1. The Battle of the Atlantic

2. RECALL… France had fallen in 1940 United Kingdom was out of money.
In December 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war.
However…
The Battle of the Atlantic….started in 1939

3. The longest continuous military campaign of World War II, running from 1939 right through to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945
At its height from mid-1940 through to about the end of 1943

4. World War II lasted for a total of 2,075 days.
The Battle of the Atlantic lasted for 2,073 of these.
It started with the sinking of the passenger liner Athenia on the day Britain and France declared war on Germany.
Canada Remembers

5. GERMAN ATTACK
German U-Boats patrolled the Atlantic against the British blockade of Europe and in an effort to stop supplies from America from ever reaching Britain.
U-boats operated in groups of 10 called "wolf packs."
The German navy, carried out submarine warfare to cut off Britain's imports and military supplies.
U-boats

6. U-boat

7. The U-boat Threat Type VIIC U-boat
Range: 8,500 nm Crew: Torpedo load: 14

8. Let’s Think… Why were shipping lines so important to the War effort?
2. Why were supplies coming from North America?
3. Why were U Boats such a danger to these shipping routes?

9. ALLIES RESPOND
The Allies developed a convoy system where merchant ships were guarded by destroyer escorts.
The British developed a system for detecting U-boats that resembled radar.
This development gave the Allies the edge in the Battle for the Atlantic.

10. Allied Strategy • Protect existing shipping
• Build to replace shipping losses, expand fleet
• Go on the offensive against the U-boats

11. Ships Lost vs. Built
Sourc

12. Convoy System RN employed convoys from start
• Did not have enough escorts
• Started crash construction program
USN did not use convoys initially
• Second “Happy Time” * for Germans
* Jan-Aug 1942

14. Flower-class Corvettes
Length: 205 feet
Displacement: 940 tons
Speed: 16 knots
394 built (UK, Canada)
Video Link

15. Destroyers For Bases September 2, 1940
US provided 50 WW I destroyers in exchange for bases
Bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, West India, Guiana
Destroyers became RN Town-class
• Named for North American cities and towns with namesake in UK
… became HMS Lewes

16. Speed: 21 knots Range: 10,800 nm @ 12 knots Crew: 15 / 201
Destroyer Escorts
(DE)
USS Slater (DE-766)
Displacement: 1,240 tons (std) 1,620 tons (full) Dimensions: 306' (oa), 300' (wl) x 36' 10" x 11' 8" (max)
Armament: 3 x 3"/50 Mk22 (1x3), 1 twin 40mm Mk1 AA, 8 x 20mm Mk 4 AA, 3 x 21" Mk15 TT (3x1),
1 Hedgehog Projector Mk10 (144 rounds), 8 Mk6 depth charge projectors, 2 Mk9 depth charge tracks
Machinery: 4 GM Mod A diesel engines with electric drive, 6000 shp, 2 screws
Speed: 21 knots Range: 10, knots Crew: 15 / 201
Source

17. Destroyer Escorts (DE)
Fleet destroyer
Fletcher class
Destroyer Escort
Cannon class
Destroyer escorts did not need speed of fleet destroyers
• 21 knots vs. 35 knots for destroyers
DEs could be smaller, cheaper, easier to produce

18. Other Threats
FW 200 Condor Maritime Patrol Aircraft

19. Other Threats Surface Raiders Pocket Battleships / Heavy Cruisers
Example: Admiral Graf Spee
Auxiliary Cruisers
Example: Atlantis

20. Surface Raiders Pocket Battleships & Heavy Cruisers Six 11-inch guns
Eight 5.9-inch guns
Speed: 21 knots
Displacement: 16,200 tons
Admiral Graf Spee
War Cruise
August-December 1939
Sank 9 merchant ships
(50,000 tons)
Scuttled, December 17, 1939
Off Montevideo, Uruguay
After battle with thee British cruisers
Video

21. Surface Raiders Pocket Battleships & Heavy Cruisers Six 11-inch guns
Eight 5.9-inch guns
Speed: 21 knots
Displacement: 16,200 tons
Admiral Graf Spee
War Cruise
August-December 1939
Sank 9 merchant ships
(50,000 tons)
Scuttled, December 17, 1939
Off Montevideo, Uruguay
After battle with thee British cruisers
Video

22. Surface Raiders Auxiliary Cruisers Auxiliary Cruiser Atlantis
Atlantis with dummy funnel
Armament Layout
Hidden torpedo tubes & guns

