大象传媒

Transcribed at Berrington Hall
鈥� Merchant Navy 1942-46 -

In 1935 Karl Doenitz who was in charge of the German U-boat army, was convinced that the British would use a convoy system (as in WW1). He came up with the wolf pack tactics famous throughout the war; which involved sinking as many enemy ships with the minimum of losses.
With the development of technology both short wave and long wave U-boat transmitter frequencies enabled operations to be controlled from the Command HQ. Doenitz could therefore control this pack attack technique with a tactical advantage, as he would no longer be positioned and in danger on one particular U-boat.
The British Admiralty had underestimated Doenitz and in 1939 had deemed the greatest threat to the navy surface raiders rather than U-boats.
The naivety of the Navy generals lead to the sinking of 31 British ships in the Atlantic ocean near Newfoundland, with no losses of U-boats on the German side.
Hitler deemed this period 鈥渢he happy time鈥� and ordered the sinking of all British and allied ships on sight by this technique.
Radar was only just being fitted into escorts on conveys which initially this only helped ships keep track of the other vessels in their convoy, as communication was poor between vessels.
W.T was the main method however this laborious as every message had to be encoded and then decoded, which meant that ships in convoys often had to act independently of the other vessels. This lead to great confusion in combat with ships captains often not knowing that their comrades had been sunk.
The U-boats were being produced at a relatively fast rate, which meant that there could be 20 鈥� 30 U-boats in a pack.
One tactic that the British did not exploit was to destroy the U-boats as they were being built in the pens at Brest, Lorient and Bordeaux. Very little damage could be accomplished once they were finished as the walls were up to 12 feet thick.
(Only when Barnes Wallace developed the 鈥淭all Boy鈥� bomb did any real damage to the U-boat convoys occur.)
In 1940 1,299 Allied ships were sunk, and the year after 243,000 tons went down with a total loss of the Germans of 5 U-boats.
Goering had not realised the tactical advantage of his new FW 200 Condors, which if it had been realised, could have lead to a great deal many more losses but as it was through 1942-3 the main threat remained the U-boats.
America entered the war and the U-boats had another 鈥渉appy time鈥�.
Doenitz intelligence gained the advantage of being able to read Allied command signals.
In March 1943 the losses reached a peak with 85 ships being sunk over 2 days of which over half these vessels had been torpedoed by only 4 U-boats and the others sunk by 2 aircraft.
At the Casablanca Conference of the Allied Governments and their military advisors (1943) it was laid down that a solution to the U-boat attacks was needed if an allied victor was to be accomplished.
Methods were devolved to combat them; convoys travelled in larger numbers less frequently; The High Frequency Direction Finder (huff duff) made it possible to track the U-boat radio transmissions and therefore avoid the U-boat 鈥減acks鈥�; systems where developed which could fire torpedoes in a wider range pattern and airborne rockets also proved effective.
Disaster again struck in the middle of March 1943 when 102 boats were sunk but only 15 U-boats. With the Germans able to decipher Allied messages Doenitz was able to counteract the allied new measures.
The main tactic of the U-boats was to attack from the surface.
Radio control played a decisive role; any signal sent by either side could be received by the other so eventually the Allies stopped using this method. However the Germans did not, as they did not have knowledge of the 鈥渉uff duff鈥�.
Due to this there was a decrease in the number of convoys attacked however the Germans were in disrepute as some believed that their codes had been cracked where as other did not. Bletchley Park had by this time cracked the codes, after they had captured a U110, which proved to be of immense value.
The Allies where winning against the war boats and allied losses decreased as the Germans losses increased. With the development of the air force the U-boats could no longer attack on the surface and as the Germans had discovered the invention of 鈥渉uff duff鈥� Doenitz could no longer direct his U-boats from HQ and the U-boats usefulness was diminishing. Doenitz had lost the 鈥淏attle of the Atlantic Ocean鈥�. Towards the end of the war the average life expectancy of a U-boat crewman was only 60 days; on V day there were 28,000 dead and 5,000 captured and Doenitz was forced to make the order for all U-boat captains to surface and surrender.

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