Being there . . . . when Britain’s exacting battle for survival of the fittest began less than threeweeks after the fall of France on July 10, 1940, and when England’s southeast Channel radarstations simultaneously revealed a massive number of German aircraft lifting off several Calaisairfields headed for London. Hitler was determined to erase the final British military obstaclesto his capture and occupation of the demi-paradise and achieve his dream of air and sea controlof the English deep, wide channel. For that, Field Marshal Hermann Goring, the Fuhrer’s AirMinister and Chief of the Luftwaffe, needed a number of German aerial blockades. The RoyalAir Force had to be decimated quickly, one way or another. That summer of 1940, the prizedLuftwaffe had to absolutely, unequivocally win air superiority from as far north as the Shetlandsto the southern shores of Plymouth and all of Cornwall.AN ENTHRALLING HISTORICAL STUDY SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON A HITHERTO UNREVEALED TOP-SECRET BRITISH ANTI-GERMAN INVASION PLAN IN PLACE AND READY TO BE UNLEASHED ONAUGUST 13 th OF 1940 WHEN OUR CLOSEST ALLY STOOD ALONE AGAINST A TIDE OF HITLER’SMOST ELITE ARMED FORCES. FORTUNATELY FOR US, AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION, BYSEPTEMBER 17, HITLER POSTPONED HIS OVERWHELMING “OPERATION SEALION”, FEARFUL OFHEAVY LOSSES, AND SWIVELLED TOWARDS MOSCOW. THE NONPAREIL 264-PAGER, “FORTRESSBRITAIN 1940”, HOT OFF THE PRESSES OF THE MATCHLESS WORLD WAR II CASEMATEPUBLISHERS, SHATTERS NEARLY 85 YEARS OF MYTHS FOCUSING ON THE HEROIC DEFENCES OFTHE BRITISH ISLES DURING THOSE DANGEROUS FIVE WEEKS.Reviewed and highly, highly recommend without reservation or qualification by Don DeNevi“FORTRESS BRITAIN 1940 – – Britain’s Unsung and Secret Defences on Land, Sea and In the Air”,by Andrew Chatterton, Foreword by Dan Snow. CASEMATE PUBLISHERS Pennsylvania; 2024,264 pages, hardcover, 6 ¼” x 9 ¼”, $32.95. Visit, www.casematepublishers.com, or Email:casemate@casematepublishers.com.In short, Operation “Sea Lion”, was never realized operationally because of several reasons,its result five years later being the Fuhrer placing his small Walther P-38 semi-automatic pistolbarrel in his mouth and blowing a sizeable hole in the back of his skull. With the famed RAFsystematically defying being cleansed from the skies throughout that August, September, andOctober, Hitler was dreaming of crushing Stalin’s U.S.S.R. armed forces. Other than selectLuftwaffe units left behind on the French coast to bomb Britain daily, all German fighting men,other than the police battalions in occupied countries, were ordered to the Eastern Front forOperation Barbarossa, the massive invasion of Russia scheduled for June 22, 1941.“FORTRESS BRITAIN 1940”, via a lot of hard, excessively scrupulous and systematicinvestigations and studies, conclude that at first Britain failed to believe and accept Hitler ‘spromise he would quickly grab the islands, then, just as quickly take Russia, no more than arotten, broken down, dilapidated old shack. Lulled into false security by that winter of waitingand shadowboxing, the British people had come to believe that the German campaign in the
West was a “phony war” and would remain so. Most civilians hoped, wanted, and believed all
was a mere continuation of the old comforting peace-time delusion that Hitler was bluffing andall he wanted to do was simply announce Britain was his, sail over, and have his SS units takeover the government without firing a shot. British Field Marshal Viscount Alanbrooke argued,“It may seem ‘phony’ to those comfortably established at home, but it’s anything but ‘phony’.To find myself in command of a formation unready for war, both from the point of training,equipment, and deficiency of modern weapons; to be confronted with plans which weredefinitely unsound in the event of attack; to become daily less and less confident of the fightingvalue of one’s allies; and on top of it all, to have the firm conviction that the Germans mustattack sooner or later . . .” Such were the insights and thoughts of Alanbrooke in the earlymonths of 1940. “The Germans will definitely not remain indefinitely passive”.So, YES, Britain was supposed to be alone, unprepared and weak in 1940. But AndrewChatterton’s serious research proved a different reality, one that was unequivocally accurate:Britain WAS prepared, even more than the Field Marshal knew. On land, sea and in the air,Britain was defiantly ready. It had the most powerful navy in the world; the RAF was relativelystrong, but more importantly, was operating as part of a plan and a join-up group system thatwas in truth never in any real danger of being defeated. Even the post-Dunkirk British Army wasbetter armed than the post WWII authors led us to believe. These forces were backed up by theHome Guard, to say nothing of the thousands of men and women in secret roles (city, village,country) to help fight the invasion. No one knew until recently that if all went wrong, and theNazis had defeated the British military, a separate, highly secret civilian group was ready tobecome active only after the occupation had started.Thus, Casemate Publishers have placed in our hands a new history that assess and announcethat British forces and secret civilian organizations were heavily armed and ready in thethousands to fight off the German invasion. Hitler was in for a huge surprise. It would havebeen a concerted nationwide effort. Such an amazing plan, almost lost after World War II, lay
buried until now.
