Introduction

Neither the United Kingdom nor Germany was in a position to fight a major war in 1939 but the reality was that the former was better prepared, having put the time bought by the Munich Agreement the previous year to much better use. The imbalance was most marked at sea but although the Royal Navy was by far the larger, better-equipped and more balanced force, it was also thinly spread across the world, as in 1914.

The Germans had very ambitious plans for a much-expanded and modernized navy – so ambitious that many doubted their practicality – and these were hardly even started in 1939. Priority had been given to creating the Luftwaffe, a large and modern air force, and the army. Even here, there were weaknesses. The Luftwaffe was not a strategic air force, although Hitler’s war plans assumed that it would act as one. It lacked heavy bombers. The Germany army, unlike the British army, had not mechanized between the wars and was heavily dependent on horses for transport.

The German navy, the Kriegsmarine, lacked aircraft carriers or even adequate numbers of destroyers and, contrary to popular belief, had very few ocean-going U-boats in 1939. Yet, senior officers were secure in Hitler’s assurances that war would not break out until 1944. Chamberlain’s speech to the British people on 3 September, followed by the Admiralty signal ‘Total Germany. Total Germany’ declaring all-out war against that nation came as a shock to the Kriegsmarine’s leaders.