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 Introduction
@ As an island Britain needed to bring in a vast amount of
food and military equipment to survive the war.
@ The German submarine force (U-boats) severely
damaged the ability to survive the war - hence
Churchill·s quote above when he feared Britain would
starved out of the war.
@ A great deal of the raw materials came from America
and therefore had to cross the Atlantic. In normal times
this journey could be hazardous because of the
weather but in the war the German submarines lead by
Admiral Raeder proved a very real threat. Nazi
Germany estimated that they needed to sink 150
merchant ships each month to starve Britain out.
@ German submarines hunted in what were called
 . British supply ships crossed in
  and the ships that brought in the food
etc. were slow and they could barely protect
themselves.
@ After leaving America they were reasonably safe
while in American water and they were also
more safe when they approached British waters
as they got fighter plane cover. It was in the
mid-Atlantic that they were most vulnerable as
the U-boats would run riot.
@ German submarines had direct access to
the Atlantic once France had fallen in the
spring of 1940. Massive submarine pens
were built near Bordeaux.
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@ The fall of France allowed U-Boats to operate far into the
Atlantic from French ports. Nazi shipyards produced about
20 new U-boats a months, and British merchant shipping losses
grew.
@ After summer 1940, the U-boats attacked in large ¶wolf-packs·
² when a U-boat came across a convoy, it would radio its
position to a number of other submarines, which would close
in on the convoy.
@ Then they would wait until nightfall and make surface attacks in
numbers. On 18 October 1940, a pack of 6 Nazi U-boats
attacked slow convoy SC²7, sinking 15 ships in 6 hours.
@ Next day, reinforced by three more U-boats, the pack attacked
the 49-ship convoy HX-79, sinking 12 ships in one night.
@ The Royal Navy did not have enough ships to protect the
convoys properly. In November 1940 convoy HX²84 (37
ships escorted only by the armed merchant cruiser HMS [

), was attacked by the Nazi battleship

 
.
Completely outgunned (her shells did not even reach the Nazi
ship) the [
 attacked the

 
to give the
convoy time to escape ² the [
 and five merchant ships
were sunk.
@ The USA tried to help Britain. In August 1940 the US gave
Britain 50 destroyers in exchange for Atlantic naval bases, and,
after August 1941, by an agreement called the 


which Roosevelt made with Churchill, convoys were defended
by the US Navy. It had little effect. Losses were huge.
@ The worst period was from the beginning of 1942 to March
1943 when 7 million tons of merchant shipping was sunk. In
July 1942, 143 ships were sunk in a single month, and in
November 1942, 117 ships were lost.
1st Phase - September 1939 to Fall of France
@ Doenitz had 57 subs; British had radar, asdic (location
fixed by time of return "ping")
@ Sept. 3 - U30 sank British liner   - 1st sinking of the
war by a German Unterseeboot ("U-boat")
@ Sept. 5 - Gunther Prien, "Bull of Scapa Flow", sank the
 1st cargo ship sunk in war
@ Sept. 6 - 1st convoy - 36 ships in 9 parallel rows of 4
each, 1 escort in front, left, right
@ Oct. 11 ² SS-Iroquois arrived safely in New York.
@ May 5, 1940 - Germany captured HMS  codes for
Bdienst; copied its torpedo design
Doenitz had 21 operational subs and began wolf-
wolf-
packs; British increased escort ships to 375
@ June 22 - fall of France; 1st sub base at Lorient
operated July 6, construction began of thick
concrete pens to protect subs from air attack
@ Aug. 17 - Hitler proclaimed total blockade of
England to all shipping
@ Oct 18-19 - wolf-pack of 6 subs sank 36 of 79 in
2 convoys - 2 worst days of war
@ Oct. - "The Happy Time" for subs - record
average sinking of 60,000 tons per month per sub
@ March 11, 1941 - Lend-lease approved; North
Atlantic route became most important

