During the second world war, two events were to have a pivotal effect on the eventual result - the Battle of Britain and the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Battle of Britain took place in the skies between August and September 1940. After many German successes, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the surrender of France, Britain found herself alone facing the enemy. The Battle of Britain is perhaps the best known battle of World War Two. In order to control the English Channel, the German Luftwaffe had to dominate the British skies. This involved taking on the Royal Air Force, led by Sir Hugh Dowding. The main craft put to use by the Royal Air Force were the Spitfire and the Hurricane, which were powerful flying machines. The German Mescherschmitt fighters and their Stuka dive bombers formed the backbone of the enemy forces.
At the commencement of the World War 2, Germany had over twice as many airplanes as the United Kingdom and just after France had capitulated, the German air force had 3,000 craft in air bases in the northern part of Europe, which were a mixture of dive bombers, bombers, fighter planes and fighter bombers. At the start of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe might put twice as many planes over Britain than the RAF, who could normally gather about six hundred and fifty at any one time. The British air force had more planes than this , but many were in rather poor condition and couldn't fly. The speed of British aircraft fabrication was adequate, as the country had thrown all of it's disposable man (and woman) power and raw assets into the fray - easily the biggest problem was the shortfall of trained and sufficiently experienced pilots. Many young pilots had lost their lives in the war in France and fresh ones couldn't be trained in adequate numbers to replace those killed in earlier battles.
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, nineteen forty one, the Japanese Navy launched an attack surprising the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. This single act may have influenced the outcome of the Second World War, which also heavily shaped the post-war world. Admiral Isoroku, the commander of the Japanese aircraft carriers, planned and implemented the attack. It seemed that the tactic was to maim the US Navy so that it would be stopped from attacking Japanese installations in Asia.
353 Japanese planes attacked the ships in the harbor, in two waves of attacks. It started at about 7:55 am early on the morning of Sunday December 7 and was sustained for around 110 minutes. The American Naval operations at Pearl Harbor were commanded by Husband E. Kimmel. Today the USS Arizona Memorial at the harbor floats as a memorial to over 1,000 crewmen who lost their lives that day. nevertheless, the attack was to very significant repercussions. The day after, on December 8, war was declared against Japan, and three days later war was declared against Germany as well.
Author Resource:
Peter Bruce is a freelance journalist operating out of Toulouse in France. Subject covered range from 'when was world war 2' to Pearl Harbor
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