BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC

Battle  This battle was the longest and most important battle of WWII

German U-boats  Targeted convoys in groups called wolf packs  The goal was to stop the flow of supplies to Britain  At the height of the was Germany had over 300 u- boats  By early 1941, the Germans were sinking Allied ships faster than they could be built

U-boat

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

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 On the Water

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.

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)