battle of the Atlantic

Atlantic, battle of the (1940-3), one of the pivotal campaigns of WW II, for upon its success depended Britain's capacity to survive militarily and to join the USA in the eventual invasion of occupied Europe. The Germans realized this from the start, but placed their initial hopes in the effects of surface raiders and individual warships like the Graf Spee and the Bismarck. In fact it was the U-boat that turned out to represent the most dangerous threat, under the calculating direction of Adm Dönitz. The campaign against the U-boat ran throughout WW II, but was at its most intense from 1940 to 1943, a period which culminated in the decisive convoy battles of March 1943. At this time, massed U-boats operating in wolf packs were defeated by a variety of Allied countermeasures.

The formation of convoys of vulnerable merchant ships protected by a variety of escorting warships and aircraft was probably the crucial element in the Allied response. However, the help provided by ULTRA special intelligence, the role of anti-submarine aircraft operating from carriers or from land bases, and the Allied powers' ability to build merchantmen, escorts, and aircraft faster than the Germans could sink them or build U-boats, were all vital too. Nor should the importance of the Allied strategic bombing campaign, their ship-repair industry, and the eventual efficiency of their docking and land transportation systems be forgotten.

Statistics on this campaign are notoriously hard to agree, but in all about 83, 000 Allied sailors (naval and civilian) and airmen, approximately 12 million tons of merchant shipping, about 90 allied warships, and 1, 700 Coastal Command aircraft were lost during the campaign. In the whole war, the Germans lost 784 U-boats, and 28, 000 out of their 41, 000 submariners, two-thirds in the battle of the Atlantic. Although the campaign was won, the costs were high and the late appearance of dangerous and advanced German U-boats like the Type XXI and the Type XXIII showed that the submarine threat had been managed rather than completely defeated.

Bibliography

• Haworth, Stephen, and Law, Derek, The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1945 (London, 1994)

— Geoffrey Till

(1941-45) the general name given to military maritime activities in the Atlantic during World War II. It was primarily an ongoing effort to keep open supply lines to the British Isles by thwarting German surface and submarine raiders' attempts to sink cargo and troop transports. The German surface threat was essentially eliminated soon after the United States became a belligerent, but their submarines continued to present a threat throughout most of the war.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

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Atlantic, Battle of The, the 1939–1945 struggle between Allied shipping and German Submarines and Luftwaffe. Although the United States was officially neutral in World War II before November 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's pledge of "all aid short of war" to the Allies had antagonized the Germans, obligating U.S. naval patrols to protect pro-Allied merchantmen plying the broad neutrality zone. After several inclusive skirmishes, a German torpedo sank the American destroyer Reuben James into the waters south of Iceland on 31 October 1941. Before the American declaration of war, the Axis had sunk 2,162 ships totaling 7,751,000 tons. One month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a damaging U-boat attack in American waters convinced U.S. military planners to organize the Tenth Fleet to bring all antisubmarine activities under a single command. An interlocking convoy system gradually developed across the Atlantic, forcing German Admiral Karl Dönitz to withdraw his U-boats to mid-ocean. U-boats had great success against Russian convoys. Most destructive was the concerted air and U-boat attack on Convoy PQ-17, which lost two-thirds of its thirty-three ships in July 1942.

However, burgeoning U.S. naval strength, as well as scientific advances, operations analysis, and improved radar, soon began to thwart U-boats. The development of support groups to aid endangered Convoys was decisive. Shaken, Dönitz largely abandoned attacks on convoys. U.S. hunter-killer groups using "jeep" aircraft carriers had increasing success also. U-boats could never regain the initiative. Overall, U-boats destroyed 2,775 ships, at a loss of 781 of the 1,175 completed U-boats. By the last months of the war, the U-boats were nearly impotent.

Bibliography

Blair, Clay. Hitler's U-Boat War. New York: Random House, 1996–1998.

Macintyre, Donald G. F. W. The Battle of the Atlantic. New York: Macmillan, 1961.

Morison, Samuel E. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Volume 1: The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939–May 1943. Volume 10: The Atlantic Battle Won, May 1943–May 1945. Boston: Little, Brown, 1947–1962.

Syrett, David. The Defeat of the German U-Boats: The Battle of the Atlantic. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994.

—Henry H. Adams/A. R.