Hitler's Armada : the German invasion plan, and the defence of Great Britain by the Royal Navy, April - October 1940

163 Pages·2008·8.83 MB·English

by  Hewitt

Firsr published in Great Britain in 2008 by
PEN & SWORD MARITIME
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS
Copyright © Geoff Hewitt, 2008
ISBN 978-1-84415-785-3
eISBN 9781844682553
The right of Geoff Hewitt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Keep then the seas about in special;
Which of England is the round wall,
As though England were likened to a city
And the wall environ were the sea.
Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, 1436
The best method of dealing with a German invasion of the Island of
Britain was to drown as many as possible on the way over and
knock the others on the head as they crawled ashore.
Winston Churchill to General Maxime Weygand, 11 June 1940
Contents
List of Maps
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 German Surface Fleet
2 Meetings and Memoranda
3 Compromise and Criticism
4 The German ‘Overlord’?
5 Mines, Coastal Batteries and U-Boats
6 Month of Decision – September 1940
7 Plans, Planes and Personnel
8 The German Perspective
9 Air and Sea Power
10 The Royal Navy of 1939–1940
11 Early Encounters and the Compaign in Norway
12 Evacuations Prior to Dunkirk
13 Operation Dynamo, The Dunkirk Evacuation
14 Operations Cycle and Aerial, the Post-Dunkirk Evacuations
15 ‘Gunfire and Plenty of It’
16 The Battle of Britain – the Legend and the Reality
17 ‘Be Calm, Be Calm, He is Coming’
18 Conclusion
Bibliography
List of Maps
1 The English Channel, Northern France and Belgium
2 The Sealion Landings
3 Royal Navy Overseas Stations in September 1939
4 Principal Royal Navy Bases in Home Waters, 1940
5 Central and Northern Norway
6 Operation Dynamo
7 Operation Aerial
HMS Venomous. During the Dunkirk Evacuation, Venomous rescued 4,140 men, making five trips. In
September 1940, she was part of the 18th Destroyer Flotilla, based at Harwich. As a ‘Modified W’
Class destroyer, she was armed with four 4.7-inch guns, two 2-pdr anti-aircraft guns, and six 21-inch
torpedo tubes. She was over twenty-one years old by September 1940 but, in common with her sisters,
was still a potent weapon against an invasion fleet without surface escorts. (IWM Neg. No. 56091)
HMS Vimiera. Originally a ‘V’ Class destroyer, Vimiera had been rebuilt between June 1939 and
January 1940 as a ‘Wair’ anti-aircraft escort vessel. The photographs show the extent of the conversion,
which involved the replacement of four low-angle, 4-inch guns by two twin, 4-inch, dual-purpose
mountings, the removal of both sets of torpedo tubes and the construction of a new bridge. The
unsatisfactory HACS control system for the guns can be seen at the rear of the bridge. The only close-
range armament consisted of two sets of the ineffective quadruple .5-inch machine guns. In September
1940, Vimiera, although part of the Rosyth Escort Force, was actually based at Sheerness. (IWM Neg.
Nos. FL22801 & FL5533)