23. Surface Raiders Auxiliary Cruisers
Auxiliary Cruiser Atlantis
Atlantis with dummy funnel
First auxiliary cruiser to sink a merchant ship
Circumnavigated the globe
Highest tonnage sunk of all surface raiders
• 22 ships, 146,000 tons

24. Workforce

25. Rosie the Riveter
Norman Rockwell
Source

26. Workforce
Rosie the Riveter
Wanda the Welder

27. Signals Intelligence
( SIGINT )
Enigma

28. Enigma

29. Enigma
Bletchley Park
Alan Turing’s “Bombe”

30. Enigma
British intelligence received its first Enigma machine in 1939 from Polish military
Additional machines captured by Royal Navy
• May 9, 1941: U-110 off Iceland
• October 30, 1942: U-559 in the Mediterranean
USN captured U-505, June 4, 1944

31. Mid-Atlantic Gap

32. Maritime Patrol Aircraft
USAAF A-29 Hudson
RAF Liberator
Source
RAF Fortress
Blimps

33. Maritime Patrol Aircraft
Caught On The Surface – Robert Taylor
Source
RAF Sunderland Flying Boat – Coastal Command vs. U-461
20 July 1943 – Bay of Biscay

34. Hunter-Killer Team
Slide 8

35. Hunter Becomes the Hunted
U-118 under attack by aircraft from USS Bogue
June 12, 1943
Source

36. Ships Lost vs. Built

37. Canadian Context
Germans sank the Caribou, a passenger ferry, sailing from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland
Killed 136 people
Only 6 days after declaring
war, Canada’s first supply
convoy set out from Halifax
Harbour

38. HALIFAX Became a port for ships escaping war from Europe-refugees
Convoys of ships formed in Halifax harbour loaded with troops, guns, tanks, shells, foodstuffs and headed across the Atlantic.
Convoys: Groups of merchant ships that are protected from enemy attack by naval escort ships or air force planes.

39. Germans did everything to stop supply lines.
Convoy ships were mined or torpedoed within hearing distance of Halifax
New technology was developed: corvettes, depth charges, sonar
In Halifax, "Plotters" tracked ship movements and U-boats.
Many of them were the women of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS)

40. St. Lawrence U-boats began attacking ships in the St. Lawrence river.
On Aug. 27, 1942 the American ship Chatham was sunk
Oct. 13,1942 the passenger ferry, the SS Caribou going from Nfld. to Nova Scotia was sunk by a single torpedo =173 dead civilians
From the summer to the fall of 1942, German U-boats sank 21 ships in the St. Lawrence.

41. Canada’s Role
Canadian Navy was to escort convoys halfway across the North Atlantic, then the British would take over
Training of Canadian sailors improved
Built more and better warships
16,000 members on 188 warships
The Air Force increased its support of convoys
By 1943 more ships were getting past the German wolf packs
On the Water

44. Words from a Canadian Sailor...
“What a miserable, rotten hopeless life an Atlantic so rough it seems impossible that we can continue to take this unending pounding and still remain in one piece hanging onto a convoy is a full-time job the crew in almost a stupor from the nightmarishness of it all and still we go on hour after hour.”
Frank Curry of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) wrote these words in his diary aboard a corvette in 1941, during the Battle of the Atlantic a battle that would be called the longest in history.

45. The campaign pitted the German Navy’s surface raiders and U-boats against Allied convoys from North America and the South Atlantic to the United Kingdom and Russia, protected mainly by the British and Canadian navy’s and air forces, later aided by United States ships and aircraft.
The British and their allies gradually gained the upper hand, driving the German surface raiders from the ocean by the middle of 1941 and decisively defeating the U-boats in a series of convoy battles between March and May 1943

46. SUMMARY
More than 2,000 merchant ships were lost to a submarine attack in the North Atlantic and more than 30,000 merchant seamen died as a result.
About 330 convoys in the Atlantic were attacked by U-boats.
565 escorts and 234 stragglers were sunk.
1,100 proceeding independently were also sunk.
96,977 crossings were completed successfully.

47. Significance to Canada
Canada’s role in the Battle of the Atlantic was significant to the Allies victory over Germany
Canada used two lines of defence against the u-boats
New type of sea vessel called the corvette – could out-manoeuvre a submarine
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)