Operation Sealion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Operation Sea Lion
Part of the Western Front of World War II
The original German plan.
Date Planned for September 1940, but cancelled
Location Normandy, the Belgian coast line, the English Channel and the English coast line from Kent to Dorset, Isle of Wight and parts of Devon, but principally in Sussex and Kent.
Result Cancelled on 17 September 1940, by Adolf Hitler
Belligerents
Flag of Nazi Germany Germany
Flag of Italy Italy		 Flag of the United Kingdom United Kingdom
Flag of Canada Canada
Flag of Australia Australia
Flag of New Zealand New Zealand
Flag of Free French Forces Free French forces
Free Polish Forces
Flag of Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia
Commanders
Flag of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
Flag of Nazi Germany Erich Raeder (naval forces)
Flag of Nazi Germany Hermann Göring (air)
Flag of Nazi Germany Gerd von Rundstedt (land forces)[1]
 Flag of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill
Flag of the United Kingdom Dudley Pound (1st Sea Lord)
Flag of the United Kingdom Lord Newall (MRAF)
Flag of the United Kingdom Edmund Ironside (CIGS)
Strength
~125,000+
700 tanks
2,000 aircraft		 ~250,000 initially + exiled various forces
? tanks
600+ aircraft
v • d • e

Operation Sea Lion (German: Unternehmen Seelöwe) was Germany's plan to invade the United Kingdom during World War II, beginning in 1940. However, to have any chance of success, the operation required air supremacy over the English Channel. With the German defeat in the Battle of Britain, Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on 17 September, 1940.[2]

Contents

[edit] Background

Following swift victory in the Battle of France, Germany believed the war in the west was won. However, the United Kingdom refused peace talks. As a result, more direct measures to break British resistance were considered.

Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) Erich Raeder of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) oversaw numerous studies for a German naval assault across the English Channel. The earliest of these, made around November 1939, identified the conditions for invasion:[citation needed]

The German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH) originally planned an invasion on a vast scale, extending from Dorset to Kent. This was far in excess of what their navy could supply, and final plans were more modest, calling for nine divisions to make an amphibious landing with around 67,000 men in the first echelon and an airborne division to support them.[3] The chosen invasion sites ran from Rottingdean in the west to Hythe in the east.

The battle plan called for German forces to be launched from Cherbourg to Lyme Regis, Le Havre to Ventnor and Brighton, Boulogne to Eastbourne, Calais to Folkestone, and Dunkirk and Ostend to Ramsgate. German paratroopers would land near Brighton and Dover. Once the coast was secured, they would push north, taking Gloucester and encircling London.[4] There is reason to believe that the Germans would not attempt to assault the city but besiege and bombard it.[5] German forces would secure England up to the 52nd parallel (approximately as far north as Northampton), anticipating that the rest of the United Kingdom would then surrender.

Adolf Hitler's initial warning order on 16 July, 1940, reflected the most current thinking and set out the revised minimum pre-conditions. He prefaced his order by stating, "I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and, if necessary, to carry it out".[6]

Hitler's conditions for invasion were:

  • The RAF was to be "beaten down in its morale and in fact, that it can no longer display any appreciable aggressive force in opposition to the German crossing".
  • The English Channel was to be swept of British mines at the crossing points, and the Straits of Dover must be blocked at both ends by German mines.
  • The coastal zone between occupied France and England must be dominated by heavy artillery.
  • The Royal Navy must be sufficiently engaged in the North Sea and the Mediterranean so that it could not intervene in the crossing. British home squadrons must be damaged or destroyed by air and torpedo attacks.

This placed responsibility for Sealion's success on the shoulders of Naval High Command (Oberkommando der Marine or OKM) Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) Erich Raeder and Air Force High Command (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe or OKL) Imperial Marshal (Reichsmarschall) Hermann Göring.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini offered troops, but Hitler declined his offer.[7] However, the Italian Air Corps (Corpo Aereo Italiano or CAI) did participate towards the end of the Battle of Britain.

