In 1939 England declared war on Germany, but the first eight months of World War II were marred with conservative politics, then Winston Churchill took office!
Germany had invaded Poland without provocation. The sole purpose of the attack was conquest. The world was outraged. But the only country outraged enough to do anything about it was Great Britain. On September 3, 1939 Great Britain officially declared war on Germany.
Although the English were ready for war in spirit, they were sadly unprepared physically . The RAF bomber command were simply not ready in equipment or manpower. The Whitley twin engine plane that was the fore of their attack fleet was only five years old but already outdated badly. The Whitley’s had a maximum cruising speed of less then 200 mph and a maximum altitude limit of 17,000 feet. It was nicknamed “The Flying Barn Door” by RAF pilots because of its broad wings and slab-sided fuselage.
Bigger four-engined bombers were unavailable due to being still in the planning and production phase, so the only alternative if the RAF wanted to launch an air-offensive against the Germans was the Whitley because the other twin engine planes the Wellington and the Hampdens were largely non-operational.
The British were hesitant for two reasons, the first was because they didn’t want the Americans to be unapproving and they knew that in the months and possible years to come they would need the support of the U.S. The other reason was their low inventory of available aircraft which numbered a meager 209 airworthy planes with crews to pilot them.
But the Brit’s needed to make a political statement, so a mission was launched against the German ports of Bremen and Hamburg. Still not fully committed to a live bombing mission the RAF delivered not bombs, but 5.4 million leaflets urging the German people to abandon the war and oust Adolph Hitler. The mission was amusingly dubbed as “The Paper Bombing of Germany.”
It’s ironic that England showed such restraint remembering the first World War when Germany used twin-engine Gotha’s and Zeppelins to drop over 400 tons of bombs on London and other cities killing approximately 1400 people.
The first eight months of England’s war on Germany was called “The Phony War” because of a lack of any real substantial combat. A few sea skirmishes and the continued paper war were morally degrading for the RAF pilots.
The RAF attempted a failed series of daytime raids on German war ships but after suffering substantial losses had to reevaluate their attack strategy and consider night-time raids instead.
On May 10th 1940, “The Phony War” and the paper raids on German soil ended. The Germans launched their “Blitzkrieg” or lightening war against Belgium, Holland, and France.
On that same day Winston Churchill defeated the more conservative Neville Chamberlain as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain. Five days later on May 14th after a horrifying bombing attack on Rotterdam by the Germans killing over 800 civilians the RAF attacked Germanys Ruhr Valley.
This time RAF planes carried bombs instead of leaflets and attacked German oil refineries and railways. Luftwaffe Chief Hermann Goring boasted that the Ruhr Valley would not be exposed to a single English bomb due to Germanys stout air defense.
Winston Churchill had forced Goring to swallow his words and the next five years would see the most continuous and brutal bombing campaign the world had ever seen.
Conservative politics would take a backseat and Churchill would eventually win the support of the United States and other world powers to help end Germanys war of conquest and aggression.
Reference: Bailey, Ronald H.
The Air War In Europe / Time-Life Books 1981
