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Battle Of The Atlantic

Victims of a german air attack.

A steady merchant marine supply line bringing food, raw materials and war supplies to Great Britain was essential. Thus the Germans set out to destroy that supply pipeline, just as they had in WW I. They were mostly unsuccessful with their surface raiders, especially their large warships, because the Royal Navy usually kept an aircraft carrier in home waters. Her airplanes kept the German capital ships holed up in port or immediately struck at them when they put to sea. When one of these dreadnoughts, such as the battleship Bismarck, did escape into the Atlantic to strike at merchant commerce, it was hunted down. In the case of Bismarck, RAF flying boats tracked her until Swordfish from Ark Royal could attack with torpedoes, May 26, 1941. Although this attack did not sink Bismarck, it did enough damage to her rudders, propellers and steering gear that Royal Navy surface ships overtook her the following day and sank her with torpedoes and naval gunfire.

The Allied war with the U-boat, in contrast, usually did not involve dramatic fleet engagements. Instead the Battle of the Atlantic was a war of statistics - merchant ship losses versus U-boats sank. If the submarine had won this battle, Britain would have been cut off and would probably have fallen to the Nazis. Fortunately for the Allies, the U-boat did not win the Battle of the Atlantic because the Allies eventually developed the weapons and tactics which defeated the submarine menace.

After Germany began WW II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the neutrality of the United States and directed the Navy to begin a Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic. The naval vessels involved in this patrol had orders to observe and report the movement of all foreign warships. The patrol lasted 27 months and included the ocean area from the northeast coast of South America to the high latitudes of the North Atlantic, extending about 300 miles out from the U.S. coastline. Within this area, the belligerents were forbidden to conduct military operations, thereby preventing U-boats from attacking neutral shipping. Although at first the Neutrality Patrol was not an offensive naval operation, by the fall of 1941 it had become an undeclared war against the U-boat as Roosevelt endeavored to take all steps "short of war to aid Great Britain.”

During 1939-1940 the Royal Navy held its own against the submarine menace in the Atlantic but, beginning in 1941, their merchant ship losses began to grow. For example, one night in April 1941 a Nazi wolf pack sank 10 of 22 ships in one slow trans- Atlantic convoy. From the beginning the Allies had relied upon the battletested tactics of merchant convoys to shepherd vessels between the coastal waters of North America and England. They found in 1941, however, that even with warship escorts, they could not drive off or sink all the U-boats prowling the Atlantic. In addition they lacked a sufficient number of escort vessels to provide protection to all the merchant ships traveling the Atlantic. Consequently the Allies turned to air patrols to help fight the submarine.

While the U.S. Navy was building up these air patrol forces, the Germans launched an assault on merchant traffic along the eastern seaboard of the United States in January 1942. Operation Paukenschlag (roll of the drums) devestated the Allied merchant fleet and showed how inadequate the defending antisubmarine forces were. At one time the U-boats were sinking Allied merchant ships faster than they could be replaced with new ones. German submarine crews later called this period "the happy time.”

Gradually the Allies mustered their forces to fight back. Construction of escort vessels, such as destroyer escorts, took time, but these ships began to make their presence felt in late 1942 and 1943. Sonar, which the British called asdic, was improved. (This electronic device which used sonic echo-ranging to locate submerged U-boats had been perfected by the British and Americans during the interwar period.) Combined with better search tactics, sonar improved the record of Allied escorts against the wide-ranging wolf packs. By mid-1942 radar began to have an impact on the submarine battle. Mounted in surface ships or aircraft, it allowed the defenders to spot a surfaced U-boat long before it was visible to human eyes. With this advance warning, merchant vessels could take action to avoid a submarine; and surface or air units could attack the U-boat.

The introduction of improved microwave radar in the spring of 1943 greatly increased the number of Allied submarine kills. The introduction of the new electronic devices and the adoption of antisubmarine warfare tactics took time. While the Allies fought on the defensive, the toll of merchant ship losses rose so high it gravely threatened the overall war effort. In March 1943 alone, U-boats sank 108 ships totaling 627,000 tons. Only 15 submarines were lost during the same time. Just as the Battle of the Atlantic seemed most serious, the tide of losses began to turn in favor of the Allies. On May 1, 1943, Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations, organized the U.S. Tenth Fleet, under his personal command. It combined and coordinated all antisubmarine warfare activities. This improvement in organization was matched by the arrival of more and more escort vessels from U.S. and British shipyards. Air patrols by Catalinas and modified Liberators also picked up, and they were joined by the Navy airship fleet, which by this time was well-organized and equipped.

No battlefront in the entire war was more dangerous than the icy, infamous Murmansk run. It was unbelievably dull and uncomfortable duty, often interspersed with moments of sheer terror and the possibility of sudden and violent death. This was convoy duty on the North Atlantic.

Thousands of cargo ships, manned by tens of thousands of brave British, Canadian, and American civilian merchant mariners, along with Navy and Coast Guard personnel, made the hazardous voyages carrying invaluable supplies to America's chief Allies - Great Britain and the Soviet Union - months before, and years after, the United States was propelled into the war on December 7,1941.

