The Battle for Britain - Part 1
of open-cowled two and three engined planes that had little carrying capacity and very slow speeds. From September 1939, priorities were set and other bombers developed, notably the Lancaster but, when they were most needed, it was the planes from America that tipped the scale. The Hudson, and the Boston, were crucial in filling in the gap before the British Halifax and other types became operational.
They were instrumental, however, in ensuring as nothing else could do quite so utterly, the calling off of Sea Lion. As the German Navy started to collect together the barges and transports needed and bring them on long difficult journeys from all over occupied Europe, they had to find places to moor them. Even small boats, numbered in the thousands, cannot all be hidden in small groups, and large accumulations soon began to form in all the ports from Ostend to Cherbourg. British reconnaissance planes quickly spotted them and night bombing raids were made with great success and the resultant wrecks further clogged up the harbours. This plus the fact that the Luftwaffe were nowhere near as good as Goering's boastings, were the prime causes for a preoccupied Hitler to drop Sea Lion on 12th October. A face-saving directive was issued that preparations would continue only as a way of maintaining pressure on England, but operational readiness need not be maintained.
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