Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Sample
  • Operation Sea Lion

  • An Account of the German Preparations and the British Counter-Measures
  • By: Peter Fleming
  • Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
  • Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (50 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Operation Sea Lion

By: Peter Fleming
Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
activate_samplebutton_t1

Listeners also enjoyed...

Red Dwarf cover art
Elizabethans cover art
The Traitor of Colditz cover art
What If? cover art
The Latter Days at Colditz cover art
A Brief History of the Third Reich: The Rise and Fall of the Nazis cover art
End of a Berlin Diary cover art
Other Side of the Night cover art
The Boer War cover art
The Longest Campaign cover art
Eyewitness 1900-1949 cover art

Summary

On 16 July 1940, Hitler issued Directive No. 16, setting in motion Operation Sea Lion: his plan to invade England. The success of Operation Sea Lion hinged entirely on the destruction of the RAF and the Royal Navy, but even as Hitler's plans swung into action and England, barely recovered from Dunkirk, rallied her defences, the Battle of Britain began and in just a few months Germany had lost all hope of dominating England's skies and with it, the key to the invasion. On 17 September, 1940, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely and the entire episode faded from memory. It would be another 17 years before Peter Fleming rescued the story from military archives and, together with the recollections of those involved, pieced together the dramatic preparations for what could have been one of the most significant and potentially world-changing battles in history.

Public Domain (P)2012 Audible Ltd
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about Operation Sea Lion

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    3
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    16
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A superb look at what was and what might have been

Fleming was Bond author Ian's brother, and the book dates back to a time sufficiently soon after the war that he could draw on a lot more eye-witness accounts than more recent books.

It's read by the amazingly prolific Gordon Griffin, who's done well over 600 audio books, and who has, to be fair, the perfect delivery to do Fleming's delightfully British prose justice, as well as slipping into a quite subtle German accent where necessary. I have to admit, I really enjoyed it - Fleming isn't a journalist per se, so you won't find this having the tone of something by, say, Max Hastings. He's very much a crafter of words, with some delightful turns of phrase and astute observations.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful