THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC MERCHANT SHIPS SUNK BY U-BOAT IN THE ATLANTIC
DESPITE a substantial reconstruction of the Government, my own position had not seemed to be affected in all this period of political tension and change at home and disaster abroad. I was too much occupied with hourly business to have much time for brooding upon it. My personal authority even seemed to be enhanced by the uncertainties affecting several of my colleagues or would-be colleagues. I did not suffer from any desire to be relieved of my responsibilities. All I wanted was compliance with my wishes after reasonable discussion. Misfortunes only brought me and the Chiefs of Staff closer together, and this unity was felt through all the circles of the Government. There was no whisper of intrigue or dissidence, either in the War Cabinet or in the much larger number of Ministers of Cabinet rank. From outside however there was continuous pressure to change my method of conducting the war, with a view to obtaining better results than were now coming in. “We are all with the Prime Minister, but he has too much to do. He should be relieved of some of the burdens that fall upon him.” This was the persistent view, and many theories were pressed. But I was entirely resolved to keep my full power of war-direction. This could only be exercised by combining the offices of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. More difficulty and toil are often incurred in overcoming opposition and adjusting divergent and conflicting views than by having the right to give decisions oneself. It is most important that at the summit there should be one mind playing over the whole field, faithfully aided and corrected, but not divided in its integrity. I should not of course have remained Prime Minister for an hour if I had been deprived of the office of Minister of Defence. The fact that this was widely known repelled all challenges, even under the most unfavourable conditions, and many well-meant suggestions of committees and other forms of impersonal machinery consequently fell to the ground. I must record my gratitude to all who helped me to succeed.
But the year 1942 was to provide many rude shocks. For the first six months everything went ill. In the Atlantic it proved the toughest of the whole war. The U-boat fleet had grown to nearly two hundred and fifty, of which Admiral Doenitz could report nearly a hundred operational, with fifteen more a month. They ravaged American waters almost uncontrolled. By the end of January thirty-one ships, of nearly 200,000 tons, had been sunk off the United States and Canadian coast. Soon the attack spread southward off Hampton Roads and Cape Hatteras, and thence to the coast of Florida. The great sea highway teemed with defenceless American and Allied shipping. Along it the precious tanker fleet moved in unbroken procession to and from the oil ports of Venezuela and the Gulf of Mexico, and here and in the Caribbean, amid a wealth of targets, the U-boats chose to prey chiefly on the tankers. Neutrals of all kinds were assailed. Week by week the scale of massacre grew. In February they destroyed seventy-one ships, of 384,000 tons, in the Atlantic, of which all but two were sunk in the American zone. This was the highest rate of loss which we had so far suffered. It was soon to be surpassed.
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All this destruction, far exceeding anything known in this war, though not reaching the catastrophic figures of the worst period of 1917, was caused by no more than twelve to fifteen boats working in the area at one time. The protection afforded by the United States Navy was for several months hopelessly inadequate. It is surprising indeed that during two years of the advance of total war towards the American continent more provision had not been made against this deadly onslaught. Under the President’s policy of “all aid to Britain short of war” much had been done for us. We had acquired fifty old destroyers and ten American Revenue cutters. In exchange we had given the invaluable West Indian bases. But the vessels were now sadly missed by our Ally. After Pearl Harbour the Pacific pressed heavily on the United States Navy. Still, with all the information they had about our protective measures, both before and during the struggle, it is remarkable that no plans had been made for coastal convoys and for multiplying small craft. Neither had the Coastal Air Defence been developed. The American Army Air Force, which controlled almost all military shore-based aircraft, had no training in anti-submarine warfare, whereas the Navy, equipped with float-planes and amphibians, had not the means to carry it out, and in these crucial months an effective American defence system was only achieved with painful, halting steps.
Our disasters might have been far greater had the Germans sent their heavy surface ships raiding into the Atlantic, but Hitler was obsessed with the idea that we intended to invade Northern Norway at an early date. With his powerful one-track mind he sacrificed a glittering chance and concentrated every available surface ship and many a precious U-boat in Norwegian waters. “Norway,” he said, “is the zone of destiny in this war.” It was indeed, as the reader is aware, most important, but at this time the German opportunity lay in the Atlantic. In vain the admirals argued for a naval offensive. Their Fuehrer remained adamant, and his strategic decision was strengthened by the shortage of oil fuel. Already in January he had sent the Tirpitz, his only battleship, but the strongest in the world, to Trondheim, and on the 12th he determined to recall to their home ports the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which had been blockaded in Brest for nearly a year. This led to an incident which caused so much commotion and outcry in England that it requires a digression.
