The United States Navy

Although the USA did not enter the Second World War until the end of 1941, it had offered both military and industrial help to the Allied cause in the Atlantic almost since the beginning of the war. When it became a belligerent, the Atlantic was the vitally important route for American troops and supplies going to Britain.

From September 1939 onwards, US Navy (USN) ships patrolled larger and larger sections of the ocean and, when America took over the defence of Iceland in July 1941, USN ships escorted vessels of any nationality to and from it. From August, the USN escorted convoys between Newfoundland and Iceland alongside Royal Canadian Navy ships. Confrontations with U-boats started immediately.

The destroyer USS Kearny of the Benson class

Political changes in the USA in late 1939 allowed Britain to purchase arms there. In September 1940, the USN agreed to send Britain fifty old destroyers in exchange for the right to use British bases in the western hemisphere. In 1941, US ships were transferred to the Royal Navy for escort duties and US shipyards began to build warships and merchant ships for Britain.

During the first half of 1942, U-boats inflicted massive losses on shipping along the American eastern seaboard as the USN did not establish a full convoy system until mid-summer. However, its responsibilities for transatlantic escorts were reduced when those escort vessels it did have were deployed in support of the growing number of troop convoys sailing to Britain and North Africa.

In early March 1943, the USN withdrew completely from escorting North Atlantic convoys. In return, it protected ships on the central and southerly routes and supplied an escort support group of an aircraft carrier and five destroyers which contributed to the decisive defeat of the U-boats in April and May 1943.

Royal Navy

The main challenge to the U-boat during the Battle of the Atlantic came from the Royal Navy, which provided the majority of the ships and created the command structure which directed them. Operations in this theatre, which were essential to Britain's survival, gave the Royal Navy its severest test of the Second World War.

The Tribal class destroyer HMS Somali. She was lost on 20 Sep, 1942.

From the outset, the Admiralty introduced and developed a convoy system. However, in the early years of the war its success was handicapped by the Royal Navy's chronic shortage of escort vessels, even after the acquisition of fifty veteran destroyers from the USA. The initial threat in the Atlantic came from German surface raiders but this came to an end in May 1941 after the sinking of the battleship Bismarck. U-boats were a greater menace after the Germans acquired bases on the French Atlantic coast from mid-1940 onwards. The formation of Royal Navy escort groups, training and organisational improvements and the extension of the convoy system across the whole North Atlantic helped to combat the U-boat during 1941.

For the first half of 1942, the Royal Navy enjoyed a respite as U-boats concentrated in American waters. It was still short of escort vessels, but those which were available began to benefit from technological advances in radar, direction finding equipment and weaponry. However, when U-boat wolf packs returned to mid-Atlantic in the second half of the year, intelligence failures and the commitment of escort vessels to the North African landings contributed to a massive rise in shipping losses.

The crisis deepened in early 1943. The Admiralty considered that the Germans never came so close to breaking Britain's Atlantic lifeline as in March. However, the rapid introduction of five Royal Navy escort groups, two of which had aircraft carriers, by the end of the month helped to inflict a decisive defeat on the U-boats by the end of May.

Royal Canadian Navy

The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) made a contribution second only to that of the Royal Navy in the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic. Moreover, it did so despite starting with a very small force at the beginning of the war and struggling with the problems of rapid expansion in personnel and ships.

The Canadian Flower class corvette HMCS Ville de Quebec

At the beginning of the war Canada began building a force of 64 corvettes and these small ships were to be the RCN's mainstay from 1941 until the end of 1943. Unfortunately, their design and equipment were not of the highest standard and they were often manned by inadequately trained and inexperienced crews. Despite immense efforts, these factors hindered the RCN's operational efficiency until mid-1943.

The RCN undertook convoy duties and control of merchant shipping movements in the western Atlantic and Naval Headquarters in Ottawa co-operated successfully in the intelligence war against the U-boat. The assumption of responsibility for the escort of slow convoys towards the end of 1941 did not help the struggling RCN as these ships were the most vulnerable and suffered the heaviest losses. Further pressure came when the USA entered the war as RCN ships had to cover for those US Navy vessels which were rapidly transferred to the Pacific.

