A stone marks the spot in New Forest, England, where King William II allegedly fell in battle in 1100. This spot may have been the location of a pagan ritual during World War II, in which a group of British witches attempted to place a “binding spell” keeping Adolf Hitler’s armies away from Britain. (Geograph Britain and Ireland/Helen Steed)

Operation ‘Cone of Power’: Did British Witches Keep Hitler from Crossing the English Channel?

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In August 1940, a group of 17 British pagans performed a days-long ritual intended to make Adolf Hitler believe he could not invade Britain. And Hitler never did.

The summer of 1940 saw the United Kingdom standing alone on the brink of defeat. Nazi tyrant Adolf Hitler had unleashed his armies on the West on May 10, conquering France and the Low Countries and driving the British from the European continent in less than a month. By August, Hitler ruled Western Europe and was casting his eyes across the English Channel. The Battle of Britain was about to begin.

Students of World War II know that Germany needed air superiority to launch any potential invasion force. The German Luftwaffe’s failure to rout the Royal Air Force (RAF) that summer and fall meant that any cross-Channel assault would have been an uphill battle. However, after the Nazis lost the Battle of Britain, Hitler—the consummate gambler who was riding an unprecedented five-year winning streak—never even tried the crossing. Why not?

Military historians have many sensible answers to that question. The RAF’s continued existence opened any amphibious operation to devastating attack from the air. The Royal Navy still commanded the waves, and the German Kriegsmarine was ill-equipped to challenge that supremacy, even with its vaunted U-boat fleet. And while Germany’s blitzkrieg attacks were the terror of the European continent, the navy had a near-complete lack of a coherent amphibious warfare doctrine, including the landing craft with which to execute Operation Sea Lion, the Nazis’ plan for a cross-Channel invasion. The best they had were a collection of Rhine River barges that........

© The National Interest