Osprey ACM 015 Battle of the Atlantic 1939 1941 RAF Coastal Command s hardest fight against the U boats By Mark Lardas True Pdf.pdf

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C A M P A I G N
A I R
BATTLE OF THE
ATLANTIC 1939–41
MARK LARDAS
|
RAF Coastal Command’s hardest fight
against the U-boats
I L LU S T R AT E D B Y E D O UA R D A . G R O U LT
A I R C A M PA I G N
BATTLE OF THE
ATLANTIC 1939–41
RAF Coastal Command’s hardest fight against the U-boats
MARK LARDAS
I LLUS TR ATED BY E DOUARD A. GR OU LT
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKERS’ CAPABILITIES
DEFENDERS’ CAPABILITIES
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
THE CAMPAIGN
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
FURTHER READING
INDEX
4
6
9
24
37
46
86
94
95
4
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
This blazing tanker should
not have happened
according to the
conventional thought of
the late 1930s, which
held that U-boats were
obsolete as a tool of trade
warfare. Convoys, ASDIC
and especially aircraft, it
was believed, had made
them so. (LOC)
‘The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the
U-boat peril.’
Winston Churchill,
Their Finest Hour
(The
Second World War
Volume 2)
History is always obvious in retrospect. Yet when occurring, its path is less certain. In
1938–39, no one really worried about the U-boat peril. Virtually all navies viewed submarines
as adjuncts to the battle fleet. They were to be used for scouting, and to attack enemy
warships prior to naval battles. The submarine was widely seen as an outdated weapon
against merchant shipping.
Britain believed convoys and ASDIC (what Britain called sonar) would neutralize the
submarine threat. Even in Germany the Kriegsmarine’s commander, Erich Raeder, considered
U-boats auxiliary to surface warships. They failed in World War I, and defences against them
had only improved since then. Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring believed U-boats
(and the rest of the Kriegsmarine) were superfluous. Aircraft could replace them. Only Karl
Dönitz, who commanded Germany’s U-boats, believed they were a war-winning weapon.
Everyone, except Dönitz and his submarine commanders, was surprised at the effectiveness
of the U-boat. Sonar proved less effective than the British believed it to be. Surface attack
made the U-boat invisible to sonar, especially at night. Wolf-pack tactics overwhelmed
convoy escorts. At the war’s end, Dönitz, who led the Kriegsmarine’s U-boat arm through
most of the war, was Nazi Germany’s commander-in-chief, a testimony to the role played
by the U-boat.
Politics kept Dönitz from unleashing his U-boats against Allied merchant shipping during
the first few months of the war. Initially, Adolf Hitler insisted Germany adhere to Article 22
of the 1930 London Naval Treaty, which required submarines to warn unarmed merchant
ships before sinking them (this became known as the London Submarine Protocol). Faulty
German torpedoes in the war’s first year further limited U-boat success. Even after Hitler
5
permitted unrestricted submarine warfare in August 1940, the limited number of available
U-boats during the ‘Happy Time’ that followed kept the damage they did within acceptable
levels for Britain and its allies. The U-boat had not proved the war-winning weapon Dönitz
hoped it would be during the first two years of the war.
Britain possessed the major piece of the solution to the U-boat peril right from the start
of the Battle of the Atlantic: the anti-submarine aircraft. Used assiduously and effectively
in the first months of the war, aircraft could have ended the Battle of the Atlantic in its
first year with Nazi Germany abandoning a U-boat campaign their top leaders had been
unenthusiastic about when the war started.
There was no more potent threat to U-boats than aircraft. If U-boats were barracudas,
slashing at schools of merchant ships, then aircraft were eagles, capable of ripping into a
barracuda from above and carrying it away. Even when aircraft could not attack, they could
observe their prey and call other hunters to the spot.
In World War I, aircraft contributed as much to defeating the U-boat as did arming
merchantmen and convoys. Aircraft forced U-boats to submerge, limiting mobility and
destroying their effectiveness. It was the main reason everyone assumed the U-boat was
outdated. Aircraft in 1914–18 were primitive, barely able to stay aloft, but by the 1930s the
wood and canvas kites had been replaced by all-metal monoplanes capable of carrying a ton
or more of weapons.
Britain’s leaders bungled this opportunity, failing to build an adequate aerial anti-submarine
capability. There were too few aircraft assigned to carry out maritime patrols; most of those
Karl Dönitz was a captain
when 1939 began. By the
war’s end he was a
Grossadmiral (Admiral of
the Fleet) and became
Hitler’s successor, largely
because of his skill at doing
what was considered
impossible: using the
U-boat against British
merchant shipping. (AC)

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