 
@ Eight things helped the Allies to stop the U-boat menace
@ The work of the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park
in deciphering the German - code was vital in
giving the Allied navies the edge in the Battle of the
Atlantic.
@ In February 1942, however, the German code was
improved, resulting in ¶the Drumbeat crisis· when
shipping losses were their greatest ² until March 1943,
when the German code was again broken.
@ Sonar had been invented before World War I, but after
1942 the US Navy Department developed ¶console
sonar· which could plot accurate bearings using an echo
¶ping·. Training of sonar operators was also improved.
@ Radar was improved so that U-boats could even be
detected in bad weather.
@ The British developed HF/DF (¶huff-duff·), whereby
U-boats· positions could be worked out from their
radio transmissions.
@ Six aircraft carriers were sent to patrol the Atlantic,
and this extended air cover to the whole route
convoys took.
@ Air depth-bombs were developed so that planes
could attack U-boats under the water.
@ Weapons called ÿ
  and 
were developed
which allowed attack ships to catapult depth-charges
up to 300 yards in front of the ship.
@ The Allies set up hunter-killer groups of ships,
including one aircraft carrier with a number of
destroyer escorts, to hunt down and sink U-boats
@ The turning point was slow Convoy ONS²5
(April²May 1943), when a convoy of 43
merchantmen escorted by 2 destroyers and a
frigate was attacked by a wolf-pack of 30 U-boats.
@ Although 13 merchant ships were sunk, the U-
Boats were detected by HF/DF, six U-boats were
sunk by patrol-boats or Allied aircraft and ²
despite a storm which scattered the convoy ² the
merchantmen reached the protection of land-
based air cover causing Admiral Dönitz to call off
the attack.
@ It was the end of the U-Boat menace ² 37 U-Boats
were lost in May 1943, and 34 in July. The RAF
was able to intercept and sink many U-boats as
they left harbour. The Nazis gave their U-boats
better anti-aircraft guns, and invented a device
called Snorkel (which allowed U-Boats to refresh
their air without surfacing).
@ ¶Bottoming· tactics allowed U-boats to avoid
detection from sonar and radar. However, after
May 1943, the U-boats were on the defensive, and
Allied shipping losses fell significantly.
@ Nevertheless, it must be questioned whether the
Allies ¶won· the Battle of the Atlantic ² between
1939 and 1945, 2,753 Allied ships were sunk (gross
tonnage 14.5 million) at a cost of 783 Nazi U-
boats.
%
 &

@ In May 1931 the British captured the U-
100, including an - code machine,
which helped the British codebreakers at
Bletchley Park to decipher the Nazi's
- code.
@ Again, in October 1942, the British
captured the U-559 in the Mediterranean
with a code book that helped the British to
break the new Nazi ¶Triton· cipher.
 3rd Phase - April 1941 to Pearl
Harbor
@ Doenitz fleet grew to 249 subs with 35
operational; British Ultra cracked sub codes, a
triumph of WW2 code breaking; "Ultra and
the Campaign against the German U-boat´

@ Apr. 11 - U.S. destroyer K fired 1st U.S.

shot in the war, in widened Security Zone.
@ Apr. 17 - Neutral Egyptian freighter A A
sunk by German cruiser Atlantic, 138
Americans rescued.
@ May 9 - British destroyer 
 south of
Iceland captured U-110 sub and its
Enigma machine
June 20 - FDR speech on the 

sunk by U-69 May 21; sub 0-9 lost in
accident
May 27 - HX129 convoy first to be
escorted "end-to-end" across Atlantic;
Canadian Navy joins
@ July 1 - FDR includes Iceland in the security zone,
sends marines, crosses the threshold to
undeclared naval war in the Atlantic
@ Aug. 1 - first convoy to Murmansk - Atlantic
route doubly important, helped Russians and
British
@ Sept. 16 - HX150 from Halifax was the first
convoy with American escorts to Iceland
@ Oct. 19 - SS r  sunk off African coast by U-
126
@ Oct. 31 - U.S. destroyer   [  sunk
@ Dec. 7 - U.S. built Audacity-class escort carriers,
Liberty ships, B-24 with 24 depth charges