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Chapter Two: Fighting on the Beaches
On September the 28th, the German Armada set off from several ports along Northern France and Belgium – Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Le Havre, and Cherbourg, with specific landing points designated across Southern England. Yet the vast majority of these forces would not land, for the British Royal Navy was quick to confront the invasion fleet – this triggered the second phase of the Battle of Britain, the Channel Campaign. As the landing vessels attempted to cross, Royal Navy ships continually bombarded them from sea, while the RAF launched a bombing campaign from the skies to assist the attack on the German fleet. Many German transports, barges, tugs, trawlers and motor-boats were crippled by the combined air-sea bombardment, and an even greater number were sunk to the bottom of the Channel. The Channel Campaign lasted throughout the day, and saw the invasion force devastated by the bombardment, while the ships which found themselves able to continue forward were slowed down significantly by the need to avoid bombs from the sky or from across the waves. Meanwhile, the numerous Luftwaffe planes carrying paratrooper regiments were mostly shot down by RAF planes which were not deployed in the bombing campaign. Thus, the Channel Campaign was, like the Campaign in the Air, a decisive victory for Britain.

Eventually, in the evening of the 28th, a couple of German divisions from the 16th Army were able to make landfall along a few beaches in Kent, near Hythe, while a single paratrooper regiment landed near Brighton, and a single division from the 6th Army landed on a beach near Weymouth. Yet the British Army was quick to respond to the German invasion – the Southern Command, overseen by Lieutenant General Claude Auchinleck, had the V Corps under Bernard Montgomery and the VIII Corps under Harold Franklyn immediately march to the coast when news of the German crossing reached Britain. These corps were reinforced by troops from other areas of Britain, along with the Home Guard, which found itself preparing for the event which its members had been trained for since the guard’s creation. Immediately after the German soldiers stepped off of their landing craft, British troops began to open fire.

At Brighton, the bulk of the German paratrooper forces were defeated quickly by British regulars and Home Guard troops nearby - yet some paratroopers were able to escape the battle and retreated into the English countryside, eventually being uncovered and arrested by British authorities in the days and weeks after the Battle. Meanwhile, at Weymouth, after an hour of fighting, the remnants of the German division were forced to surrender in the face of significant British pressure. Yet the heaviest fighting occurred along the Kentish beaches, where German forces came along in several waves and were defeated by British troops who were positioned at the top of the beach. Eventually, after several hours of fighting, and almost at dusk, the remaining German troops agreed to surrender – thereby ending the three final campaigns of the Battle of Britain (the Battle of Brighton, the Battle of Weymouth, and the Battle of Hythe). This brought the Battle of Britain to an end, in an overwhelming British victory – the threat of a German invasion had been vanquished and repulsed, at relatively minimal cost for Britain and at a significant cost for Germany.

The Battle of Britain, in particular the Channel Campaign and the battles along the English Coast, resulted in heavy casualties and damage for the German military. Roughly 100,000 German troops were sent to cross the Channel as part of what would have been the invasion's 'first wave' - of these 100,000, 24,561 were killed during the landings while 20,439 were taken prisoner, while, during the Channel Campaign, 43,661 Germans were killed, and a remaining 11,339 troops were able to return to Nazi-controlled Europe. German military equipment and supplies were also heavily damaged during the botched invasion – the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe were heavily damaged in the Channel Campaign (along with the Campaign in the Air for the Luftwaffe). This put an end to Goering’s initial plans for a sustained bombing campaign over Britain, as the Luftwaffe had few plans available which could carry out such a task, while the damage caused to Germany’s surface fleet meant that the Royal Navy and Commonwealth navies could focus entirely on the threat of U-Boats in the Atlantic, without having to deal with a surface fleet.

By contrast, British forces sustained minimal casualties from the Battle of Britain, particularly during the Channel Campaign and the fighting on the beaches. In the Channel Campaign, few RAF planes or Royal Navy ships were damaged significantly, while in the fighting on the beaches, only 563 Britons were killed and 322 were wounded.

Both sides responded to the outcome of the Battle of Britain accordingly – in Berlin, Hitler and the Nazi Government looked at the losses sustained by the German military with utter horror. This, combined with the wounded pride and prestige caused by the failure of the invasion led to, for a brief period, speculation emerging that Hitler would be toppled as a result of the result of the battle. Yet such a coup never came, and instead the Nazi Government decided to launch a preemptive strike on the army officers which they believed would pounce at an opportunity to overthrow Hitler. This led to the Second Night of the Long Knives, which saw the SS and Gestapo round up multiple officers on charges of treason, using fabricated evidence to do so, before executing them. Amongst the military leaders executed were Goering and Erich Raeder, who, although not involved in any coup plots, were no longer deemed useful by Hitler, after the two men had overseen the destruction of the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine respectively.

However, what was seen with horror in Germany was seen with absolute jubilation in Britain. For the British people, the victory in the battle lifted the threat of invasion which had been present since the fall of France, and the British Army had proved that the seemingly unstoppable German war machine could in fact be stopped. In London, people celebrated Britain’s victory in the Battle on the streets, and the country as a whole received a large morale boost - Britain had gave the Wehrmacht its first major defeat of the war, and had defended her home soil in the process. In the Commons, Churchill, who had boosted morale during the fighting by refusing to evacuate from London when news of the German force’s embarkation arrived (thereby setting an example for the rest of the Government to follow), paid respect to the soldiers, airmen and seamen who had defended Britain by declaring in a speech: ‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few’. Meanwhile, the Dominions and Britain’s colonies beyond the seas breathed a large sigh of relief.

Yet both Britain and Germany both recognised that the war was not yet over, and so both sides began preparing their next moves.

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