Deficient in ship numbers and modern equipment, RCN performance continued to suffer throughout 1942. At the end of the year, therefore, its ships were withdrawn from the Atlantic for a period of modernisation and re-training. They returned to the ocean in late March and early April to act as close escorts during the climax of the Battle. As its strength began to increase significantly, the RCN came to such prominence that, by spring 1944, it had sole responsibility for the entire North Atlantic convoy route.

Kriegsmarine

The greatest threat to Britain's survival during the Second World War came from the U-boats of the German Navy. Warships and disguised merchant raiders also sank substantial numbers and tonnage of Allied ships, but the vast majority of merchant shipping losses, which at several crisis points between mid-1940 and May 1943 reached devastating levels, were inflicted by submarines.

German Type VII C

The U-boat menace grew slowly at the beginning of the war as Germany had only a small number of boats, not all of which were ocean-going, and significant rises in production did not start until spring 1941. The threat became more potent from mid-1940 onwards when the acquisition of bases on the French Atlantic coast placed U-boats 450 miles nearer the trade routes they sought to attack than their home ports in Germany and, therefore, boosted operational range and duration. Success was immediate, enhanced by the employment of new group, or "wolf pack", attacks. However, bad weather over the winter of 1940-1, dispersion of U-boats to Arctic, Norwegian and Mediterranean waters and Allied intelligence successes with U-boat codes all limited further progress until the end of 1941.

The entry of the USA into the war and the US Navy's slowness at establishing convoys allowed the U-boats to take a massive toll of Allied shipping along the American eastern seaboard during the first half of 1942. After defensive measures were put in place, the wolf packs returned to mid-Atlantic. Over the second half of the year, helped by rapidly increasing strength and a distinct German advantage in intelligence, U-boats inflicted huge losses.

German Type IX-D

Successful U-boat operations continued in the early months of 1943, particularly in March when large wolf packs fought a series of desperate running battles with Allied convoys. The British considered that this was the moment the Germans came closest to breaking the Atlantic supply lines. However, just as the U-boats were on the brink of victory, they suffered utter defeat when confronted by new Allied escort support groups and the closing of the mid-Atlantic air gap.

United States Navy - Pre-War

On 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on America bringing the US into the Atlantic battle. However, the US Navy (USN) had been involved in the Second World War almost since its outbreak on 3 September 1939, giving aid to the Allied cause in an increasingly active manner.

The American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a strong supporter of the Allied cause. On 5 September, he ordered the formation of a western hemisphere neutrality zone, warning belligerents not to engage in warlike activities within 300 miles of the American continent. Patrolled by the USN, Roosevelt hoped it would enable the Royal Navy to use its valuable escort vessels elsewhere; but it was largely ignored by both British and German ships and submarines. Changes to the US Neutrality Act in November allowed belligerents to purchase US arms on a cash-and-carry basis and US merchant ships to sail to Britain. The rapid German conquest of western Europe by June 1940 alarmed Roosevelt and encouraged him to sanction the exchange of fifty First World War vintage destroyers for 99-year leases on British bases in the Caribbean and western Atlantic. US naval 'observers' were now sent to serve in all the major British naval commands and a high-level naval mission to London in July was fully briefed about British operational experience.

Over the first five months of 1941, US strength in the Atlantic was substantially increased. Between January and March, Anglo-American staff discussions in Washington agreed a combined strategy should America enter the war and, in March, a US delegation visited Britain to choose suitable bases. In March the Lend-Lease Act permitted the transfer of ten US coastguard cutters to the Royal Navy for escort duties and the construction of warships and merchantmen for Britain in America. In April, the neutrality zone was extended much further eastward, within which US ships would report the positions of U-boats sighted to the Royal Navy. In July, America took over the defence of Iceland from British forces and the USN began escorting ships of any nationality to and from it. In August, when the major naval base which the Americans had developed in the Canadian harbour at Argentia, Newfoundland became operational, Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill held a summit conference there. As a result, the USN began escorting fast convoys between Newfoundland and Iceland, alongside the Royal Canadian Navy which protected slow convoys. It was supported by US Navy and US Army Air Force aircraft from Argentia and Iceland. U-boats threatening the shipping routes were to be attacked.

