Operation Sealion: Hitler's Invasion Plan for Britain: Hitler’s Invasion Plan for Britain

by David Wragg

During the Summer of 1940, Hitler’s Germany appeared unstoppable. The Nazis were masters of mainland Europe, in alliance with Stalin’s Russia and only the English Channel prevented an immediate invasion.

Britain stood alone. The BEF had been routed but, due to the ‘Dunkirk miracle’, most of her manpower had returned albeit without their transport and heavy equipment and guns. There was no doubt that the Nazis planned to invade – all intelligence pointed that way. In the event it never materialized, thanks to the outcome of the Battle of Britain and Hitler’s decision to invade Russia.

Operation SEALION examines just how realistic the German threat of invasion was. The author studies the plans, the available capability and resources, the Germans’ record in Norway and later Crete. The author weighs these against the state of Britain’s defenses and the relative strengths of the land, air and particularly naval forces.

The result is a fascinating study of what might or might not have been.

Genres: History, Audiobook, War

256 pages, Hardcover

Published July 17, 2018

Reviews

[Daniel M Cousineau · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rambling pastiche and some outdated information

The focus is on the planned sea invasion of Britain
Yet a full chapter on Barbarossa and William the conqueror add many pages but no value to the book
In 2012 the 70 year seal on the Dieppe raid plans and motives were released - the raid was to capture enigma machines and code books as planned by Commander Fleming and a large scale raid was required to mask the real intention from the Germans - but prior to 2012 the Allies maintained the fiction that Dieppe was a test dress rehearsal of a landing
Yet this book was released in 2018 and is in the dark about the truth on Dieppe

Very disappointing in the end

[Ed Wijninga · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very dissapointing. Apart from the fact that the author does not delve deep enough in the German plans for Sea Lion and the discussions that were held by component commanders and Hitler, the author also writes extensively about the rest of the Blitzkrieg which is hardly relevant in the context of this book. He also compares Sea Lion with Overlord, 4 years later, which is an incorrect comparison as Overlord was the product of years of development based on experiences during the war.