Hermann Goering

As the Battle of France progressed, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked fighter command for more aircraft to send to the continent. Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, recognizing that nothing could be done for France, refused.

Adolf Hitler had convinced himself by December 1940 that England lay prostrate before German air power. November had seen the worst of the air attacks; acres of England’s cities were reduced to rubble. Hitler believed she would never rise again to threaten Germany.