Confrontation with the Germans came immediately. On 4 September, the very day the measures were introduced, the destroyer Greer was attacked by U-652 south west of Iceland and replied with depth charges. Although undamaged, Roosevelt called the attack "piracy" and warned German vessels that they entered US protected waters at their own risk. Although he did not make it public, this area had been extended to little more than 400 miles west of Scotland. On 17 October, the destroyer Kearny was torpedoed and sustained several fatalities. On 31 October, the destroyer Reuben James was sunk by U-552 600 miles west of Ireland with the loss of 115 men. In the Atlantic, the US Navy was at war with Germany in all but name.

United States Navy - At War

Despite the operations it had undertaken during 1941, America's entry into the conflict found the US Navy (USN) unprepared for war in the Atlantic. The Americans lacked experience in antisubmarine warfare and, crucially, the escort ships to fight it. The US Navy had to fight a two-front war. Its top priorities were resisting the challenge of Japan and the safe passage of troops to Britain. As the Japanese danger seemed the most urgent, the preponderance of US naval strength lay in the Pacific until the threat was greatly reduced at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Anglo-American strategy decided in 1941 had put the defeat of Germany first. Therefore, the build-up of land forces in Britain, from where they could be launched into continental Europe, was a prime aim. The escort of American troop convoys across the Atlantic was more important than the destruction of U-boats.

A torpedoed Allied tanker blows up in the middle of an Atlantic convoy

In January 1942, the construction of 250 new Destroyer Escort vessels was authorized, but priority throughout the year was given to the building of landing craft. At the start of the war, the USN had only 20% of its required numbers of escort vessels and, from January, its fleet destroyers were committed to troop escort duty. The delay in introducing any effective counter measures enabled U-boats to inflict massive shipping losses in American coastal waters during the first half of the year and thereby threaten the ability to transport men and supplies across the Atlantic. Admiral Ernest J. King, the Navy's dominating Commander-in-Chief, believed strongly in the value of the convoy but, against all the evidence of the war so far, he thought that weakly escorted convoys were worse than those completely undefended, because the escorts were not numerous enough to hunt down U-boats and the convoy then just became an obvious target.

Other measures, such as offensive anti-submarine patrols and protected sea lanes, were tried before convoys were finally introduced with British help at the end of March. The arrival of ten Royal Navy corvettes and 24 anti-submarine trawlers made possible daylight convoys in American coastal waters and the assistance of the Royal Canadian Navy enabled a 24-hour convoy system between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and New York to be organised. In April, two USN escort groups were transferred from the mid-ocean area. By mid-May, with the completion of the first sixty patrol craft and submarine chasers ordered at the beginning of the war, convoys covered the whole US eastern seaboard. By July, with the extension of the USN's interlocking convoy system to the Caribbean and Mexican Gulf, the U-boats had been driven back into mid-Atlantic. Improved training, the leadership of the recently-established Anti-Submarine Warfare Unit and Operations Research Group, the equipping of virtually all Atlantic Fleet ships with radar by the summer and the accumulation of hard-won experience helped to increase the Navy's hitherto poor record of U-boat sinkings.

The US Navy exercised strategic control over the western half of the Atlantic. Its ships still contributed to the mid-ocean escort groups and the protection of shipping proceeding to and from Iceland; USN aircraft flew patrols from New England, Newfoundland and Iceland. However, at the beginning of June 1942, the major responsibility for transatlantic escort duties was assumed by the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy to free US destroyers for the growing numbers of troop convoys to Britain and North Africa. From the last week of October, a stream of troopships sailed direct from America to Casablanca and the Mediterranean. The Allied invasion of North Africa consumed so much oil and petrol that supplies in Britain became dangerously low. Therefore, in January 1943, three new transatlantic tanker routes were introduced, two of which were controlled by the USN. They were highly successful, with only one convoy suffering any loss during the first three months of the year.

