But it was princi-pally lack of coastal convoys and suffi cient escorts to form them that permitted the extraordinary slaughter: 65 out of 71 ships sunk in February had steamed as indepe
Trang 1Atlantic, Battle of the (1939–1945)
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also broke the Allied escort code, Naval Code #3 That gave the U-boats an
advan-tage that lasted until new codes were introduced in May 1943 But it was
princi-pally lack of coastal convoys and suffi cient escorts to form them that permitted
the extraordinary slaughter: 65 out of 71 ships sunk in February had steamed as
independents The USN formed coastal Bucket Brigades in April as an interim
mea-sure that proved partially successful Dönitz therefore shifted many of his U-boats
from Florida into the Caribbean, where Gulf Coast oil tankers abounded and many
still sailed unescorted The main North Atlantic convoys were less molested during
this period, as most U-boats were happily sinking ships farther south The
situa-tion improved over the second half of 1942 The RN, RCN, and USN coordinated
and systematized convoy planning, added more escort ships, deployed the fi rst
true escort carriers, and stretched land-based air cover from every available base
using new and longer-range aircraft Older twin-engine bombers were handed over
to Coastal Command and the USN, as four-engine heavy bomber types replaced
them in the air war over Germany A few four-engine aircraft were provided, and
more fi ghters were redeployed from southern England to intercept Kondors and
other German aircraft operating out of the Bay of Biscay Not all went smoothly,
and the naval war remained in doubt to those fi ghting it After ONS154 lost 14
of its 46 ships in December 1942, the Royal Navy sharply rebuked the responsible
RCN escort group and temporarily withdrew all Canadian escort groups from the
battle, ordering crews to undergo intensive ASW retraining They were replaced
by RN groups returning from North Africa after escorting troop and supply ships
of the TORCH landings It was a real humiliation for the Canadians, but mostly
refl ected the fact that too many RCN crews were necessarily rushed into escort
duty only half-trained during the dark days when even a poorly trained crew was
desperately needed Once retrained and back in battle the same RCN crews and
their successors achieved an admirable record
The Germans were having troubles of their own If measured by BdU’s key
metric of tonnage sunk per U-boat per day (“Tonnagekrieg”), the tide of war in
the Atlantic appears to have turned by the end of 1941 That was even before full
commitment by the USN to the fi ght Some historians have even argued that the
battle at sea against the U-boats was already won by that date and that only secret
British calculation to frighten and manipulate the Americans into committing
major naval forces to the Atlantic explains the nearly universal wartime view that
the fi ght was far from over at the start of 1942 Statistics are tricky things, but
they support marking a much later date as the point the fortunes of battle
actu-ally turned in the Atlantic U-boats sank nearly 1,300 ships in 1941, and another
1,662 during 1942 That meant the Allies lost 8 million GRT in 1942 alone, a
fi gure greatly increased by losses of unescorted independents in American seas
in the fi rst half of the year Even though Allied shipyards were producing more
ships at faster rates, and escorts and aircraft were sinking more U-boats, German
production of U-boats meant more attack craft were also available to Dönitz In
German and British propaganda, public perception at the time, and in secret
in-telligence appraisals, the fi nal shift of fortunes in the Atlantic did not truly favor
the Allies until mid-1943 U.S shipyards were by then building far more Liberty