrons, resulting in the loss of 9 German bombers and 7 109s for the cost of 5 Spitfires and 7 Hurricanes. The official report would simply claim that “Strong fighter defence was encountered.”. The biggest challenge for the Luftwaffe is that there was not really a way that they could scale down daytime operations while still accomplishing anything with them. As the number of available bomber and fighter groups decayed over time the new RAF tactics of large multi-squadron attacks made it more and more risky to send over smaller attacks because they would get swamped by greater RAF numbers. If the Lutwaffe estimates of RAF strength would have been accurate this would not have been sustainable for the RAF, but they were in fact completely sustainable due to only requiring a faction of the RAF’s strength. After the 18th another several days of bad weather would put a damper on any further real operations, but Goring would target the last week of September as a period with expected good weather when the Luftwaffe could have several consecutive days of operation to hopefully bring the attacks over Britain to a successful conclusion.

By the last week of September, the entire purpose and goal of the campaign would also change due to changes made to the planning and scheduling of the invasion, Operation Sea Lion. While the air battles over Britain had occurred over the previous months the plans for Sea Lion had continued to solidify and gain the types of details required for a successful operation. After their initial disagreements the Army and Navy Staffs had developed a plan that they were both working toward and which both believed was possible, even if they had both made compromises along the way. The primary reason that September 15th had been such an important day is because the Sea Lion operation required 10 days between when the order was given and when it could actually be put into effect. This was because there were a variety of tasks that had to be completed during those ten days and that could only be done right before an invasion. One of the important examples of this was the laying of minefields, which would begin 9 days before the invasion. The two primary minefields would be codenamed Anton and Bruno and they would involve laying 3,000 mines on each side of the primary invasion route. This operation would take 6 nights, and it had to be done at night, with 5 minelaying ships involved every night. To give some idea of the difficulties involved, along with those minelayers would travel 6 minesweepers, because they also had to be concerned about British mines that were constantly being put down in the channel at various points. Another crucial part of the 10 day preparations would be the concentration of available transport craft. The barges and other transport vessels were scattered throughout all of the channel ports to try and reduce the damage that they suffered from the attacks of RAF Bomber Command, and so they had to be brought back together. The contributions of Bomber Command to the difficulties of planning the invasion is a topic that does not get enough coverage. Over the course of August and particularly in September Bomber command would launch many raids against the ports where the German invasion would begin, with the target being the landing craft that would be used. These operations would be referred to as the Battle of the Barges. Damage to the barges was a major issue for the German plans because they could not be replaced quickly and every single barge that was destroyed not only impacted the first wave of troops but every set of troops after that. One example raid was on Antwerp on September 13th, when it appeared that Sea Lion was still going to happen in late September, with the raid damaging six German navy vessels, and sinking 15 barges. These type of attacks were a bit of a disaster for preparations because the the plan called for over 1,100 total barges for the transport of the first wave of troops, there were only ever a few hundred more than that number available. By 21 September they had lost over 200 to both Bomber Command and naval raids, bringing the total number down to less than 1,500. This was sufficient for the first wave, but caused issues with planning for subsequent waves of forces.

