On Tuesday 4 November 2025 at 12pm, Dr Seb Ritchie will be considering the role of Air Power in the capture of Walcheren Island. This lecture will be hosted virtually via Crowdcast and livestreamed from the RAF Museum's London site.

[Image Credit: Air Historical Branch (RAF)]

In September 1944, the armies of the western Allies were advancing into the Low Countries and northern France towards the frontiers of Hitler’s Reich; but with their supply lines extending back to the Normandy beaches, logistics soon became a critical constraint on their progress. On 4 September, British forces captured Antwerp, then the largest port in Europe. However, shipping access to Antwerp required control of the Scheldt estuary, and dominating the mouth of the estuary was the Dutch island of Walcheren, one of the most heavily defended parts of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. Ultimately, Allied amphibious landings mounted under the operation name INFATUATE overwhelmed the German garrison on Walcheren, but their success depended critically on air power. This presentation considers the role of the RAF in the capture of Walcheren. It examines how the Atlantic Wall was targeted before the landings, and the role of close air support during INFATUATE. Most of all, it describes how Bomber Command struck Walcheren’s perimeter sea defences to flood the low-lying interior of the island and shatter the cohesion of the defending German forces.

Dr Seb Ritchie is the Head of the Air Historical Branch (RAF) of the Ministry of Defence. He obtained his PhD from King’s College, London, in 1994 and lectured at the University of Manchester before joining the Air Historical Branch. He is the author of a number of official histories covering RAF operations in Iraq, the Former Yugoslavia, Libya and Afghanistan, and has also lectured and published widely on aspects of air power and air operations, as well as airborne operations, in the Second World War and post-war periods. His published books include Industry and Air Power (1997), Arnhem: Myth and Reality (2011), and The RAF, Small Wars and Insurgencies (two volumes, 2011), The RAF and Airfield Air Defence since 1933 (2023), and multiple studies of RAF operations in the post-Cold War era.

Lunchtime Lecture (London): Air Power and the Capture of Walcheren Island, September to November 1944