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

It was with this in mind that beaches were mined and laid with barbed
wire, signposts were taken down in an effort to confuse the enemy should
he land, pillboxes began to be built along the coast, by rivers and at road
junctions in vast numbers, and a series of new coastal gun batteries
continued to be constructed; by 12 June, the first batch of forty-six new
batteries, each comprising two six-inch naval guns and two searchlights,
had been put in place along the south-east coast. Even a Petroleum Warfare
Department was set up in early June, with the idea of burning the invader
back into the sea. Short stretches of road leading inland from likely landing
places were lined with perforated pipes, each connected with a fuel tank
hidden nearby. If the enemy got ashore, waiting members of the LDV
would then flood the road with petrol and ignite it by hurling a flaming
missile.
One of the biggest problems was the shortage of trained men and
equipment. There had, in fact, been one more night of evacuation of French
troops, so that by the morning of 4 June, when Operation DYNAMO
officially came to an end, a staggering 338,226 Allied troops had been
brought back to England since 20 May. 5 However, the best part of 70,000
British soldiers were either dead, prisoner, or still stuck further south in
France, which was a massive dent in Britain’s forces. On top of that, Britain
had left behind nearly all her equipment. Having begun the campaign as the
proportionally best equipped army in the world, she was now one of the
worst. Sixty-four thousand vehicles were left, many of which were
gleefully taken by the vehicle-starved Germans and continued to perform
sterling service for years to come. In all, 76,000 tons of ammunition were
lost; more than 400,000 tons of stores; 2,500 guns. This could not be
replaced overnight. Far from it. The British army, in June 1940, was not
good for very much.
Winston Churchill heeded the advice of the Chiefs of Staff when he
finally addressed the House of Commons on Monday, 4 June, by giving a
stark warning. There had been a ‘miracle of deliverance’, in bringing back
so many from Dunkirk, he told them, but, ‘We must be careful not to assign
to this deliverance the attributes of victory,’ he added. ‘Wars are not won by
evacuations.’ There could be no doubting the extreme gravity of the
situation, he told them, and an immediate assault upon Britain was now
expected. Hitler, he said, was planning an invasion. He was, however,
confident that such an invasion would be resisted. ‘Even though large tracts