The Sea Lion plan called for only a small percentage of each infantry division involved to be transported ashore initially, only around 800 to 1,000 men in an advanced guard battalion which was created and trained specifically for the purpose. Casualties among these forces would be heavy, it was known that they would be, but their goal was simply to do whatever they could to push into the shore defenses and start making gaps. As long as they could put some kind of fire on the beach defenses, or better yet to destroy them completely, the second wave could begin the process of getting off of their transport barges and onto small boats that would take them ashore, or get into large rubber rafts that would be brought ashore by rowing. As more and more men got ashore, the expectation was that they would continue to push back the British beach defenses to provide more space for larger and larger groups of equipment to come ashore eventually on the barges themselves. The goal was to get anti-tank guns, artillery, and 88mm Flak guns ashore the second day of the invasion, and while more and more men and equipment were put ashore the process of loading the Panzer divisions onto barges and transports would begin. It was at this point that the real issues of the number of available barges might start to cause issues. Throughout all of the operations I just outlined there was an expectation that there would be attrition among the barges. Enemy action, from shore, sea, and air, would inevitably cause damage which would reduce their numbers. There was also almost destined to be some barges lost simply due to the operation of moving back and forth across the Channel. This would put the landings in a precarious position because it would turn transportation into a balancing act between pushing supplies and men ashore to expand and defend the beach heads while also dedicating that capacity to the slower process of loading the armored divisions for their trans-Channel shipment. The expectation was that it would take at least 2 weeks for the armored divisions that were earmarked for the breakout operation to be landed and organized, and the operation was planned for 17 or 18 days after the start of the invasion. 17 days was a long time, which is one of the primary reasons that the absolute requirement for air superiority was an early addition to the plan. Even before the start of the invasion the bomber raids from Bomber Command were causing problems whenever they visited the channel staging ports. They would almost certainly be worse once the invasion had started and they would be able to make the very short trips to the invasion beaches. The unarmored, and quite honestly fragile, nature of the barges also meant that even simple machine guns would be able to cause decisive damage, which made almost every RAF aircraft in the air a possible barge buster. And so this left the German leaders in a position in the middle of September where they had to make some guesses. With the 10 day delay between the order and the invasion, the question that had to be answered was whether or not in those 10 days the Luftwaffe could complete the mission it had been attempting to complete since the middle of August, the destruction of the RAF. The answer, after the costly raids of September 15th, was no.

Responsibility for the decision lay with Hitler, the same man whose ability to delay making pivotal decisions would come to play a major role in the course of the war. But in this case, his hesitancy was almost certainly justified. The results of the actions on the 15th, even with the greatly inflated number of claimed Luftwaffe victories, were very concerning not just because of the losses suffered by the Luftwaffe but just because they proved that RAF Fighter Command was still capable of powerful responses to German actions. The combination of weather conditions on September 25 and 26th meant that a decision had to be made on the 16th at the latest, but on that day the weather meant that there was little new information to provide any clear guidance. The Naval Staff believed that the next available date would be the 8th of October, but that was pushing the entire campaign later and later into the period of known questionable weather. And it was not just the weather on the first days of the invasion that were a concern, but also weeks afterwards as more forces were landed and eventually launched their land campaign against the British Army. Among the military leaders, the head of the German Navy Admiral Raeder had always been skeptical that the operation was possible in 1940, and he had been pushing for a delay until the Spring of 1941 for weeks. There is evidence that part of Raeder’s support for a postponement was not just concerns about the risks but also the concern that any failure would be placed on the Navy. Even Goring began to move into support of this option, mostly for his own selfish reasons that he wanted the Luftwaffe to have the credit for taking Britain out of the war through a long term bombing campaign. Without the firm support of those two leaders, it was easy to postpone the operation into the future. And so it would happen, and on September 17th the operation was postponed. The fact that it was postponed instead of cancelled was important, it was never actually cancelled, and planning moved to the spring of 1941. The postponement meant that Sea Lion died not with a bang, but with a whimper, just sort of decaying and forgotten . At the highest level of German command, at the Hitler level specifically, it was just sort of not really discussed in the future, focus had moved elsewhere. By the spring of 1941 instead of preparing for an invasion of Britain they would instead be preparing for the largest invasion in history, of the Soviet Union.

Even though the purpose for the Luftwaffe’s efforts up to September 17th was no longer present afterwards, that did not mean that operations ended. The primary focus in the week after the 15th, when the weather permitted, was a series of fighter sweeps, which was exactly what the German fighter pilots had been wanted to do for weeks. The problem was, that the British were able to determine that these fighter groups were alone, either through radar or through reconnaissance. Because Fighter Command was focusing on bombers, they often would completely ignore fighters by themselves. But then when some bombers were added into the mix they were met by an overwhelming response from the RAF . On September 23rd a full report would be provided to Hitler and the OKW, with a full accounting of the aerial campaign up to that point the conclusion provided was that, while there had been losses “Our own forces, still feel themselves to have the upper hand over the enemy, and are completely confident that the air war can be prosecuted successfully”. This ignored the fact that the Luftwaffe was a mess by late September, the constant operations had resulted in air groups that were short of aircraft and pilots. But the larger problem is that after the cancellation of the invasion they were strategically adrift, without a clear plan connecting their operations to any kind of successful end to the campaign. And this was not just because the goal, getting Britain out of the war, was beyond their capabilities, but because there was not a clear series of steps that could be taken towards that goal. The only operations that seemed to be successful were the night bombings, they were certainly causing damage, and causing civilians to take actions to avoid being hurt or killed, but it was difficult to connect those efforts to a real change in the strategic situation. A growing number of citizens in London making their way into Tube stations earlier and earlier in the afternoon, and bringing with them food and bedding so that they could stay the entire night was not going to cause the British government to give up the fight.