By the end of its first year of war in December 1942, the US Navy had taken part in escorting 250 transatlantic convoys totalling 9481 ships, with a loss rate of only 1.4% or 132 ships. By April 1943, it had escorted about two million US troops and their equipment to Europe and North Africa without losing a single loaded troopship. These convoys had the best of the Navy's escort ships and the largest share of the total available. There was still a shortage of escort vessels elsewhere by early 1943 but, after the Allies decided future strategy at the Casablanca Conference in January, the Americans gave the construction of destroyer escorts, escort carriers and anti-submarine aircraft top priority. At the Atlantic Convoy Conference in early March the USN opted out of North Atlantic convoy escort duties. Admiral King disliked escorts of mixed nationality and turned over responsibility to the British and Canadians. Though taking his allies by surprise, it mattered little as the Americans were contributing only 4% of the escorts by this time.

In return, the US Navy would provide an escort group of five destroyers and an escort carrier for the North Atlantic and protect convoys on the central and southerly routes, which happened to serve US forces in the Mediterranean, and included the vital oil tanker convoys between the Caribbean and Britain. Next, on 1 May, King unified all the disparate elements of the US Navy's war effort in the Atlantic into one command, the Tenth Fleet. Complete with a strong intelligence capability, including its own submarine tracking room, it directed the escort groups that were going out with increasing numbers of new escort carriers, destroyer escorts and anti-submarine aircraft to hunt down the U-boats.

Additional Sources:

www.thehistorychannel.co.uk
www.navy.go.kr
members.kingston.net
www.navylib.com
www.uboatarchive.net
www.1freespace.com
home.nycap.rr.com
www.archives.gov
www.mikecampbell.net
www.hmsfiredrake.co.uk
www.canonesa.care4free.net
www.history.navy.mil
history.acusd.edu
www.stenbergaa.com
www.electricedge.com
www.british-merchant-navy.co.uk
home.nycap.rr.com uboat.net
24.154.92.207:20080
www.thyssen-nordseewerke.de

'The only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.'

-- Winston Churchill

'Enemy submarines are to be called "U-boats." The term "submarine" is to be reserved for Allied underwater vessels. U-boats are those dastardly villains who sink our ships, while submarines are those gallant and noble craft which sink theirs.'

-- Winston Churchill

'The reason that the American Navy does so well in wartime is that war is chaos, and the American Navy practices chaos on a daily basis.'

-- Attributed to Grand Admiral Erich Raeder,
Kriegsmarine

GOOD MORNING EVERYBODY!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!!!!!

.......FALL IN to the FReeper Foxhole!

.......Good Tuesday Morning Everyone!

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Good Morning, Snippy. How's it going?

Good morning, ma'am. The pups have learned to climb the stairs so no place is safe now.

BTW, for those in the Ft. Sill area who read the Foxhole, I want to also remind you of the army concert tour stopping at Ft Sill this Saturday. Country music artist Brad Paisley will be performing at the Polo Field. This should be a lot of fun. More details at www.kswo.com

Good morning.

A littler cooler but very muggy. lol. I sound like I'm never happy about the weather here!

Good Morning.

Oh no! I was always afraid my pups would fall down the stairs, pups are so fat and round.lol.

There is no stopping them now. Have fun.

Good morning Sam, snippy, everyone.

Thanks EGC, sounds like fun!

Good morning feather.

Good Morning Pippin.

Good Morning Snippy.

The pups have learned to climb the stairs so no place is safe now

I love hear about your puppies' progress. That line just brought a big smile to my face and lots of good memories.

Thanks E.G.C.

Good Morning Feather.

Love the tagline today SAM!