[edit] Operation Eagle and air superiority

The aerial battles which resulted from Unternehmen Adler (Operation Eagle Attack) later became known as the Battle of Britain. Adler's objective was for the Luftwaffe to achieve air superiority over the Royal Air Force and allow the German invasion fleet to cross the English Channel. However, the change in emphasis of the bombing from RAF bases to bombing London turned Adler into a strategic bombing operation. This switch afforded the RAF, reeling from Luftwaffe attacks on its bases, time to pull back and regroup.

[edit] Navy

The main difficulty for Germany was the small size of its navy. The Kriegsmarine had lost a sizable portion of its large modern surface units in the Norwegian Campaign, either as complete losses or due to battle damage. In particular, the loss of a large portion of their destroyers was crippling. The U-boats, the most powerful arm of the Kriegsmarine, were not suitable for operations in the relatively shallow and restricted English Channel. Although the Royal Navy could not bring to bear the whole of its naval superiority against the Kriegsmarine (most of the fleet was engaged in the Atlantic and Mediterranean), the British Home Fleet still had a very large advantage in numbers. British ships were still vulnerable to enemy air attack, as demonstrated during the Dunkirk evacuation and by the later Japanese sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse. However, the 22 miles (35 km) width of the English Channel and the overall disparity between the British and German naval forces made the amphibious invasion plan risky, regardless of the outcome in the air. In addition, the Kriegsmarine had allocated its few remaining larger and modern ships to diversionary operations in the North Sea.

Barges assembled for the invasion at the German port of Wilhelmshaven

The French fleet, one of the most powerful and modern in the world, might have tipped the balance against Britain. However, the preemptive destruction of the French fleet by the British by an attack on Mers-el-Kébir and the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon two years later ensured that this could not happen.

Even if the Royal Navy had been neutralised, the chances of a successful amphibious invasion across the channel were remote. The Germans had no specialised landing craft, and had to rely primarily on river barges. This would have limited the quantity of artillery and tanks transported and restricted operations to times of good weather. The barges were not designed for use in open sea and even in almost perfect conditions, their progress would have been slow and the craft vulnerable to attack. There were not enough barges to transport the first invasion wave nor the following waves with their equipment. Without specialized landing craft, the Germans would have needed to immediately capture a port, an unlikely circumstance considering the strength of the British coastal defences around the south-eastern harbours at that time. The British also had several contingency plans, including the use of poison gas.

[edit] Cancellation

On 17 September, 1940, Hitler held a meeting with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Hitler became convinced that the operation wasn't viable. Control of the skies was unavailable, and coordination among three branches of the armed forces was out of question. Later that day, Hitler ordered the postponement of the operation.

It was only a postponement at that stage. Prototypes of two designs of a prefabricated jetty, similar in function to Mulberry Harbours, were built and successfully overwintered in the North Sea in 1941/42.[8] After cancellation, they were installed on the Island of Alderney,[8] where they remained until being demolished in 1978.

Not until 13 February, 1942, after the invasion of Russia, were forces earmarked for the operation released to other duties.[9]

The postponement coincided with a rumour that there had been an attempt to land on British shores at Shingle Street, but it had been repulsed with large German casualties. This was reported in the American press, but was officially denied. British papers, declassified in 1993, have suggested this was a successful example of British black propaganda to improve morale in Britain, America and occupied Europe.[10]

[edit] Chances of success

Drill involving an amphibious tank meant for Sealion

Military historians are divided on whether Operation Sealion could have succeeded; some such as Michael Burleigh, Andrew Mollo, and Kenneth Macksey believe it was possible, while others such as Peter Fleming, Derek Robinson and Stephen Bungay believe the operation would have most likely resulted in a disaster for the Germans. Adolf Galland, commander of Luftwaffe fighters at the time, claimed invasion plans were not serious and that there was a palpable sense of relief in the Wehrmacht when it was finally called off.

There were a number of errors in German intelligence, and whilst some of these might not have caused problems, there were others (such as the inclusion of bridges that no longer existed[11] or mis-understanding the usefulness of minor British roads)[12] that would have been detrimental to German operations, and would have only added to the confusion caused by the layout of Britain's cities and the removal of road signs.[13]

After the London Blitz, Hitler turned his attention to the Soviet Union, and Seelöwe lapsed, never to be resumed.