The Luftwaffe was still capable of tactical successes though, with one of those successes coming on September 25. The target was the aircraft and engine factories in Filton, which was near Bristol. These factories, which employed 37,000 workers were one of the key factories building Bristol Blenheims and Beaufighters and while it had been attacked multiple times over the months no serious damage had been caused. The problem was that these factories were beyond the range of 109s, which made any daytime raid a dangerous prospect, while at night it was difficult to drop with the precision necessary to cause real damage. Luftflotte 3 believed that it could be hit during the day though, and they would plan for a raid on the 25th for 57 He-111s. Because it was beyond the range of fighter escort the planning staff had to get creative with how it planned the route. By this point it was clear that it was impossible to get a force of bombers over Britain without the RAF knowing about it, but some creative course changes throughout the raid could cause British fighters to move in the wrong direction. This was only really possible when it was unclear what the eventual target was, which was one of the reasons that Luftflotte 2 was having so many problems bombing areas around London, the targets were simply too predictable. On September 25th the German plans worked out almost perfectly and starting just before noon the bombs started dropping, with 168 bombs and 24 incendiaries all dropped within the factory area. 91 workers would be killed, 166 injured, with 58 people killed and 270 injured by bombs dropped outside the factory. More importantly, at least for the Luftwaffe, was that the bombers were able to cause severe damage to the man assembly halls used at the factories, which almost completely halted production of the new Beaufighters for a month. 8 aircraft that were ready for delivery were also destroyed, and 24 more damaged. It was a wildly successful raid by Luftwaffe, and really early war bombing raid, standards . The total cost to the Luftwaffe was 8 bombers and 3 escort fighters, which had escorted the raid as far as they could. While the results were good for the raid, it still came down more to luck than skill, with it simply being lucky that some of the bombs hit the right buildings when other raids had failed and unfortunately for the Luftwaffe it did not present a new blueprint for future operations.

The last major daylight raids of London would occur on September 26th, 27th and 30th . By this point the majority of the Luftwaffe bomber strength was dedicated to night time raids of various targets, but they would take a few more cracks at major daylight raids. The first of these would occur on the 26th when 49 He-111s would attack the Supermarine factory at Woolston, which was near Southampton on the southern coast of England. This raid was reasonable successful with production halted for a short period of time and the damage or destruction of 23 Spitfires. The next day, the 27th three waves of bombers would be sent back to London with 70 total Ju-88s sent on the mission along with large numbers of escorting fighters. But as with the previous bombing attempts on London the results were largely the same, they were set upon by large groups of Spitfires and Hurricanes and the costs were high. In total 12 Ju-88s were lost, 9 Bf-110s, and a staggering 18 Bf-109s were lost. They did manage to take down 22 British fighters, but simply the cost of the Germans side made it difficult to justify the 26 tons of bombs that were dropped near their targets. Most importantly, once again the RAF aircraft arrived in large groups of 3 or more squadrons which made it clear that Fighter Command was as far as it had ever been from being taken off the board. The last of these daylight raids, on September 30th was smaller than the one on the 27th, but it was met by just as large of a force of British fighters with 11 and 12 Group combining to throw 14 fighter squadrons at the German raid. 12 109s and 8 Dornier bombers would be lost in the effort, and more would be lost in smaller raids against aircraft factories near south of Bristol. To quote from the official RAF history of the raids on the 30th: ‘It is not, therefore, surprising that, except for a somewhat half-hearted effort on 30 September, henceforth their attacks chiefly took the form of high-altitude fighter and fighter-bomber sweeps.’ . What had started as the Luftwaffe’s grand campaign of aerial dominance would end with a whimper instead of a bang at the end of September. There would be many more bombs dropped on Britain over the following months, but the goals would be different, and achieving them would be even further beyond the Luftwaffe’s capabilities.