July 14, 1940. S-Day. The worst fears of British Intelligence become reality. Hitler's Wehrmacht has crossed the English Channel during the night, and German paratroopers have landed in force on English soil. Operation 'SeaLion', the Nazi invasion of Britian, has begun. The British Armed Forces, still reeling from the fall of France and the disaster at Dunkirk, hastily prepare to meet the invaders.
July 15 to 24, 1940. British and Australian counterattacks, culminating in the fateful Battle of Maidstone on July 23, are unsuccessful. July 24, German Panzers and infantry lay siege to London, and General Sir Edmund Ironside, Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Forces, admits defeat to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and resigns.
July 27, 1940. The Royal family departs London for Delhi, and the Royal Navy begins to quietly disengage and retreat to embarkation ports in the North and West of England, in preparation for withdrawal of the Government and negotiable items to safety.
August 2, 1940. The Armistice is signed, and Churchill and the British Government depart for exile in the Bahamas.
England has fallen for the first time in almost 1,000 years. Newfoundland, barely beginning to realize its importance as a naval station, garrison, and waypoint for supplies and material destined for England, suddenly finds itself on the front line of a war that the British have vowed to continue.