[edit] Post-war test of the plan

In wargames conducted at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1974, which assumed the Luftwaffe had not yet won air supremacy, the Germans were able to establish a beachhead in England by using a minefield screen in the English Channel to protect the initial assault. However, the German ground forces were delayed at the "Stop Lines" (e.g., the GHQ Line), a layered series of defensive positions that had been built, each a combination of Home Guard troops and physical barriers. At the same time, the regular troops of the British Army were forming up. After only a few days, the Royal Navy was able to reach the Channel from Scapa Flow, cutting off supplies and blocking further reinforcement. Isolated and facing regular troops with armour and artillery, the invasion force was forced to surrender.[14]

[edit] Planned occupation of Britain

This section requires expansion.
Franz Six

Had Operation Sea Lion been launched, six Einsatzgruppen under Dr. Franz Six were to follow the invasion force to Great Britain. They were provided with a list (known as The Black Book) of 2,820 people to be arrested immediately.

[edit] In fiction

There is a large corpus of works set in an alternative history where the German invasion of Britain has been attempted or successfully carried out. These include:

Alberto Cavalcanti's 1942 film Went the Day Well? is centred on a German reconnaissance mission for Sea Lion being eventually repulsed by the efforts of the civilian population of a remote village. A less contemporary dealing with the fear of German invasion concerned the German paratroopers central to the plot of the 1971 film Dad's Army who have crashed with photographs vital to the invasion.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Campaigns & Operations: Order of battle - Unternehmen Seelöwe (Sealion) (the planned invasion of the United Kingdom, Sep 1940)". Axishistory.com. http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1145. Retrieved on 2008-12-14. 
  2. ^ ”MHQ volume 6 Number 4, Summer 1994, Hitler’s D-Day”, David Shears
  3. ^ Schenck, Peter C., Invasion of England 1940: The Planning of Operation Sea Lion, p. 231. Conway, London, 1990. ISBN 0-85177-548-9
  4. ^ The Illustrated History of World War II by Owen Booth and John Walton. 1998. Page 70.
  5. ^ German Invasion Plans for the British Isles 1940, Ed Rob Wheeler, Bodleian Library 2007, page 9
  6. ^ Hall, Mark M: "Irish Secrets.", page 102. Irish Academic Press, 2003
  7. ^ Macksey, Kenneth, Beda Fomm: The Classic Victory, p. 35. Ballantine, New York, 1971.
  8. ^ a b Alderney at War. Brian Bonnard. 1993.ISBN 0-7509-0343-0. pp106-108. Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd.
  9. ^ Fleming, Peter.,Invasion 1940 (Readers Union, London, 1958), p. 273.
  10. ^ Rigby, Nic (2002-09-09). "Was WWII mystery a fake?". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2243082.stm. Retrieved on 2007-09-23. 
  11. ^ German Invasion Plans for the British Isles, Ed Rob Wheeler, Bodleian Library 2007, Page 10
  12. ^ Ibid
  13. ^ Ibid, Text of plate 7
  14. ^ The Sandhurst wargame was fictionalised in Richard Cox (ed.), Operation Sea Lion (London: Thornton Cox, 1974. ISBN 0-902726-17-X). An analysis by F-K von Plehwe, "Operation Sea Lion 1940", was published in the Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, March, 1973.
  15. ^ When Hitler Invaded Britain (2004) (TV)
  16. ^ Hitler's Britain (2002) (TV)

[edit] Further reading

  • Fleming, Peter (1957). Operation Sea Lion. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0330242113. 
  • Haining, Peter (2004). Where the eagle landed : the mystery of the German invasion of Britain, 1940. London: Robson. ISBN 1861057504. 
  • Kieser, Egbert (1987). Cassell Military Classics: Operation Sea Lion: The German Plan To Invade Britain, 1940. Sterling. ISBN 030435208X. 
  • Parkinson, Roger (1977). Summer, 1940: The Battle of Britain. David McKay Co.. ISBN 0679507566. 
  • Macksey, Ken. Invasion - The Alternate History of the German Invasion of England, July 1940 (1980) Greenhill Books ISBN 1-85367-361-7
  • Parkinson, Roger (1977). Summer, 1940: The Battle of Britain. David McKay Co.. ISBN 0679507566

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sealion"
Personal tools