It is now generally accepted that the Battle of Britain constituted one of the first major turning points of World War 2. At its close, the hitherto seemingly invincible German Luftwaffe - victorious in Poland, Scandinavia, the Low Countries and France - had, for the first time, failed to achieve its assigned objectives: the neutralisation of the Royal Air Force (RAF), and the subsequent invasion and subjugation of England. The British have come to regard the Battle as having been 'officially' over, and won, by 31 October 1940. German aviation historians are less arbitrary. They consider the daylight operations (admittedly drastically reduced in scale) flown during the closing weeks of the year, and the attendant night Blitz, which continued well into the spring of 1941, as part and parcel of the same campaign. In their view, the ongoing aerial onslaught against Great Britain was only brought to a halt by Hitler's decision to shelve indefinitely his plans for a cross-Ghannel invasion, and turn his attention instead to other fronts: to the Mediterranean and the Balkans and, ultimately, to the east.
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