certainly not to be assessed in terms of shipping destroyed, as over the period a whole only 24,000 tons of merchant shipping were sunk in the Channel by aircraft. Between 10 July and 7 August thirteen merchant ships, totaling 38,000 tons, were mined and sunk round the coasts of Britain, most of them by mines laid by enemy aircraft. This was almost as much as was sunk by air attack; and it was obtained at a far smaller cost to the German Air Force. (James, T.C.G. The Battle of Britain. Great Britain: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000. 43).Ultimately, the attacks on the convoys and intercepting fighters were not a great success for either side. It showed that Britain had faults within their system of defense and intelligence. The Germans learned that, even with superior numbers, they would suffer great losses if they decided to fly over the English Channel and stayed to fight: Air supremacy is as much a product of morale as of material strength, and, that being so, Fighter Command had fared well in the July fighting(James 45). During phase one, the Luftwaffe lost nearly 200 aircraft and all of its downed crew while Britain suffered only half of that and one fourth of its downed pilots. The end of phase one came with a shift in tactics by the Germans: (Walker). The time of probing was at an end. If Hitler had any intention Britain he had to attack in the summer, and before he did, Fighter Command had to be destroyed. On 19 July Hitler made his last appeal to reason speech to the Reichstag but he should have known Britain would in no way contemplate surrender. Hitler was confident of victory, for in his hands was the latest intelligence report comparing the Luftwaffe strength with that of the RAF. In its conclusion it showed that the Luftwaffe was clearly superior to the RAF in strength, equipment, training and command. In the event of intensive air warfare the Luftwaffe would be in a position to achieve a decisive effect in 1940 in order to s...
