![]() "If the menace could not be conquered", explains historian Gerhard Weinberg, "the steady diminution of Allied tonnage would immobilize the Western Allies." By 1943, the battle to control the shipping lanes had become World War II's pivotal "battlefield". With the rate of shipping losses exceeding the rate of production, the Allied leaders gave the submarine problem top priority at their January 1943 meeting in Casablanca. In November 1942 alone, 720,000 tons of supplies were sunk by German submarines. By the end of 1942, the German submarine "wolf-packs" were exacting a devastating toll on Allied shipping. Despite this advantage, protecting slow moving convoys that extended over many square miles proved extremely difficult. Large convoys lost proportionately fewer ships. The Allies concluded very early on that there was safety in numbers. To assign a naval vessel to escort each supply ship was also utterly impractical.Įxample of a Atlantic convoy during world War II Their slow speeds made them perfect prey for German submarines. Unless they were one of the very fast luxury passenger liners, like the Queen Mary, sending solitary supply ships cross the Atlantic was sheer folly. ![]() The failure of Germany's surface fleet to sever Great Britain's life-line to North America, led to the promotion of the submarine as Germany's principal form of naval warfare. In World War II, Germany reasoned that if it could choke-off all the transatlantic re-supply lines to Great Britain, from Canada and the United States, then Great Britain's demise would only be a matter of time. World War II Antisubmarine Warfare Sets the Stage Navy Builds NTDS and Royal Canadian Navy’s DATAR Collapses
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