Battle of the Atlantic 1942–45: The climax of World War II’s greatest naval campaign

A I R    C A M P A I G N

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHRONOLOGY

ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES

DEFENDER’S CAPABILITIES

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

THE CAMPAIGN

AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS

FURTHER READING

INTRODUCTION

In his six-volume series The Second World War, Winston Churchill wrote, ‘The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.’

A Helldiver dive bomber guards a convoy off Norfolk, Virginia. While unsuitable for long-range convoy support, single-engine carrier aircraft operating from land bases could protect convoys as they formed or dispersed outside ports. (AC)

By the start of 1942, two things were obvious: the U-boat presented a deadly peril to Great Britain’s survival and Allied victory, and aircraft were the most effective tool for stopping U-boats. Both sides spent the first two years of the war squandering their advantages in the Battle of the Atlantic. Germany never built up U-boat numbers to decisive totals, while Britain neglected Coastal Command. Until January 1941 it lacked weapons capable of reliably sinking U-boats. Even after getting the weapons, aircraft inventories were kept at starvation levels and inadequate numbers were available for the tasks to be done. It was not that Britain lacked aircraft capable of maritime patrol, rather, those aircraft were assigned to other tasks, largely Bomber Command, not the maritime Coastal Command.

Yet as 1942 opened it seemed these problems were in the past, for both sides.

Germany had 91 operational U-boats, and over 150 in training or trials. Annual production for 1942–44 was planned to exceed 200 boats. In 1939 Karl Dönitz, running the Kriegsmarine’s U-boat arm, projected he needed 300 U-boats in commission to knock Britain out of the war. It looked like he would finally have the numbers needed to run the tonnage war he wanted against the Allies.

Britain, though, had finally assembled the solution to the U-boat peril. Its weapons systems and detection systems had improved to the stage that maritime patrol aircraft could launch deadly attacks. In the closing days of December 1941, a Swordfish torpedo bomber, re-equipped for anti-submarine patrol, found a U-boat using radar, and sunk it at night. Darkness no longer shielded U-boats. Also in December, an escort carrier and very-long-range (VLR) aircraft from Ireland had prevented a U-boat pack and Luftwaffe Condors from savaging a homeward-bound convoy from Gibraltar. In a first in a protracted convoy battle, fewer Allied ships were sunk than U-boats.

Britain even gained a major ally: the United States, who entered the war following Japan’s attack on the US Navy’s base at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. By 11 December, a mutual exchange of declarations of war between Germany and the United States had drawn the Americans into the Battle of the Atlantic. The industrial might of the United States, larger than the combined economies of all of the other Allies – or the combined economies of all Axis powers – was to be brought to bear on Germany.

German U-boats threatened Britain’s connection with its supply lines. Their strength lay in finding weak spots in Allied anti-submarine defences, and attacking at those points. Anything unguarded was at risk to these sea wolves. (AC)

Unfortunately, the American entry into the war expanded the battlefield. The last time the battlefield expanded significantly, after France fell in the summer of 1940, the U-boats were able to flank the British. The first ‘Happy Time’ resulted. U-boats tore into inadequately protected merchant vessels, both those in convoys and sailing independently. It took Britain nine months to end the U-boat rampage.

This time it would take longer to bring the situation under control. Hitler had kept Dönitz and his U-boats out of the western half of the Atlantic Ocean for fear of bringing the United States into alliance with Great Britain. With the US now allied with Britain, there was nothing to keep U-boats out of American waters, and almost nothing to stop them operating there.

The United States was ill-prepared to counter the U-boat threat. There was no counterpart to Britain’s Coastal Command in either the United States Army or Navy. The Navy could use its long-range patrol squadrons for anti-submarine duties. These operated the long-range amphibian Catalina and Mariner flying boats, but most immediately available squadrons were already committed to stations in Iceland and Newfoundland. New squadrons had to be raised. The Army employed medium bomber squadrons on anti-submarine patrol, but the crews were untrained in attacking submarines.

Nor could the Navy immediately supply much in the way of surface escorts. It was fighting a naval war on the other side of the world with Japan, and needed every warship there. US Navy doctrine held that an inadequately defended convoy was worse than no convoy. Time would provide escorts, but until then merchant ships proceeded along America’s Gulf and Atlantic coasts individually and unescorted.

This meant vast, heavily travelled areas of the oceans existed with only token protection available against U-boats – that a solution existed for the U-boat peril mattered little where the solution was unavailable. While those fields were far removed from the U-boats’ bases, they were within reach, and Dönitz sent his U-boats to those areas. A second ‘Happy Time’, similar to the first, resulted.

Over the next year a vicious game of hide-and-seek was played in the Atlantic Ocean and surrounding waters. The U-boats hid in under-patrolled waters, seeking merchant shipping to sink. As the Allies filled one area with anti-submarine forces, especially aircraft, the Germans moved to new areas. When unprotected areas no longer existed, the U-boats challenged the escorts in what Dönitz believed would be overwhelming numbers.

