On September 4, Hitler used a Berlin Sportpalast appearance for the Winter Relief campaign to answer recent RAF attacks on Germany. He denounced Churchill’s night bombing as cowardly, claimed he had shown restraint, and then promised retaliation on a far greater scale, threatening to raze British cities and boasting that Germany would not break. He also mocked British questions about invasion with the taunt, "He’s coming," turning the speech into a public declaration of escalation.

The speech drew frenzied approval from the audience, and the threat was immediately echoed by events. That same night, Churchill’s reply was another RAF bomb on Berlin, which struck the Tiergarten and killed a policeman. The exchange underscored that the conflict had shifted decisively toward reciprocal attacks on cities.

Meanwhile, at Carinhall, Göring and Luftwaffe commanders finalized a tightly organized plan for the destruction of London. They scheduled an opening raid at 6:00 p.m. and the main blow at 6:40 p.m. on September 7, 1940, intending the first wave to lure RAF fighters up so that the main bomber force would arrive when British defenders were low on fuel and ammunition. The operation emphasized maximum concentration, direct routes, and carefully managed return paths to avoid collisions, as much to prove Luftwaffe coordination as to devastate the city. Göring was confident enough to tell Goebbels the war would end within three weeks.

The chapter then explains how German bombing methods were evolving. Knickebein, the simpler beam-navigation system, was becoming unreliable because British countermeasures appeared to be distorting or disrupting it, as shown by a badly degraded Liverpool raid. In response, the Luftwaffe relied on the more secret and precise X-Verfahren system and on the specially trained pathfinder unit KGr 100, whose black-painted bombers could mark targets with incendiaries and explosives for the main force. By expanding KGr 100’s operating zone to London, the Germans prepared the technical means for the coming assault.