The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[JimmyBlonde]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

Jimmy, I appreciate your input, it would be useful if you could give the source of your quotes though.

I came to the conclusion that there will never be an agreement about the outcome of the aerial battle of 1940, that's why I regard it as a draw.

The most obvious fact is that Germany didn't achieve its goals as expected, Britain managed to defend his status quo of non invaded country (apart for the small Channel islands).

This can obviously look as a blatant victory of the RAF, but there's more into it than just this conclusion.

The aerial battle that raged over the Channel and England was in a certain way a war of attrition: the frontline didn't move, the two contending parts threw their best air force capabilities, but without a proper defeat of either of the sides, just a weakening of their potential.

Focussing on the simple fact that the Germans didn't achieve what they wanted with the Operatio Sea Lion doesn't change the fact that it's Great Britain who paid the heavier toll, because of the extended bombing damage, other than the RAF losses. It's hard to consider that a win.

I believe that it (rightly) became a matter of national pride, which is completely understandable, but the connotation of victory is hardly the outcome of the Battle of Britain.

The Battle of Britain was just an attack on a siege situation, if we talk about winning the war then I couldn't agree more, but the Battle of Britain (again, mistakenly named so), was just an early attack wave against a fortification, which surely went monumentally wrong, but it wasn't there that the whole war was lost.

Being lazy I tried to keep the quotes in the realm of common knowledge to avoid specific referencing. The Adolf Galland quote is probably from "Die Erste und Die Leszte" and I don't know where the Kreipe quote came from in particular but it is a well known and commonly used one.

In regards to the rest of your post, the OP did not ask if the Battle of Britain was a victory for the RAF which makes your points, though logically sound enough to be debatable, contextually irrelevant. I'm not going to be drawn into a debate which doesn't have any bearing on the point under discussion in this thread.

But...

The primary motivation of the RAF and Britain itself in 1939-41 was to play for time and to survive. The goal of any besieged faction who cannot mount an offensive of their own.

They achieved those aims, although at great cost, and I would call that a victory but given the decline of the British Empire in subsequent decades and the recent resurgence of right wing nationalism it might have been a Pyrrhic victory as you suggest.