To the U-boat skippers it did not matter what was sunk. As long as the tonnage sunk exceeded the tonnage of shipping added by new construction, Germany would win. By August 1942, Dönitz had enough operational U-boats to keep 100 at sea at any given time and could flood any under-protected area with U-boats.

As assiduously as Dönitz probed weak spots, the Allies plugged the gaps in their protection, especially air coverage. Escort numbers increased, patrol aircraft multiplied and air gaps were filled by new airfields. Finally, in the broad reaches of the Atlantic, too far for shore-based maritime patrol aircraft to effectively cover, escort carrier groups provided an air umbrella. No matter how hard he tried, Dönitz could find no way for his U-boats to counter aircraft. This book tells what happened.

CHRONOLOGY

Soon after the U-boats found a weak spot, the Allies worked to plug it. This often involved posting aircraft at inhospitable locations, such as basing PBY Catalinas at Greenland in 1943. These aircraft were withdrawn when better bases became available. (USNHHC)

ATTACKER’S CAPABILITIES

The anti-submarine aircraft comes of age

Aircraft

Three broad categories of aircraft fought in the Battle of the Atlantic: multi-engine landplanes, seaplanes and carrier aircraft. Additionally, the US Navy used blimps. Multi-engine landplanes were used for long-range maritime patrol, although some were long-range fighters intended to protect the patrol aircraft. They required prepared runways to operate out of; paved runways for the four-engine aircraft. The seaplanes, amphibians and flying boats, could operate out of sheltered water; they could not operate safely on open water. The carrier aircraft were all short-ranged, single-engine bombers and fighters operating off aircraft carriers.

Blimps, Catalinas and (as shown in this picture) the B-18 Bolo mounted Magnetic Anomaly Detectors. They could fly at the slow speeds and low altitudes MAD required. Because MAD measured magnetic deviations, it was housed in a shroud behind the end of the fuselage. (USAF)

The line between bombers and fighters was often blurred. Fighters, even single-engine fighters, had the capability to attack ships and U-boats, especially after air-to-ground rockets were introduced in 1943. Anti-shipping was an auxiliary mission for long-range fighters on hunting patrols. Patrol bombers also occasionally hunted enemy aircraft – if a four-engine Liberator encountered a FW-200 Condor for example, the Liberator would often attack the Condor.

Aircraft listed are the major types used by the Allies during 1942 through 1945. Other aircraft used in the early phase of the war such as the Stranraer and Anson were being retired but were still in use.

Land-based planes

Lockheed Hudson and Ventura: The twin-engine Lockheed Hudson was Coastal Command’s main anti-submarine aircraft in 1940 and 1941. By mid-1942, it was being phased out in favour of more capable aircraft, including its larger and similar-looking cousin, the Ventura. Both were twin-engine military modifications of Lockheed airliners: Lockheed’s Model 14 Super Electra for the Hudson, and Model 18 Lodestar for the Ventura. Both were used by Coastal Command, the Army Air Force (AAF) and the US Navy.

The Hudson carried 1,000lb of bombs, cruised at 165 knots and had a six-hour endurance with a range of 1,000nm (nautical miles). Venturas carried up to 3,000lb of bombs and cruised at 192 knots for 7.25 hours with a 1,400nm range. Hudsons ended the war having killed or sharing credit for killing 25 U-boats by war’s end; Venturas sank or shared credit for seven U-boats.

The Vickers Wellington started the war as Bomber Command’s principal heavy bomber. By 1942, superseded by four-engine heavy bombers, it was increasingly used in an anti-submarine role. This is a Mark XIV Wellington built for ASW. It has Mark III radar under the nose, a retractable Leigh light in the bomb bay and carried up to eight depth charges. (AC)

Wellington, Whitley, Hampden, Warwick: The first three were twin-engine RAF medium bombers developed in the mid-1930s, and were Bomber Command’s front-line bombers when the war began. By 1942 new, four-engine heavy bombers superseded their Bomber Command roles, and these older aircraft were shifted to other duties, including maritime patrol. The Warwick, a Wellington replacement that first flew in April 1942, proved unsatisfactory as a bomber. Warwicks were shifted to maritime patrol and air-sea rescue. All had long range (over 1,400nm), could carry at least 4,000lb of bombs and had space for radar and Leigh lights. Coastal Command started 1942 with 11 squadrons equipped with these aircraft, some on loan from Bomber Command. By 1945 they were credited with destroying 32 U-boats, with 27 sunk by Wellingtons.

Liberator: The Consolidated Liberator was a four-engine bomber built in the United States. It had a range of 1,800nm. A VLR (very-long-range) version (modified with extra fuel tanks) available in 1943 could reach 2,700nm. Both carried 2,700lb of bombs that distance, and were capable of staying aloft 10–15 hours. It was heavily armed; with 14 .303 machine guns in British versions and