"Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.
Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our empire.
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
If we can stand up to him, all [of] Europe may be free,
and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands,
but if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States,
including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more
sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves
that if the British Empire and it's commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say this was their finest hour."
Winston Churchill uttered those words on June 18, 1940.
3 weeks later the Battle of Britain would begin, and it truly was their finest hour.
One small Island stood together against the greatest military force the world had ever known. One last light of
democracy stood burning against the fascist darkness and as the darkness closed in they fought to keep it burning with a resolve a tenacity that
No one in the world expected and though the heroism of those
exhausted Air crews that day and night served as the steel wall of england deserve all the credit we can give them this was a
Battle won by a nation it was not only one in the sky over the English channel
[it] was one in the radar stations that dotted the coast it was one in the munitions
Factories and on the Tarmacs it was one in the research labs and in the code breaking facilities
It was one by a people not just a military and everybody thought that those people would break
someday I would love to dig into the full story of the battle of britain as it is one of the most powerful stories of
Modern history
but today we want to tell it [from] a point at which it turned from the point at which it stopped being a battle between
two military forces a battle which the fascist might have been able to win - a battle of a military against a people a
battle the Nazis never had a chance at it's the night of August 25th nineteen [forty] a
German bomber Crew is flying over the English Countryside
They've been tasked with taking out oil tanks at Rochester and at thames Haven, but something's wrong
They've been flying too long their fuel is low
And they still haven't seen their target should they press on they've already passed the terrifying cordon of British air defense
They can't turn back now, but still they see nothing. No no wait there
There's something buildings an urban area this must be it they opened their bomb Bay doors and their bombs drop
But it wasn't the fuel reserves at Rochester and thames haven [that] bomber crew was flying over those bombs fell on
London they had bombed the biggest Civilian Centre in the uk there was outrage
Winston Churchill assuming it was a deliberate attack ordered a retaliatory strike on Berlin these raf bombers were supposed to Target
Commercial and industrial targets, but they too missed their targets at the cost of German civilian lives and like that the gloves were off
Hitler who had previously ordered the luftwaffe not to intentionally target Civilians now
Rescinded that command and on september 7th one of the largest coordinated bombing raids with nearly a thousand bombers spread out over
32 kilometres commenced their target London the heart of the British Empire
The idea was that if they could break the people of London maybe they could break the empire itself?
the Battle of Britain raged for months
German losses were mounting
But the raf was also on the ropes the hope of the german side was that this would be the knockout blow
That without enough [airpower] to defend their major cities the average citizen would lose faith in the government's ability to protect them and break under
the constant threat
The truth though was that if the luftwaffe ever had a real chance of winning the battle of britain
it was right there on the week of the [7th] by not attacking the Populace the
Raf was exhausted and worn down to the point where another week of concerted attack might might have broken them
But instead this massive diversion of [resources] to attack targets that didn't really reduce the raf capacity to fight gave them
Just the space they needed to come [back] and then smash the raids on London on September 15th
Germany made one last push to break London and instead was herself broken in the massive Air battle that ensued with nearly
Thousand planes in the Air over London the Germans were repelled and reeling from recent defeats canceled their planned invasion of Britain
They came up with a new plan one which doubled down [on] the strategy of breaking the civilian Populace
They would abandon the struggle for control of the air and focus on a campaign of terror that
every night when British air defenses were far less effective sent waves of German bombers to deliver a payload of
destruction to the Streets of London
but in the end this massive diversion of resources
Took more away from the Nazi war effort than it ever did from the allies which historically is actually almost always what happens with [air-based]
Campaigns since the Dawn of aviation it's been the dream of military strategists to win wars without ever putting troops on the [ground]
but short of the use of Nuclear arms
it's
practically never worked
Whether it be the early attempts with zeppelin's and world war one the axis blitz or the allied bombings of places like Dresden during world?
war two the [napalm] campaigns of Vietnam or the modern conflict in the middle East and the Blitz makes this fact clear as
The Germans pursued this strategy further and further it became increasingly evident that the cost and men and Materiel to the German forces
exceeded the actual economic damage they were inflicting even when their goal was primarily to just grind the British economy to a halt as
Soon as the goal shifted Toward breaking the will of the populace the effect on wartime production became marginal at best
month after month British War production Rose and
enlistment never slackened and
although nothing is as simple or as clear-cut as myth making tends to make it this also brought together the British people as
German bombs fell on London and
Casualties mounted those with parents siblings and friends whose lives were cut short by the attacks didn't lose the will to fight
Quite the opposite they instead became determined to never surrender
They threw themselves into the defense of britain with a resolve that only comes from the deepest loss and were prepared to make sacrifices
That an unscarred population might never accept you see that's the thing about
Strategic bombing even when the objective is [to] strike industry or leadership targets each civilian casualty each incident of collateral damage
Rather than breaking the enemy just creates new groups who will forever oppose surrender and the blitz also created a sense of national
unity through shared Struggle
Everybody who lived through the blitz rich and poor shared a commonality that crossed many previous divides and whether it was spending nights?
Huddled together in a shelter manning a civil defense gun or working together on a volunteer fire crew the blitz
literally brought people together [it] made them understand each other and rely on each other as they'd never done before and
again although nothing's ever as rosy as we remember in the end the blitz did more to unify britain than to divide it and
I think that concludes this look back at world war two for now anyway. I hope you folks enjoyed it
We'll see you all on Saturday for the regular extra history episodes
and thanks again to Paradox for making these bonus episodes possible we wish them the best with hearts of iron for