Invasion! : Operation Sea Lion, 1940

Rating:
Summary: The lion that never roared
Review: I have been fascinated by Operation Sea Lion (OSL) ever since I was a kid. I have an entire home library on the subject. Marix Evans book is a worthwhile addition to the genre. He does an excellent job covering in great detail the actual planning of the operation. In this respect his book is as good as Peter Schenck's the Invasion of England 1940. However, in the latter half of the book, Marix Evans tries his hand at a speculative account of the invasion, and I found this to be very unconvincing. Speculative fiction is clearly not his strongpoint. Nevertheless, if you are interested in OSL, it is worth picking up.

Rating:
Summary: Well told WW II Story
Review: Invasion! Operation Sealion, 1940 by Martin Marix Evans (Longman) It's the summer of 1940 and the Nazis have crossed the English Channel to invade Britain. They advance north from the south coast and great swathes of southern England come under German control.

Fiction, of course, but an invasion of Britain was planned by Hitler to take place in the summer of 1940 - how far would the Germans have been able to advance? Would they have been successful?

The Battle of Britain was launched in July 1940, first against fighter airfields, and later, from 1 September, against London. On 16 July Hitler issued Fuhrer Directive No. 16 for preparations for a landing operation against England. Operation Sealion (as the landing was called) was then postponed on 17 September and cancelled on 12 October. This book explores the alternative scenario - that Sealion began as planned on 21 September.

Invasion! Operation Sealion 1940 follows the historical course of events up to 1 September, including the planning in Britain and Germany, and the aerial war. The British strategy for defending England is that actually adopted by General Alan Brooke when appointed to Southern Command on 26 June. In the second part of the book, Martin Marix Evans provides a fictional account of the invasion. This is based on detailed study of German geological and geographical analysis of the English terrain and the maps and handbooks that were published to convey this data to their commanders in the field. It is also founded on the Defence of Britain Project - a massive survey of 20th-century installations such as pill-boxes, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters and anti-tank ditches, whilst the behaviour of German troops is firmly based on actual events in Europe earlier in 1940.
In the summer of 1940 Britain stood almost alone, supported only by the Commonwealth countries, against the threat of German world domination. In the skies the Battle of Britain raged while frantic preparations were being made to resist what seemed inevitable - the landing of German forces on English shores. In Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands equally vigorous work was in hand to prepare for the invasion that was called Operation Sealion. Special underwater tanks were invented to land on British beaches, fast assault craft were designed to rush shock troops ashore and pontoon-mounted gun batteries were devised to protect the fleet of ships and barges that would carry two German armies and 250 tanks across the Channel. And then the Luftwaffe turned from assaults on RAF airfields to bombing London, a decision that cost them victory in the air - but what if that error had not been made?

If Operation Sealion had begun in September 1940, would the Royal Navy have thwarted Hitler's aims? Would the RAF have been able to prevent another blitzkrieg offensive like the one that shattered France? Would the remnants of the army that had been plucked from Dunkirk's beaches have been able to resist the Panzers?

The answers to these questions are worked out in Invasion! Operation Sealion 1940. The book draws on German and British archives and on modern research to construct a scenario both dramatic and realistic, illustrating what it takes to succeed in landing on hostile shores.