During the course of WW2, Churchill came to understand that Hitler hated him with a passion. Hitler hated looking weak and hated it when someone did not give him the complete respect that he thought he deserved. Churchill used this knowledge many times to his advantage during the course of the war as part of his efforts to manipulate Hitler into doing things that he might not otherwise have done. None of these incidents was more significant than what happened on August 24, 1940, 74 years ago today.
After the fall of France, the Battle of Britain began. In order to invade England by sea, Hitler needed air superiority over the English Channel. Without air superiority, the Germans could not send an invasion fleet across the channel without fear of it being destroyed by the vastly superior British Navy. Thus the only way to suppress the British Navy was to beat the RAF and gain air superiority over the channel to protect the invasion fleet.
So in the summer of 1940, a huge air battle raged over England pitting the Luftwaffe against the RAF. The Luftwaffe had great numeric superiority but the RAF had better planes in the Hurricane and the Spitfire with their Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. England also benefited from the fact that the battle took place over the English countryside. Thus, any German planes shot down over England resulted in the loss of the plane and the pilot to Germany. While many downed British pilots were able to parachute to safety and fight another day and many British planes were able to be rebuilt and put back in service.
Day and night, the Luftwaffe was attacking England with fighters to knock out the Spitfires and Hurricanes and with bombers to attack and destroy the British airfields. After several months of this, the British were starting to feel the effects as more and more airfields were put out of service and more and more planes were being destroyed. Churchill knew that to lose the Battle of Britain in the air meant a German land invasion was soon to follow. And Churchill knew that Hitler’s path to complete European victory required that Germany invade and defeat England on land, thus making it vital that Britain prevail in the air war.
Thus on August 24, 1940, during a nighttime raid on the London docks targeting nearby fuel storage tanks, a number of bombs missed the target and hit the civilian populated areas of London. Seeing an opportunity, Churchill immediately ordered a “retaliatory” raid by the RAF against Berlin itself. So on the nights of August 25 and again on the night of August 29 the RAF bombed Berlin, sending Berliner’s scrambling for the bomb shelters and leaving a furious Hitler to explain to his populace how it came to pass that England was now bombing the center of The Third Reich.
To further inflame Hitler, Churchill went on the BBC at around that time to taunt Hitler, referring to him as “Herr Hitler” with derision. He said,
“It is quite plain that Herr Hitler could not admit defeat in his air attack on Great Britain without sustaining most serious injury. If after all his boastings and bloodcurdling threats and lurid accounts trumpeted round the world of the damage he has inflicted, of the vast numbers of our Air Force he has shot down, so he says, with so little loss to himself; if after tales of the panic-stricken British crushed in their holes cursing the plutocratic Parliament which has led them to such a plight-if after all this his whole air onslaught were forced after a while tamely to peter out, the Fuhrer’s reputation for veracity of statement might be seriously impugned.”
Churchill cleverly inserted a mocking reference to “panic-stricken British (people)”, hoping that Hitler would take the bait. Which he did. Hitler responded by canceling the attacks against British airfields and sending his bombers to terrorize the City of London and other civilian targets around England. As a result, the RAF was able to recover, repair its airfields and infrastructure and continue the fight.
And the rest, as they say, is history. All set off because of a well-timed schoolyard taunt.