JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 990

[Also see my The Bombing of Britain in the Illustreite Zeitung, July 1940 post; also here.]

The
Battle of Britain was an air battle begun weeks after the surrender of France (22 June 1940) in preparation for the Nazi
invasion of England.  Hitler and the High Command believed Britain to be
vulnerable², and surrenderable, or at the least could be convinced not to interfere
in the rest of the war.  But plans were
made for the invasion—an invasion which could only be successful (it was reasoned)
if there was complete naval or aerial superiority. The naval part was out of
the question, especially since the Nazis had suffered such losses in the
Norwegian campaign. The Luftwaffe was another story, and so the operation began. 

The Illustrated London News published
this pictorial introduction to Nazi bombing on 27 July 1940, just weeks after
the campaign began.  At this point in the
war the Luftwaffe operations were delegated to coastal installations and
aircraft industries. 

The terror bombing
against citizens in cities—which was an idea not born here but rather 20 odd
years before—wouldn’t begin for some months. 
In the meantime, and at this early part of the campaign against England, the
British citizenry was introduced in a very proper way how the bombing was being
carried out.  IT really does seem to be
to be a very constructive, non-alarmist, cogent distribution of information to
the general public about the potential for massive devastation.  

Notes:

1.
By the summer of 1941 the campaign was largely over, the Nazi effort doomed. England:
1,023 fighters: 376 bombers, 148 coastal command aircraft for a total of
1,547 aircraft and  544 pilots and aircrew killed.  There were also
27,450 civilians killed and 32,138 wounded.  The Germans
lost 873 fighters and 1,014 bombers for a total of 1,887 aircraft and 
2,500 pilots

2. The plan ‘Directive No. 16; On the Preparation of a Landing Operation
against England’
read, in part, as follows:

“Since England, despite
its militarily hopeless situation, still has not shown any signs of being
prepared to negotiate, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and, if
necessary, carry it out. The objective of this operation is to eliminate the
English home country as a base for the continuation of the war against Germany…”

“Included in these preparations is the bringing about of those preconditions
which make a landing in England
possible;”

“a) The English air force must have been beaten down to such an extent
morally and in fact that it can no longer muster any power of attack worth
mentioning against the German crossing…”