In preparation for hostilities, the German submarine fleet deploys into the North Sea, sinking its first ship a few hours after the outbreak of war with BritainĬapture of the French Atlantic ports gives Germany easy access to the North and South Atlanticįirst ‘happy time’ of the U-boat arm as convoys sail with weak escorting forces Timeline: Germany and the Allies in the Atlantic New inventions came thick and fast, from the development of the cavity magnetron – which enabled the reduction in size of radar so that instead of vast masts it could be fitted onto a ship or aircraft – to rapid improvements in radio technology, stunning intelligence successes, and superbly orchestrated organisation. It was why, from the outset, Britain devoted so much of its energy to winning this most critical of battlegrounds. Read more about the Battle of the Atlantic In fact, there wouldn’t have been a D-Day.” “Had we lost the battle, we wouldn’t have had enough weapons – nor the industrial capacity to make weapons – and American troops would not have been able to get across for D-Day. “The Atlantic was the route by which all resources came to Britain, without which the country would have collapsed,” says Jonathan Dimbleby. The Battle of the Atlantic was vital to the outcome of the Second World War. The Battle of the Atlantic “was the longest, and perhaps strangest, clash of the Second World War” says GH Bennett, “one that would see British merchant seamen using kites and wire-carrying rockets in defence of their ships.” The campaign was a brutal one in which nearly 38,000 British sailors alone lost their lives, while a staggering 79 per cent of U-boat crewmen died. Yet, due in part to the fact that they were able to make better use of technical innovations than the enemy, from the middle of 1943 the Allies slowly gained the upper hand. The convoys of merchant ships were defended by a variety of armed escort vessels from makeshift ships like armed merchant cruisers and trawlers through to purpose-built corvettes, frigates and destroyers.įrom 1940 until 1943 the combat in the Atlantic hung in the balance. Against the sea lanes, upon which depended Britain’s ability to feed and maintain itself in the war, Germany deployed U-boat submarines, surface raiders, mines and aircraft, says historian GH Bennett. In a struggle for control of the sea lanes from Britain to the Americas, the Royal Navy and United States Navy were pitted against the German Kriegsmarine.
TOM HANKS SUBMARINE MOVIE SERIES
In March 1941 Winston Churchill coined the phrase ‘Battle of the Atlantic’ to describe a six-year series of battles that opened on 3 September 1939 and did not conclude until the last day of the war.
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