The serious losses in the Mediterranean and the temporary disablement of our whole Eastern Fleet had forced us to send almost all our torpedo-carrying aircraft to protect Egypt against potential overseas invasion. But all possible preparations were made to watch Brest and to attack any sortie with bomb and torpedo by air and sea. Mines were also laid along the presumed route both in the Channel and near the Dutch coast. The Admiralty expected that the passage of the Dover Strait would be attempted by night; but the German admiral preferred to use darkness to elude our patrols when leaving Brest and run the Dover batteries in daylight. He sailed from Brest before midnight on the 11th.
The morning of the 12th was misty, and when the enemy ships were spotted the Radar of our patrolling aircraft broke down. Our shore Radar also failed to detect them. At the time we thought this an unlucky accident. We have learnt since the war that General Martini, the chief of the German Radar, had made a careful plan. The German jamming, hitherto somewhat ineffective, was invigorated by the addition of much new equipment, but in order that nothing should be suspicious it was brought into operation gradually, so that the jamming should appear only a little more vicious each day. Our operators therefore did not complain unduly, and nobody suspected anything unusual. By February 12 however the jamming had grown so strong that our sea-watching Radar was in fact useless. It was not until 11.25 a.m. that the Admiralty received the news. By then the escaping cruisers and their powerful air and destroyer escort were within twenty miles of Boulogne. Soon after noon the Dover batteries opened fire with their heavy guns, and the first striking force of five motor torpedo boats immediately put to sea and attacked. Six torpedo-carrying Swordfish aircraft from Manston, in Kent, led by Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde (who had led the first attack on the Bismarck), set off without waiting for more than ten Spitfires in support. The Swordfish, fiercely attacked by enemy fighters, discharged their torpedoes against the enemy, but at a heavy cost. None returned, and only five survivors were rescued. Esmonde was awarded a posthumous V.C.
Successive waves of bombers and torpedo-bombers assailed the enemy till nightfall. There was much bitter and confused fighting with the German fighters, in which we suffered more severe losses than the enemy with his superior numbers. When the German cruisers were off the Dutch coast at about 3.30 p.m. five destroyers from Harwich pressed home an attack, launching their torpedoes at about 3,000 yards under tremendous fire. Unscathed either by the Dover batteries or the torpedoes, the squadron held its course, and by the morning of the 13th all their ships had reached home. The news astonished the British public, who could not understand what appeared to them, not unnaturally, to be a proof of the German mastery of the English Channel. Our Secret Service soon found out that both the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau had fallen victims to our air-laid mines. It was six months before the Scharnhorst was capable of service, and the Gneisenau never appeared again in the war. This however could not be made public and national wrath was vehement.
To allay complaints an official inquiry was held, which reported the publishable facts. Viewed in the after-light and in its larger aspects the episode was highly advantageous to us. “When I speak on the radio next Monday evening,” cabled the President, “I shall say a word about those people who treat the episode in the Channel as a defeat. I am more and more convinced that the location of all the German ships in Germany makes our joint North Atlantic naval problem more simple.” But it looked very bad at the time to everyone in the Grand Alliance outside our most secret circles.
Meanwhile havoc continued to reign along the Atlantic coast of the United States. A U-boat commander reported to Doenitz that ten times as many U-boats could find ample targets. Resting on the bottom during daylight, they used their high surface speed at night to select the richest prey. Nearly every torpedo they carried claimed its victim, and when torpedoes were expended the gun was almost as effective. The towns of the Atlantic shore, where for a while the waterfronts remained fully lighted, heard nightly the sounds of battle, saw the burning, sinking ships off-shore, and rescued the survivors and wounded. There was bitter anger against the Administration, which was much embarrassed. It is however easier to infuriate Americans than to cow them.
In London we had marked these misfortunes with anxiety and grief. On February 10 we offered unasked twenty-four of our best-equipped anti-submarine trawlers and ten corvettes with their trained crews to the American Navy. These were welcomed by our Ally, and the first arrived in New York early in March. It was little enough, but the utmost we could spare. “’Twas all she gave—’twas all she had to give.” Coastal convoys could not begin until an organisation had been built up and escorts scraped together. The available fighting ships and aircraft were at first used only to patrol threatened areas. The enemy easily evaded them and hunted elsewhere. The main stress now fell between Charleston and New York, while single U-boats prowled over all the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, with a freedom and insolence which were hard to bear. The sinkings were nearly half a million tons, mostly within three hundred miles of the American coast, and nearly half were tankers. Only two U-boats were sunk in American waters by American aircraft, and first kill off the American coast by a surface vessel was not made until April 14, by the United States destroyer Roper.
In Europe March closed with the brilliant and heroic exploit of St. Nazaire. This was the only place along all the Atlantic coast where the Tirpitz could be docked for repair if she were damaged. If the dock, one of the largest in the world, could be destroyed a sortie of the Tirpitz from Trondheim into the Atlantic would become far more dangerous and might not be deemed worth making. Our Commandos were eager for the fray, and here was a deed of glory intimately involved in high strategy. Led by Commander Ryder of the Royal Navy, with Colonel Newman of the Essex Regiment, an expedition of destroyers and light coastal craft sailed from Falmouth on the afternoon of March 26 carrying about two hundred and fifty Commando troops. They had four hundred miles to traverse through waters under constant enemy patrol, and five miles up the estuary of the Loire.
The goal was the destruction of the gates of the great lock. The Campbeltown, one of the fifty old American destroyers, carrying three tons of high explosive in her bows, drove into the lock gates, in the teeth of a close and murderous fire. Here, led by Lieutenant-Commander Beattie, she was scuttled, and the fuzes of her main demolition charges set to explode later. From her decks Major Copeland, with a landing party, leaped ashore to destroy the dock machinery. The Germans met them in overwhelming strength, and furious fighting began. All but five of the landing party were killed or captured. Commander Ryder’s craft, although fired on from all sides, miraculously remained afloat during his break for the open sea with the remnants of his force, and got safely home. But the great explosion was still to come. Something had gone wrong with the fuze. It was not till the next day, when a large group of German officers and technicians were inspecting the wreck of the Campbeltown, jammed in the lock gates, that the ship blew up, with devastating force, killing hundreds of Germans and shattering the great lock for the rest of the war. The Germans treated the prisoners, four of whom received the Victoria Cross, with respect, but severe punishment was inflicted on the brave Frenchmen who on the spur of the moment rushed from every quarter to the aid of what they hoped was the vanguard of liberation.
On April 1 it at last became possible for the United States Navy to start a partial convoy system. At first this could be no more than daylight hops of about a hundred and twenty miles between protected anchorages by groups of vessels under escort, and all shipping was brought to a standstill at night. On any one day there were upwards of a hundred and twenty ships requiring protection between Florida and New York. The consequent delays were misfortune in another form. It was not until May 14 that the first fully organised convoy sailed from Hampton Roads for Key West. Thereafter the system was quickly extended northward to New York and Halifax, and by the end of the month the chain along the east coast from Key West northward was at last complete. Relief was immediate, and the losses fell.
Admiral Doenitz forthwith changed his point of attack to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, where convoys were not yet working. Ranging farther, the U-boats also began to appear off the coast of Brazil and in the St. Lawrence river. It was not until the end of the year that a complete interlocking convoy system covering all these immense areas became fully effective. But June saw an improvement, and the last days of July may be taken as closing the terrible massacre along the American coast. In seven months the Allied losses in the Atlantic from U-boats alone amounted to over three million tons, which included 181 British ships of 1,130,000 tons. Less than one-tenth occurred in convoys. All this cost the enemy up to July no more than fourteen U-boats sunk throughout the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, and of these kills only six were in North American waters.
Thereafter we regained the initiative. In July alone five U-boats were destroyed off the Atlantic coast, besides six more German and three Italian elsewhere. This total of fourteen for the month, half by convoy escorts, gave us encouragement. It was the best so far achieved; but the number of new boats coming into service each month still exceeded the rate of our kills. Moreover, whenever we began to win Admiral Doenitz shifted his U-boats. With the oceans to play in he could always gain a short period of immunity in a new area. In May a transatlantic convoy lost seven ships, about 700 miles west of Ireland. This was followed by an onslaught near Gibraltar and the reappearance of U-boats around Freetown. Once more Hitler came to our aid by insisting that a group of U-boats should be held ready to ward off an Allied attempt to occupy the Azores or Madeira. His thought in this direction was not altogether misplaced, but his demand coincided with the end of the halcyon days on the American coast.
