[Closed] WWII Invasion

Germany sent a number of spies over, as far as I recall they were all caught and turned, they then provided false information back to Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-Cross_System

For some great reading on the spy stories of WWII, check out Ben McIntyre books. As far as I know the German spies were not very successful.

Interesting question. IANAH but I don't think there were any raids on the UK.

Britain was raiding France etc (largely) because we wanted to get involved in the land war in Europe to be seen to be doing something but didn't have the capacity to do a proper invasion. Germany were plenty involved in the landwar so didn't really have a motive to raid.

I'm hoping someone who knows about this stuff can correct me.

As far as I know the German spies were not very successful.

This guy says otherwise:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DPCJP2B/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

...but he is wrong, and you are right.

Wasn’t there a landing of a few (less than a dozen, perhaps) people in Norfolk or Suffolk? And, of course, the Channel Islands were occupied for a few years. Britain wasn’t invaded because the Luftwaffe didn’t achieve air superiority in time - it was reckoned that 15 September was the latest the invasion could take place and the RAF (Battle of Britain) held out long enough. Then Hitler turned his attention to Russia.

I think they tried the commando type raids the allies did, but they were a disaster. I seem to remember a landing on the South Coast somewhere, but they were wiped out? Cannot remember where, just remember seeing it on one of those WWII documentaries.

Didn’t a group of German paratroopers take an East Anglian village with the help of an Irishman?
They killed a Churchill impersonator instead of the real thing.
I’m sure I saw a documentary about it...

Britain wasn’t invaded because the Luftwaffe didn’t achieve air superiority in time

Nah, the invasion of Britain in 1940 was, to a large degree, bluff to get us to give up and come to terms, which we nearly did.

A successful invasion was never on the cards even if Germany had got Air Superiority. They didn't have adequate landing craft for troops, they didn't have any way to land tanks and the Navy would have been very effective at stopping whatever invasion force came at us. Germany would never have successfully invaded.

Of course, we didn't know that at the time. Must have been quite tense!

Didn’t a group of German paratroopers take an East Anglian village with the help of an Irishman?
They killed a Churchill impersonator instead of the real thing.
I’m sure I saw a documentary about it…

😀

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)

Slapton Sands

Wasn't Slapton where the Uboats came in when US troops were in the boats training for D-day and sunk many of them?

E boats, not u boats but yes. Operation Tiger also had up to 450 yanks killed in a friendly fire incident.

We were invaded by cyclists (link) in the late 1930s; the motoring population is clearly suspicious today and issuing challenges at every opportunity
There were plenty of young British women in Germany at finishing schools even as Hitler was beginning to annex Austria and invade. Unity Mitford was one example, but I wouldn't be surprised if others had sympathy with Germany when they returned here
German invasion plans for Britain used 1930s postcards to plan landing sites, which IMHO has led to the comedy element that we perceive today

This guy says otherwise:

Mostly that book is about how many German spies were successfully captured by MI5, and the sorts of underhand tactics they used, and highlights the differences in treatment in you were a aristo sppy or a working class spy. There is a story in there about an attempted coup d'etat...which was exposed, and the people planning it; hanged.

so

As far as I know the German spies were not very successful.

Is still pretty largley true...

A couple of interesting podcasts here;

Hunting Britain’s Nazis by History Extra podcast
https://player.fm/1tpEuS #nowplaying

The good war? by History Extra podcast
https://player.fm/1svntj #nowplaying

Peter Hitchins doesn't believe there was ever a concrete plan to invade the UK.

Is still pretty largley true…

Yup, which is why I said:

…but he is wrong, and you are right.

A couple of interesting podcasts here;

Hunting Britain’s Nazis by History Extra podcast
https://player.fm/1tpEuS #nowplaying

The good war? by History Extra podcast
https://player.fm/1svntj #nowplaying

Peter Hitchins doesn’t believe there was ever a concrete plan to invade the UK.

Listened to both and enjoyed both when they came out and agree they are well worth a listen. But both are pretty misleading.

- Germany had little sympathy in the UK once WW2 broke out and no useful spy network.

- WW2 *Was* about as close as you get get to a just war from the UK perspective whatever bad stuff 'we' did.

