![]() ![]() But in case – as was likely – the Germans waited until after dark before commencing their 12-hour toil across to England, the Royal Navy had a pool of 700 armed patrol craft (requisitioned motor yachts and trawlers) of whom around 200 were on picket duty “off the north coast of France” every night. The first warning of the invasion’s sailing would come, it was hoped, from RAF reconnaissance over the assembly ports. At the beginning of September the Admiralty had disposed sixty-seven (plus six cruisers) for immediate response to an invasion alarm. ![]() The basic order-of-battle facts are that, having lost ten destroyers in Norway, the Germans now had only ten to protect four beach landing areas. There was so much wrong with the materiel and methods available for SEALION, that it is difficult to know where to start. Whatever opinions may be held elsewhere about operation SEALION (the vaunted German invasion), it was the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) that was going to have to sign the chit for a logistical, resources, force-protection and seamanship nightmare, and the more they studied the daunting obstacles facing them, the more anxious they became to be let off the hook. Among other things, the largest operational fleet in the world stood between. As a maritime historian, my problem with Battle of Britain culture rests on just one specific point: the often stated and always implied claim that ‘nothing stood between Britain and Nazi occupation except Fighter Command.’ This is quite untrue. ![]()
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