The voyages across the North Atlantic and from Iceland to the Russian ports of Murmansk, Archangel, and Kola Inlet involved more hazards than in any other kind of naval duty. Severe weather was commonplace. Ice fields could be encountered at any time of year. Floating mines were a constant menace. German submarines, surface craft, and warplanes could strike at will from nearby bases in German-occupied Norway. And, prior to the spring of 1943, when an effective Allied antisubmarine offensive got underway, ships and men making the so-called "Murmansk Run" had about one chance in three of returning.

This was no glamorous sea campaign, with fullsail, tall-masted men-of-war firing broadside after broadside into their enemy's rigging. It was a cold, dirty, dangerous business in which seamen might be blown into a flaming sea of burning oil and left to die of wounds, burns, or hypothermia. Once the convoys reached their destinations, there was no guarantee of safe harbor, either, for the Germans often attacked while the cargo ships were in port, unloading.Then there was the return trip.

The history of the convoy operations, which went on nearly continuously from the autumn of 1939 until May 1945, is one of intense suffering, great loss, unparalleled bravery, and uncompromising devotion to duty.The epic saga is one of the most remarkable chapters of World War II - one that has for too long been overshadowed by other events.

In April 1942, the 24-ship convoy PQ-14 sailed from Iceland but only seven ships reached their destination. One was sunk by a U-boat while 16 others turned back due to the weather; return convoy QP-10 lost four of its 16 ships to enemy attack at around the same time. Near the end of the month, convoy PQ-15 sailed for Murmansk under the protection of units of the Home Fleet, including the battleships King George V and the American USS Washington.

PQ-15 was a convoy riddled with errors and tragedy. On May 1, King George V rammed one of her escorting destroyers, Punjabi, and was then damaged by the latter's depth charges as Punjabi sank with heavy loss of life. The next day, the minesweeper Seagull and Norwegian destroyer St. Albans mistakenly sank the accompanying Polish submarine Jastrzab. Then the Germans attacked and three of the merchantmen were lost to torpedo aircraft. Destroyers sank the escorting warship, the British cruiser HMS Edinburgh. The remaining 22 ships reached Murmansk on May 5, shaken but safe.

That month, a vexed Stalin sent a long list of war supplies to Churchill with a note: "I am fully aware of the difficulties involved and of the sacrifices made by Great Britain in the matter [of the Russian convoys]. I feel, however, incumbent upon me to approach you with the request to take all possible measures in order to ensure the arrival of the above-mentioned materials in the USSR."

Such a message prompted the prime minister to step up efforts to aid the Soviets. Churchill declared the effort would be worthwhile even if only half the merchantmen got through. Simultaneously, the Germans, worried that too many convoys were reaching their destinations, ramped up their efforts to halt the flow of goods.

On May 26, in the Barents Sea north of Norway, Convoy PQ-16 was traveling to Murmansk with 35 ships. Suddenly, some 260 Luftwaffe aircraft, including Heinkel He-111 bombers armed with torpedoes, came swarming down from the sky while U-boats, their periscopes brushing aside floating chunks of arctic ice, joined in the attack. In a running battle that lasted six days and nights, the convoy and its escorts desperately fought off the enemy raiders but lost 11 ships in the process. Twelve freighters made it to Murmansk and the remaining eight to Archangel. As terrible as the PQ-16's losses were, the next convoy would suffer an even worse fate.

In late June 1942, the 37-ship convoy PQ-17, the largest and most valuable convoy to date, formed at Hvalfjord, Iceland, and began to make its run to Murmansk and Archangel. Crammed into the holds of the cargomen were tanks, trucks, aircraft, boxes of ammunition, and other vital supplies destined for the hardpressed Red Army. The Germans were determined that PQ-17 would not pass and instituted Operation Rosselsprung that would add surface ships - the Tirpitz, Scheer, and Hipper - to the intercepting force.

On July 1, two U-boats attempted to attack the convoy but were chased off by British and American escorts; eight more U-boats began stalking PQ-17, waiting for the right moment to strike. That evening, Norway-based German aircraft swooped down on the ships but were driven away by a fierce storm of antiaircraft fire.

On July 4, with PQ-17 over 400 miles from the nearest Soviet landfall, the battle was again joined. The Luftwaffe pounced on the convoy, which somehow managed to maintain formation and discipline. Then submarines struck, and the brand new Liberty Ship USS Christopher Newport, crippled by aerial torpedoes, was sunk by the U-457.

Focke-Wulf 200 Condor long-range bombers torpedoed four more ships, sinking two. Next, 25 He-111 torpedo bombers pounded the Liberty ship William Hooper, which was abandoned by her crew without orders. In London, fearful that the three German battleships might arrive and sink the entire convoy, First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound ordered his armed escorts to withdraw. At 9:23 P.M., he also ordered PQ-17 to disperse, without escort. A few minutes later, Pound told the convoy "to scatter" and to proceed to their destinations individually. This order would doom PQ-17.

