The Battle of Britain took place between August and September 1940. After the success of Blitzkrieg, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the surrender of France, Britain was by itself. The Battle of Britain remains as one of the most famous battles of World War II. Germans needed to control the English Channel to launce the invasion of Britain. They needed this control of the Channel so that the British Navy would not be able to attack her invasion barges which were scheduled to land on the Kent and Sussex beaches. At the start of the war the Germans had 4,000 aircraft compared to Britain's front-line strength of 1,660. By the time of the fall of France, the German Air force had 3,000 planes based in the north-west Europe. To control the channel the Germans needed control of the air, this meant that they had to take on Fighter Command led by the Royal Air Force.