Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-41

by William L. Shirer

The army would not move until the Royal Air Force had been annihilated. On this being accomplished depended the whole setting-in-action of the plans for actual invasion. Göring promised its speedy accomplishment. But like many a German before him, he made a grave miscalculation about British character and therefore British strategy. Göring, I think it is now clear, based his confidence on a very simple calculation. He had four times as many planes as the British. No matter how good English planes and pilots were—and he had a healthy respect for both—he had only to attack in superior numbers, and even if he lost as many planes as the enemy, in the end he would still have a substantial air fleet, and the British would have none. And there was little likelihood of losing as many as your opponent if you always attacked with more planes than he had. What Göring and all the other Germans were incapable of grasping was that the British were prepared to see their cities bombed and destroyed before they would risk all of their planes in a few great air battles to defend them. To the British this was mere common sense and the only tactic that could save them. To the German military mind it was incomprehensible. It is primarily due to this error of judgment, so typically German, I’m convinced, that the plan to invade Britain this year had to be abandoned.