Hitchins and Tate have cherry picked a few outliers to make the opposite case and it's fun to go through that mental experiment and will sell books, but they're wrong.

ah, apologies outofbreath I thought you were being sarcastic!

ah, apologies outofbreath I thought you were being sarcastic!

I should be apologising - re-reading it that post was far from clear!

I actually thought of that Lister when I started to read the thread 🙂

My old man was in bomb disposal, as it was called back then - he was really p***ed off after the war because he had to stay on for 2 years to demine the beaches (which had been heavily mined in 1940) when he wanted to get on with his life. He also said his least favourite part of the job was recovering the bodies of sailors washed up on the beaches after being torpedoed, some of which had been in the water for a very long time..

I've been interested in this sort of thing for years after living near Shingle Street in Suffolk - there was allegedly an attempted landing there that was repelled by setting the sea on fire with petrol. It's a pretty remote and bleak spot and it's easy to imagine something happening there, but the story has largely been debunked. The secret files on something that did occur there have been withheld until 2021 I think, but nobody seems to think it will reveal anything exciting, and certainly not an invasion attempt..

I read about something on the Isle of Wight, a raid on Ventnor radar base possibly. But again it's all a bit flaky and to be honest anything that did happen there or elsewhere has probably been suppressed. Or just made up. Years ago I went out with a lass whose old man was a big fish in the British WW2 deception projects. How you make head or tale now of what's true and what isn't I have no idea.

Personally I suspect there were small infiltration's, probably from submarine/eboat type vessels. The endless west of scotland coast line would be likely and there was obviously naval interest there. But recce/spying stuff, not shooting raids. Or literally to just put boots on the ground. One of the good points made about the allied D Day landings was the enormous amount of preparations made to ensure it worked as well as possible. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of that being carried out by the Nazis, which does make you wonder A. Were they serious? and B. Were they naive to think they could pull it off without them?

One of the good points made about the allied D Day landings was the enormous amount of preparations made to ensure it worked as well as possible. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence of that being carried out by the Nazis, which does make you wonder A. Were they serious? and B. Were they naive to think they could pull it off without them?

The question regarding the real intent regarding Operation Sealion and if they really intended to invade comes up a lot.
I think they were serious in 1940, hence a lot of work converting barges, developing swimming tanks etc. However, once they had failed to defeat the RAF, they knew it wouldn't succeed.

However, comparing it with the preparations for D-Day isn't really like for like. The Germans had large forces deployed in heavily fortified positions on the "Atlantic Wall". The British Army in 1940 was a mess. The had virtually no heavy equipment. Also, just compare the pillboxes built in the 1940 to the huge things the Germans built on the French and Dutch coast. It would not of taken anywhere near the Force required in Normandy to make a successful landing in 1940 UK.

Luckily we did have the RN and RAF to prevent the Germans from moving a large force across the Channel.

Not evidence of invasion perhaps but evidence of plans - my Grandfather brought home a number of maps from the tidying up at the end of WW2. They were printed on the only paper the French printers had available, which was the reverse of the maps the Germans had had them print for the invasion of the UK:

Regarding Sea Lion. I guess only Hitler would know for sure if Sea Lion was Bluff or serious. I think we'd all agree it must have been a combination of both - the debate is over what the ratio my guess is it was mainly bluff.

Regarding whether Germany would have been successful invading the UK, I'm pretty sure they would have been unsuccessful, and most Historians would argue that. However, you can equally prove on paper that Germany couldn't possibly have beaten the greatly militarily superior France or successfully invaded Norway - and they did.

The German's believed their own propaganda, they thought they were unbeatable and in the early days most of their opponents believed the same. That allowed them to do plenty of stuff that was, on paper, impossible. Why not invading the UK?

