The US Land Forever Leased to England

bbc ^ | July 12, 2019 | Brian Carlton

[bgill]

While the US was officially neutral, Germany couldn’t openly attack the ships leaving East Coast ports with these supplies. That changed in December 1941, when Germany and Japan declared war on the United States. One month later, the U-boats arrived on the East Coast and started targeting ships right off Ocracoke.

“On the North Carolina coast, you have its Diamond Shoals, sandbars that ships want to avoid,” said Dr Frank Blazich, lead curator of military history for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. “Ships would be hugging the coast and then shooting out to avoid the shoals, which made for a perfect chokepoint. The U-boats could hide and just have a field day, firing away.”

And fire away they did. In January 1942 alone, U-boats sank 35 Allied ships off the East Coast. To put that in perspective, an average ship leaving the US carried enough supplies to feed England for more than a day, according to Dr Schwarzer. When you add up just those 35 ships lost in January 1942, it would have been more than enough to feed England for a month.

[hanamizu]

Shouldn’t it have been, “Keep rockers crean’?

---

Logic says yes, but they got the ‘L’ in clean. Maybe because they were a lot more familiar with the word clean as opposed to locker.

http://www.engrish.com is a fun place to waste some time.

[Celtic Conservative]

Hitler didn’t know the first thing about naval warfare and other than the wolfpack subs could not be bothered to care. I believe the Bismarck was to be named for him, but it was changed “just in case it was sunk” and thus besmirch his holy name.

CC

[crz]

These Merchant Marine sailors are not given enough recognition IMO.

They sailed knowing full well that they had a very good chance of never getting to shore.

If their ship was sunk, they were nearly always left behind to die. The convoy never stopped.

Wanna talk about brave men? These were brave men. Without them, the war would have been lost.

[MacNaughton]

Same here at the Oakwood Annex Cemetery in Montgomery, AL, where RAF trainees who perished at Maxwell AFB are interred a short distance from the grave of Hank Williams Sr. and his wife.

[bravo whiskey]

There is a merchant marine cemetery at Ft Stanton in NM near Lincoln and Ruidoso.
Bismarck had poor AA too. Instead of dual purpose like we had with 5” guns they had separate secondary surface weapons and FLAK.
if Adm King had started running convoys DRUMBEAT would have turned out differently. But convoys were a British suggestion and he did not like the Brits or most anybody else for that matter.

[colorado tanker]

The Battle of Los Angeles inspired one of Spielberg’s early movies, 1941. A rather forgettable movie, unfortunately.

[Oatka]

I was eight years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked - too little to remember that or much of WWII. I did remember when the New Jersey seacoast was closed for “national defense”. Even as a kid I wondered why. My dad worked at a seaman’s YMCA in NYC and said the guys were telling him the government closed the beaches so people wouldn’t see all the bodies floating ashore.

The coastal businesses complained that the blackout would cost them tourist dollars, so they remained lit up. That back-lighted the ships hugging the coast and gave the U-boat skippers a beautiful silhouette.

[Mr Radical]

Nice article, thanks for the link. (I think though it would have taken more than one ship load to feed Britain for a day - food rationing in Britain didn’t end until 1954!)

[gitmo]

I’ve been on the island quite a few times. I didn’t know this. Thanks for the link.

[BobL]

FAKE NEWS.

Other than the mid-Pacific, the ENTIRE WAR was fought in Asia and Europe - nothing close to the US, and no, the Japanese were nowhere near the West Coast - otherwise our internment of the Japanese would have had at least some merit. I don’t who’s making this crap, but when I went to public school, that what they told us, and we all trust the public schools to tell the truth...well, at least enough to send our kids there.

(obviously I’m B.S.’ing, other than the last part)

[dfwgator]

Well almost....

When Mice Roared: The Thirty- Minute Invasion of St. Pierre and Miquelon

https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-136/when-mice-roared-the-thirty-minute-invasion-of-st-pierre-and-miquelon/

[captain_dave]

The St Pierre and Miquelon adventure in 1941 only proves that the US State Department has been anti-American for a very long time.

[elbook]

If the war had gone considerably worse (like England falling) then the first nuclear bomb may have fallen on Berlin.

[wally_bert]

I liked 1941.

The CD soundtrack is around here somewhere.