We March Against England

Operation Sea Lion, 1940–41

By: Robert Forczyk

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

In May 1940, Nazi Germany was master of continental Europe. The only European power still standing was Great Britain - and the all-conquering German armed forces stood poised to cross the Channel. Following the destruction of the RAF fighter forces, the sweeping of the Channel of mines, and the wearing down of the Royal Naval defenders, two German army groups were set to storm the beaches of southern England. Despite near-constant British fears from August to October, the invasion never took place after first being postponed to spring 1941 before finally being abandoned entirely.

Robert Forczyk, author of Where the Iron Crosses Grow, looks beyond the traditional British account of Operation Sea Lion, complete with plucky Home Guards and courageous Spitfire pilots, at the real scale of German ambition, plans, and capabilities. He examines, in depth, how Operation Sea Lion fitted in with German air-sea actions around the British Isles as he shows exactly what stopped Hitler from invading Britain.

©2016 Robert Forczyk (P)2016 Tantor

Splendid

Well-written and enlightening. Excellent perspective on the entire early war-including persuasive scenarios for how an invasion of England may have affected the war.

If ww II interests you, download it now. Excellent reader as well.

There’s Good And Bad Here

As a relative novice to Sealion, I learned a lot listening to this book and I purchased it as an ebook for future reference. There’s a lot of bloat, though. Entire chapters are devoted to matters connected to Sealion only due to the timeframe in which they occurred and the fact they involved Germany vs UK. That’s forgivable. What isn’t forgivable is the narrator’s insistence on referring to “the World War I” and “the World War II.” Every. Single. Time. It was so annoying that I actually went to the ebook to see if that’s the way the author wrote it. He did not. While it didn’t completely ruin the audiobook for me, it certainly made for some irritating moments.

One of the best histories out.

This is a well researched, thought provoking look at the possible German invasion of Britain. Loved it.

Not convinced

Lots of good information but author insists that German army was invincible and Brits were pathetic. He never convinced me that the Germans could land 9 division with a few ships and rubber boats. We don’t know because the Germans never tried it. It doesn’t matter how swell your army is if you can’t get across the English Channel. The author compares a German landing in England to a wide river crossing which I think is silly.

Excellent analysis

Shows how the drunkard Churchill and the dim wit Roosevelt were controlled by zog to manipulate the us people into ww2. Too bad Germany did not invade and solved the problems we suffer now.

Good analysis and included the Churchill plans to use chemical weapons.

horrible narration

a great book that was massacred by the narrator. should not be allowed to destroy listening experiences in future. I personally have nothing against narrator, but when I buy an audio book, I expect a good experience

pro Polish bias and omniscient Forczyk

As Is his pitiful custom, Forczyk fills his otherwise interesting book with pro-polish bias such as "Britain had in 1940 still one important ally - Poland" and annoying critique of everything Churchill and other ally leaders (except the Polish) did. Benefit of hindsight does not bother him at all, he is so full of himself, that he could have won WWI and WWII singlehandedly. Also the Sealion makes only small portion of the book.

Singular

Allow me to summarize the book.... If another historian wrote something, it is probably wrong. And if a WWII leader did it, it was almost certainly stupid. If only Forcyzk had been there, many many "ridiculous" errors could have been avoided.

The author devotes a good deal of time to statistics, and I might have given it 2 stars since I will assume those are accurate. However the author lost even this when his primary conclusion is that Churchill made a major strategic mistake by standing up to Hitler instead of cutting a deal with him. Because.... you know.... nothing bad could have come out of that.

I give it a 3.

Book provided information I didn't know. In my opinion, too much of the book deals with subjects that have nothing to do with Sealion. Narrator is obviously fluent in German, but I think it detracts from his reading of the book.