Interesting Podcast here about the likely success of an attempted invasion of Britain. Whether you agree with his conclusion or not the reasoning is very interesting:
http://ww2podcast.com/ww2-podcast/operation-sea-lion-the-invasion-of-britain/

a lot of work converting barges

Of course the people doing the preparations wouldn't know it was potentially a bluff. The Generals downwards would be assuming it was real and would be making real preparations. Britain wouldn't have known it was a bluff either. Having said all that I think a lot of the 'stop lines' we see all around the South would have been totally ineffective and were placed there much more to reassure that public than to be militarily useful. (IIRC the campaign in Poland had already shown that 'anti tank islands' were far more effective than stop lines.)

there was a possible small window of opportunity immediately after the fall of france where an airborne invasion may have succeeded in achieving a workable "bridgehead" but it would have been exceedingly risky undertaking and the window was very short lived. After that Sea Lion was a non starter bluff or not. No Navy, no ap bomb that could penetrate the deck armour of our Capital ships and no torpedo carrying aircraft meant the home fleet would have hoved into the channel and battered jerry.

Operation Tiger was a disaster. An acquaintance of mine who lives near Start Point was involved in an event involving local school kids several years ago to commemorate Tiger, and he managed to locate a survivor of it in the States and flew him over. There is a Sherman tank on a plinth that was brought up from the seabed by a local diver who located it back in the 80’s I believe. It’s a sobering reminder of how many men were lost.

Huge amount of detail about it all here:

http://ww2podcast.com/ww2-podcast/the-forgotten-dead-exercise-tiger/

I think it's widely accepted that Hitler never really wanted to go to war with UK. He was mainly interested in land to the East and he would have been quite happy to make peace with us and leave him free to take on the Russians.

Don't forget Rudolph Hess flew to try and sort something out. OK he wasn't believed and was a bit of a fantasist, but he came believing that he was doing Hitler's bidding.

The invasion of France is widely reckoned to be a pre-emptive strike to remove potential trouble from his Western border leaving him free to concentrate on the Eastern Front.

Ben Macintyre has written a series of excellent books about the war time spy game. He is of the opinion that any German spies who reached this country were either turned into working for us, or jailed and in some cases executed. His conclusion is that there was no significant German presence in this country. His books are well worth reading.

The invasion of France is widely reckoned to be a pre-emptive strike to remove potential trouble from his Western border leaving him free to concentrate on the Eastern Front.

the germans were really quite surprised how quickly they won the Battle of France, they were fully expecting ww1 mk2, probably partly why they hesitated when they got to the channel.

And there was the still largely unexplained friendship between the Duke of Windsor, aka the abdicated King Edward VIII, and Hitler. They were reportedly on good terms. What exactly went on there has not been disclosed, and may never be.

probably partly why they hesitated when they got to the channel.

That's my understanding. They were astonished at how well they'd done, well aware of how over extended they were and expecting a trap.

As Churchill said at the time "The tortoise's head is out of it's shell, time to cut it's head off." (I'm paraphrasing.)

It's astonishing that Germany didn't lose WW2 then, and equally astonishing that they ever got across the Meuse in the first place. If you were looking at it on paper there should have been no WW2, it should have been Germany making an abortive attempt at breaking into France, getting their arse kicked being put right back in their box.

(I am not a historian BTW, just listen to a lot of podcasts. So take my opinions with a large pinch of salt!)

Of course for some unexplained reason Hitler decided to open up a second front in the East before he had consolidated his position in France. Totally against the Ribentrop/Molotov agreement. Caught everyone by surprise.

German spies weren't successful because they were easily identifiable by the fact they pronounced Ws as Vs and were confused by British social conventions, such as which plate one should use for one's bread at a banquet, or how to eat asparagus when in the presence of royalty.

JP

Read an interesting tale "where the eagle landed" (IIRC) where claims of a small-scale landing (and abandoned kit) suggest Suffolk(?) coastline was being recce'd as part of Sealion planning

Jeez JP I think I may have ended up being shot as a German spy 😂

However, you can equally prove on paper that Germany couldn’t possibly have beaten the greatly militarily superior France

Colonel Charles de Gaulle (yes, that one) said that France needed vehicles, tanks, aircraft and a smaller well-trained army to concentrate forces, rather than a larger reservist-backed army as had been the case in WW1. His bosses didn't listen, but Heinz Guderian did

On the subject of invasion plans and artefacts
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/map-fetishists-assemble-the-story-of-the-soviet-map-makers/