Hitler’s forces were stretched thin and unprepared for such an endeavor, but the confidence of Luftwaffe (the German air force) head Hermann Göring seemed to win the day. The stage was set, then, for the Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Luftwaffe squared off for that crucial control of the skies (there could be no landing on British soil without air supremacy).

As History reports, Göring fully expected to wipe out British resistance swiftly and decisively. As it was, though, his Luftwaffe struggled vainly to wrest control of the skies from the RAF for months, losing over 1,700 planes (around twice as many as the British forces) in the attempt. The protracted conflict consisted almost exclusively of airborne warfare and dogfighting between some very iconic aircraft: bombers, the British Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes against the Messerschmitt Bf109s the German pilots brought to battle.

As per War History Online, the Battle of Britain did not mark the first use of fighter planes in warfare. They were deployed in World War I and actually first used before that, during the Mexican Civil War. This campaign (which ended in German defeat in October of that year and things gradually beginning to go pear-shaped for Hitler’s forces elsewhere), however, was a world first for being almost entirely air-based.