[Winniesboy]

It wasn’t until the summer of ‘42 that the allies even had a strategy to deal with German wolfpacks sinking huge tonnage of materiel. By 1940, the British were all but knocked out of the war.

So far is this from the truth, that between September 1939 and 1943 the British-controlled dry-cargo fleet actually increased, from 18.7 million deadweight tons to 20 million tons.

(Source: Britain's War Machine; Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War, by David Egerton (Allen Lane, 2011) - a mine of useful corrective data for some of the commonly-held myths about the British in WW2)

[Mashood]

They had to increase shipments because most of it was sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

[the scotsman]

Edgerton.

And yes it is a superb book. One that should be taught in history classes and be the subject of a major documentary.