Operation Sea Lion (German: Unternehmen Seelöwe) was Nazi Germany's plan to invade the United Kingdom during the Second World War following the Fall of France. To have had any chance of success, however, the operation would have required air and naval supremacy over the English Channel - neither of which the Germans ever had at any stage during the Battle of Britain. Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940 and never carried out.
Read more about Operation Sea Lion: Background, Navy, Broad Versus Narrow Front, German Coastal Guns, Cancellation, Chances of Success, In Fiction
Famous quotes containing the words operation, sea and/or lion:
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“Ambition is a Dead Sea fruit, and the greatest peril to the soul is that one is likely to get precisely what he is seeking.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
“The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o’erpowered.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)