The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

Introduction
‘THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN began for me in the Autumn of 1939,’ wrote Air
Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding in his despatch; after all, that was when
Britain and Germany went to war. In the end, however, he opted ‘rather
arbitrarily’ for 10 July 1940 as its starting point, the day the Germans first
attacked southern England with a large formation of some seventy aircraft.
Dowding was referring to RAF Fighter Command’s role that summer and
his despatch set the benchmark for how the great aerial clash over Britain
has been viewed ever since.
Yet his Spitfires and Hurricanes first properly tussled with the Luftwaffe
in May that year, over France, while the intense battle between the two
sides was far more all-encompassing than an account of the clash in the air
suggests. At every level, from the corridors of power to the man in the
street, and from the Field Marshal to the private, or from the skies above to
the grey swell of the sea, those summer months of 1940 were a period of
extraordinary human drama, of shifting fortunes, of tragedy and triumph – a
time when the world changed for ever. For Britain, her very survival was at
stake; for Germany, the quick defeat of Britain held the key to her future.
For both sides, the stakes could not have been higher.
The time has come to look at those critical months afresh. Dowding was
possibly stretching the point too far in suggesting the Battle began with the
outbreak of war. But it was with the launch of the western campaign that
Britain began to face the worst crisis in her history, while for Germany 10
May 1940 marked, inextricably, her crossing of the Rubicon. The point of
no return.
In these five critical months, the battle encompassed warfare on land
and at sea as well as in the air, whilst the British and German governments
fought their own political and propaganda battles as well as one for
intelligence, all of which had a profound impact on the unfurling events. In
isolation, these differing aspects only present part of the story. Together,
new and surprising perspectives emerge.