The U-boat attack was our worst evil. It would have been wise for the Germans to stake all upon it. I remember hearing my father say, “In politics when you have got hold of a good thing, stick to it.” This is also a strategic principle of importance. Just as Goering repeatedly shifted his air targets in the Battle of Britain in 1940, so now the U-boat warfare was to some extent weakened for the sake of competing attractions. Nevertheless it constituted a terrible event in a very bad time.
It will be well here to relate the course of events elsewhere and to record briefly the progress of the Atlantic battle up to the end of 1942.
In August the U-boats turned their attention to the area around Trinidad and the north coast of Brazil, where the ships carrying bauxite to the United States for the aircraft industry and the stream of outwardbound ships with supplies for the Middle East offered the most attractive targets. Others were at work near Freetown; some ranged as far south as the Cape of Good Hope, and a few even penetrated into the Indian Ocean. For a time the South Atlantic caused us anxiety. Here in September and October five large homeward-bound liners sailing independently were sunk, but all our troop transports outward-bound for the Middle East in convoy came through unscathed. Among the big ships lost was the Laconia, of nearly 20,000 tons, carrying two thousand Italian prisoners of war to England. Many were drowned.
The main battle was by now once more joined along the great convoy routes in the North Atlantic. The U-boats had already learned to respect the power of the air, and in their new assault they worked almost entirely in the central section, beyond the reach of aircraft based on Iceland and Newfoundland. Two convoys were severely mauled in August, one of them losing eleven ships, and during this month U-boats sank 108 vessels, amounting to over half a million tons. In September and October the Germans reverted to the earlier practice of submerged attack by day. With the larger numbers now working in “wolf packs”, and with our limited resources, serious losses in convoy could not be prevented, and we felt most acutely the lack of enough very long-range (V.L.R.) aircraft in the Coastal Command. Air cover still ranged no more than about six hundred miles from our shore bases, and only about four hundred from Newfoundland, leaving a large unguarded gap in the centre of the Atlantic Ocean where the surface escorts could gain no help from the air. Against this distressing background our airmen did their utmost.
Naval escorts could never range widely from the convoys and break up the heavy concentrations on the flanks. Thus, when the “wolf packs” struck they could saturate our defence. The only remedy was to surround each convoy with enough aircraft to find and force any nearby U-boats to dive, and thus provide an unmolested lane. Even this was not enough. We must seek out and attack them vigorously wherever we could find them, both by sea and air. The aircraft, the trained air crews, and the air weapons were still too few, but we now made a start by forming a “Support Group” of surface forces.
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The idea had long been advocated, but the means were lacking. The first of these Support Groups, which later became a most potent factor in the U-boat war, consisted of two sloops, four of the new frigates now coming out of the builders’ yards, and four destroyers. With highly trained and experienced crews and the latest weapons, working independently of the convoy escorts and untrammelled by other responsibilities, their task, in co-operation with the Air, was to seek, hunt, and destroy. In 1943 an aircraft would often guide a Support Group to its prey, the pursuit of one U-boat would disclose others, and a “pack” would be discovered.
Aircraft which would accompany the convoys were also provided. By the end of 1942 six “escort carriers” were in service. Eventually many were built in America, besides others in Great Britain, and the first of them, the Avenger, sailed with a North Russian convoy in September. They made their first effective appearance with the North African convoys in late October. Equipped with naval Swordfish aircraft, they met the need—namely, all-round reconnaissance in depth, independent of land bases, and in intimate collaboration with the surface escorts. Thus by the utmost exertions and ingenuity we began to win; but the power of the enemy was also growing and we had many setbacks.
Between January and October 1942 the number of U-boats had more than doubled. 196 were operational, and our North Atlantic convoys were subjected to fierce and larger packs than ever before. All our escorts had to be cut to the bone for the sake of our main operations in Africa, and in November our losses at sea were the heaviest of the whole war, including 117 ships, of over 700,000 tons, by U-boats alone, and another 100,000 tons from other causes.
So menacing were the conditions in the outer waters that on November 4 I personally convened a new Anti-U-boat Committee. Its power to take far-reaching decisions played no small part in the conflict. In a great effort to lengthen the range of our Radar-carrying Liberator aircraft, we decided to withdraw them from action until the necessary improvements were made. The President at my request sent all suitable American aircraft, fitted with the latest type of Radar, to work from the United Kingdom. We were presently able to resume operations in the Bay of Biscay in greater strength and with far better equipment. All this was to bring its reward in 1943.
