Battle+of+Britain

Battle of Britain
= VS. =

**Who was involved? The two countries fighting this battle were Great Britain, led by Prime minister Winston Churchill, and Germany, led by Adolph Hitler. **

**Where/When did it take place? **

The Battle of Britain took place on a 40 mile stretch of land in Southeast England. It happened in the summer of 1940.
**What happened? ** After France fell to Nazi rule, Great Britain was a lone in the war against the Nazis. Winston Churchill was the new prime minister and had already declared: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets... we shall never surrender" (Winston Churchill.) This is literally stating that England would never stop fighting the Germans. The Luftwaffe, Germany's Airforce, began bombing the RAF (Royal Air Force.) Soon, Hitler decided to target large cities. The biggest target of Hitler's was London. It had a lot of England's population and it would Break British Morale, or make Great Britain feel threatened in a big way. Soon, Great Britain stole a German machine called the Enigma. It was capable of deciphering German secret codes. It allowed the British to identify where and when the Germans would attack. The battle began to turn in favor greatly. Churchill started pressing his troops against the Germans and eventually Hitler gave up trying to win this battle. He turned his troops to fight a war in the east against the Soviet Union and south eastern Europe. The battle of Britain served as a turning point to WWII because it proved the most important point of WWII, that Hitler can be defeated.

**Significance / Impact on WWII- The significance of this battle is that Great Britain realized that they could stop Hitler. They stopped him by using the enigma which could translate the German language so that Great Britain could understand and Churchill could relocate his Royal Air Force. Hitler realized that he could not win this battle and moved on to start his next battle with Southeast Europe and Russia. **

**Sources Used? ** //World History Patterns of Interaction. // Houghton Mifflin School, 2006. Print.