The naval escort of four cruisers and six destroyers did as ordered, left the freighters, and headed south. The merchant ship captains watched in horrified astonishment as their escorts departed - the military equivalent of a man walking his date home through a dangerous neighborhood, only to abandon her when approached by muggers and rapists. The force was now on its own. "We hate leaving PQ-17 behind," wrote the film star Lieutenant Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who was aboard the cruiser USS Wichita. "It looks so helpless now since the order to disperse has been circulated. The ships are now going around in circles, turning this way and that, like so many frightened chicks. Some can hardly go at all."

The Murmansk Run was halted temporarily as shipping was urgently needed to support Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, in November 1942. During the winter lull of 1942-43, the Germans took the opportunity to repair and refit many of their warships. The Tirpitz was at Trondheim, undergoing overhaul. The pocket battleship Lutzow had arrived from the Baltic in Altenfjord on December 18 to relieve the Scheer, which had returned to Germany for refit in early November. That left the Hipper and the cruiser Koln as the only large warships in Norwegian waters. Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen, and five destroyers were scheduled to transfer from the Baltic to Norway in January.

After nearly a three-month winter hiatus, the Allied convoys resumed in December 1942 with the convoy designation numbers changed from PQ and QP to JW (outbound) and RA (return), and the sequencing began with JW-51A. Convoy JW-51B left Loch Ewe on December 22 while JW-51A arrived in Murmansk on Christmas Day 1942 without loss. Convoy JW-51B - 14 American and British ships loaded with 2,046 vehicles, 202 tanks, 87 fighters, 33 bombers, 11,500 tons of fuel, 12,650 tons of aviation fuel, and over 54,000 tons of general cargo - would become famous as "the convoy that sank a navy."

Between 1941 and 1945, a total of 41 convoys made the Murmansk Run carrying an estimated $18 billion in cargo from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Among the millions of tons of supplies were an estimated 12,206 aircraft, 12,755 tanks, 51,503 jeeps, 300,000 trucks, 1,181 locomotives, 11,155 flatcars, 135,638 rifles and machine guns, 473 million shells, 2.67 million tons of fuel, and 15 million pairs of boots.

The last Liberty ship was built in June 1945, and almost all of them are now gone. Most were broken up for scrap, some were cut up and reassembled into barges for the coastal trade, and a few were deliberately sunk in shallow waters to serve as artificial reefs for fish habitats.

Only two are known to survive intact. The Jeremiah O'Brien is docked at Pier 45, Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, where it serves as the National Liberty Ship Memorial. In 1994, it sailed to and from Normandy to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Operation Overlord. Several times each year, volunteers fire up one of the original boilers and cruise around the bay. The only other remaining Liberty ship is on the East Coast, the John W Brown, moored in Baltimore Harbor and operated as a museum.

In 1944, the GI Bill gave members of the Armed Forces who served at least 90 days anywhere between December 7,1941, and December 31, 1946, major benefits such as educational assistance, home loans, and job preferences. As he signed the historic bill, President Roosevelt said, "I trust Congress will soon provide similar opportunities to members of the Merchant Marine who have risked their lives time and time again during war for the welfare of their country."

Unfortunately, the Merchant Marine was not accorded such opportunities for many decades. Opposition by some in the military, and pressure from groups such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars who still believed the myth that the Merchant Mariners were overpaid for their wartime services stood in the way. As of 2006, the VFW still refuses to recognize Merchant Mariners as veterans of World War II, even though the U.S. government does; in 1985, those who served in the Merchant Marine were given official U.S. Coast Guard discharges and granted veteran's status. Each year, on or around May 22, National Maritime Day, the Maritime Administration sponsors a Merchant Marine Memorial Service, which honors American seafarers who lost their lives in service to their country.

President Roosevelt paid homage to the unflagging efforts of Merchant Mariners when he said, "[Mariners] have delivered the goods when and where needed in every theater of operations and across every ocean in the biggest, the most difficult and dangerous job ever undertaken. As time goes on, there will be greater public understanding of our merchant fleet's record during this war."

Denver-based Flint Whitlock is a frequent contributor to WWII History. He has authored four books and dozens of articles on World War II and is working on a history of American submariners. Running the Gauntlet. WWII History. January 2007.

Airwar Over the Atlantic Luftwaffe at War Series Vol. 21: This photo-essay, one of a 21-volume series, covers every aspect of the Luftwaffe in World War II, examining the men and the aircraft they flew as it charts the rise and fall of this mighty force. Late in 1938, the German Navy Supreme Command commissioned a report into the combat effectiveness of its airborne divisions. As a result of its findings, the German High Command instigated a major construction program for planes with a specifically maritime role; carrier-borne, reconnaissance, mine laying and most importantly, long range units were all developed. This volume showcases a photo-history of the development of the Kriegsmarine airborne capability, from the early Condor missions, to the introduction of Me 262 A-1a jet fighters in 1944. These previously unpublished pictures illustrate the gradual turning of the tide against Germany in the war for the skies over the Atlantic - as the German war machine struggled to match demand for aircraft, so the pilots attempting to control crucial supply routes struggled to compete with mounting allied technical and numerical superiority.

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