his accidental bombing of London gave Churchill the excuse to change his tactics. He ordered a bomber command who had been commissioned to drop leaflets over Germany to load up with bombs and head for Berlin. Goering said that if Berlin were ever bombed, people could call him Meier, which was used in a derogatory sense by the Germans as it referred to Jews. On August 26, Churchills bombers unloaded their reprisal bombs on Berlin in the early hours of the morning. The RAF continued to bomb Berlin for a week straight until Hitler finally caved in and ordered a change of tactics. The Luftwaffe was to concentrate on the bombing of London as a prelude to Operation Sealion (Mosley 117-119). With that, the effective strategies employed by the Luftwaffe in the beginning of phase two were abandoned to settle the score: the capital of Great Britain was to be destroyed.The Battle of Britains third phase consisted of concentrated bombings of the civilian population and forcing British fighters to engage in the air. Along with daytime bombings, Germany coupled nighttime bombings on London and other major industrial centers and ports, such as Liverpool to compliment their daily raids (Bickers 108). On September 7 1940, Germany ordered the bomb attack that was expected by everyone except the RAF:100 plus Nazi bombers and 300 Nazi fighters were on their way over. RAF fighters were sent to intercept as the Nazi squadrons split, as they always did. Different squadrons heading for different targets. Dowding suddenly thought, what if they didnt split up and came en masse. There would be no fighters to stop them; the path to London would be wide open. Thats funny, said Robert Wright. They dont seem to be splitting up, do they? (Mosley 130-131).The daylight bombing of London did a great amount of damage. This damage was coupled with a bombing that night. This brought the amount of civilians killed or seriously injured to about 2,000 total in the two bombings...
