Why does Hitler failed in the invasion of Great Britain? Operation Sea lion: The Battle of Atlantic, struggle for the sea’s control

By: Isabella Ponce de León

It started the 4^th of July of 1940 and ended with the end of World War II. The German Army received the order to prepare a possible invasion to the British Islands. The plan of Hitler, during the Operation Sea Lion, was to invade Great Britain by the Atlantic sea. He knew that maintaining a war with England was dangerous, not only because they had the  greatest navy of  the world, but keeping open the West front when his real target was none other than the Eastern campaign would be very irresponsible. This Battle was of great importance because it defined whether Great Britain, a world power in that time, was going to be invaded by the German force or not. It took place practically along all the extension of the Atlantic sea.

In that moment, the German fleet was very small and had a big disadvantage compared to the Britain's Royal Navy, which outnumbered it by a lot. The Kriegsmarine, the German fleet, had lost a great portion of its large modern surface units in April of the same year during the Norwegian Campaign, the loss of two light cruisers and ten destroyers was really terrible, because these big boats were the most suited to operate between the Channels were the invasion would take place. They had only left the submarines, the most  powerful arm of the Kriegsmarine, but they were meant for destroying ships, not supporting an invasion.

 When the battle took place, for luck of the Germans, The British fleet was as vulnerable to the air attacks, as the Nazis expected to be. The Great Navy was bombarded and everyone thought that Germany had almost won the war. Also it is good to mention that Great Britain was alone, in this Battle, his Allies didn’t manifested. That is why it was a great and vulnerable blank to invade. But, does Great Britain, the majestic and strong power of Europe was going to be defeated by the German Nazis? The truth was that, even if the Royal Navy was neutralized, the Germans couldn’t enter the British borders through the channels they because had no specialized landing craft. They had only a few artillery boats that were for defenses and for destroying enemy’s fleets. If they used them, this would cause the Germans to have a limited quantity of artillery and tanks that could serve for protection and attacks. So the Germans were really discapacited to enter British territory, no matter what was the British situation.

The Germans would have needed to immediately capture a port, something that was impossible considering the strength and quick recovery of the British defenses, in the coast and around the harbours at that time. The British also had several contingency plans, including the use of poison gas. When the Germans were feeling the lords of the seas by destroying British boats with their air force, the British appeared then with airplanes and started bombarding Germans fleets.

Hitler got really mad at this situation; he had to cancel many plans he had for the invasion because his army was incapable of penetrating the harbors of Great Britain, who was superior to them in the seas and in air. Hitler created a plan and ordered to German sailors to block the British harbors with submarines, to stop all the medias that supplied resources and destroy merchant ships.

German submarines sank 2,848 merchant vessels in total, with a total of 14,000,000 tons.

Germany suffered crisis and lost entire armies and militar boats and submarines, while Great Britain, was strong and had a highly developed commerce, but the blocking of merchant ships and commerce caused by the Nazis caused several problems of resources until the start of 1945, where the battle was finished and Germany was left with the desire of invading it.

This is a video about Germans submarines that participated in the Battle of the Atlantic and the struggle to invade British territory: