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only 10% on average of the ships were lost.
They were doing it, firstly the overall anti submarine effort totals from the Coastal Command Summary. Which gives total hours flown in 1940 as 135,357They had a system that worked. They knew why it worked. It should have worked better with (maybe not a lot) with better armament, better ranged aircraft (compared to WW I) and with better signals (1939 radios).
| Year | Sorties | Hours | Hr/Sortie |
1939 | 3178 | 12834 | 4.04 |
1940 | 19457 | 78002 | 4.01 |
1941 | 18254 | 95135 | 5.21 |
1942 | 18319 | 129669 | 7.08 |
1943 | 24431 | 222897 | 9.12 |
1944 | 29260 | 272619 | 9.32 |
1945 | 10123 | 92810 | 9.17 |
| Total | 123022 | 903966 | 7.35 |
| Month | recon | a/sub | Patrol | Convoy | Other | Total |
Jan-40 | 1863 | 1990 | 0 | 2180 | 465 | 6498 |
Feb-40 | 1572 | 2187 | 0 | 1817 | 509 | 6085 |
Mar-40 | 1818 | 2606 | 172 | 4543 | 531 | 9670 |
Apr-40 | 2740 | 2298 | 427 | 4975 | 750 | 11190 |
May-40 | 2930 | 2553 | 0 | 5830 | 2386 | 13699 |
Jun-40 | 3596 | 2823 | 496 | 6628 | 2475 | 16018 |
Jul-40 | 5121 | 2020 | 454 | 5850 | 1768 | 15213 |
Aug-40 | 3516 | 1363 | 662 | 6700 | 1435 | 13676 |
Sep-40 | 3544 | 1729 | 677 | 5986 | 1851 | 13787 |
Oct-40 | 2606 | 1811 | 459 | 5700 | 1282 | 11858 |
Nov-40 | 2467 | 1468 | 499 | 4316 | 1703 | 10453 |
Dec-40 | 1865 | 839 | 478 | 3064 | 1836 | 8082 |
| Total | 33638 | 23687 | 4324 | 57589 | 16991 | 136229 |
The strategy in 1939 was avoid all out bombing, in 1940 survival, in 1941 more bomb the economy to stop overall production.But the strategy in 1938-39-40 was to bomb the U boats in the yards/docks and let the RN sort out the ones at sea while the BC stopped the supply of new boats.
| BC | UB/Base | UB/Pens | UB/Slips | UB/Yards | UB/Yards & City | Total |
1942 | 0 | 0 | 63 | 1166 | 294 | 1524 |
1943 | 0 | 324 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 324 |
1944 | 85 | 2578 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2663 |
1945 | 0 | 393 | 0 | 10304 | 0 | 10697 |
| Total | 85 | 3295 | 63 | 11470 | 294 | 15207 |
| 8th AF | UB/Base | UB/entrance | UB/Facilities | UB/Pens | UB/Yards | Total |
1942 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
1943 | 0 | 301 | 81 | 1609 | 4335 | 6325 |
1944 | 314 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4393 | 4707 |
1945 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8298 | 8298 |
| Total | 314 | 301 | 81 | 2111 | 17025 | 19832 |
It is interesting to compare this with 1947. During the war there were US supplies of grains and other food stocks to supplement domesticly grown food. A soon as the war ended these supplies ended. These vital food supplies had to be paid for with US dollars but there negligible US dollars left after they had all been spent buying vital supplies well before the USA was forced into the war. Thus civilian rations were cut further post war than during the war and the incredibly long lasting and cold winter/spring decimated crops and the following flooding across the country when the thaw occurred made this even worse. 1947 brought Britain even closer to malnutrition than during the war. It is fortunate that the wartime weather allowed for good domestic food crops.Everybody agrees more anti submarine aircraft were needed, reinforced by the ineffective bombing raids, but how many? With all the information available today if it is not possible to give a well agreed answer what chance someone in 1941? Start with what is the optimal number of aircraft simultaneously patrolling around a convoy and any extra required if within range of enemy bombers, similar for barrier patrols, not only where but how often each area is searched in a given time period. Should there be more patrols at night than day? Part of the answer is it depends on U-boats present, aircraft were the quickest way to help ships under threat, more U-boats in the area, the more aircraft sent, if they were available.
They were doing it, firstly the overall anti submarine effort totals from the Coastal Command Summary. Which gives total hours flown in 1940 as 135,357
Year Sorties Hours Hr/Sortie Total
Next Air 15/789 monthly reports for 1940, hours, Patrol = offensive and security, May 1940 Convoy hours given as 2,830 hours but that makes grand total incorrect, of course the hours flown do not match the summary ones. The allocations are backed up from reports by people like Clay Blair about the safety of convoys
Month recon a/sub Patrol Convoy Other Total Total
The strategy in 1939 was avoid all out bombing, in 1940 survival, in 1941 more bomb the economy to stop overall production.
Bomber Command. 1939/40 no U-boat bombings from 14,731 tons dropped, the top 10 being Airfields 1,817 tons, Port Areas 1,748 tons Ships, 1,539 tons, Marshalling Yards 1,512 tons, Industrial Areas 1,411, Roads 983 tons, Oil/Synthetic 830 tons, Troops 809 tons, Rail Lines 774 tons, Oil Refineries 677 tons. Not the most strategic air force.
1941 U-boat bombing 72 tons, ship yards 2,042 tons out of 35,548 tons dropped
BC UB/Base UB/Pens UB/Slips UB/Yards UB/Yards & City Total Total
8th Air Force. All bomb data in short tons, rounded to nearest ton, entrance = lock gates and port area.
8th AF UB/Base UB/entrance UB/Facilities UB/Pens UB/Yards Total Total
Both rather end loaded, the 8th dropped 2,859 short tons on U-boat targets in January and February 1944, then none March to June inclusive.
One of the things to remember is how few U-boats were available for the first two years of the war, their abilities and the circumstances made them very efficient, to be repeated in 1942 off the Americas it means there were not a lot of U-boats passing through the barrier patrol areas and they generally transited the northern one only on their first patrol. Then comes selling barrier patrol success in U-boats not spotted as they had to stay submerged. At least daylight only convoy patrols could force U-boats to break contact even with slow convoys. Barrier patrols needed radar equipped aircraft to become really effective, into 1941 and even later the number of radar sets, their weight and drag limited the suitable aircraft, as does the need for lights for night attacks. Radar carrying aircraft around convoys completes their protection.
All the above would be enhanced if the aircraft and ships could quickly talk to each other. Forming more convoys earlier required the understanding weakly protected convoys were usually better than independent sailings. More aircraft would encourage more convoys.
So how many aircraft? Of what types? How does this vary according to number of U-boats, convoys and threats from air attack? How about flexibility, quickly moving bases according to threats, what advantage several Coastal Command Squadrons moving to the US in early 1942, pairing with similar USAAF/USN units and doing patrols.
Things like Operation Torch, troop movements and Arctic convoys all drew escorts away from the trade convoys, so what allowance for these generally increasingly larger operations?
The UK Statistical Digest notes by value UK imports went up during the war, exports halved. When it comes to tonnages the disruption of trade routes needs to be taken into account.
imports "declined from a prewar average of more than 50 million deadweight tons to 42 million in 1940 and 31 million in 1941. In 1942, despite desperate efforts to arrest the decline and increased assistance from the United States, they fell to 23 million."
British War Economy, page 432
"How near did the United Kingdom really come to the point of danger, where supplies of food and raw materials would have been inadequate to feed the population and keep the war factories working, unless shipping had been quickly diverted from military operations? It will not be possible to give a convincing answer to this question until more research has been done; but some evidence which is already available suggests that the country was not quite so close to the margin of danger as the War Cabinet at that time believed. The estimates of minimum import requirements on which the War Cabinet based its policy were themselves based on calculations of minimum stock levels and the rate of consumption of imported commodities. Looking back, it would seem that the calculations under both heads were too sombre. For example, in the first report of the Shipping Committee, the net consumption in 1942 of importable food was put at 12.4 million tons and of raw materials at 15.1 million tons; but in fact, the actual realised figures were 11.4 million tons for food and 13.3 million tons for materials. Similar discrepancies occurred between the forecasts and the statistical facts for the later war years. In the estimates for food there was perhaps considerable justification for a fair margin of error, since the Ministry of Food had always to allow for the vagaries of the weather and the possibility of bad home harvest. There was less justification for the erroneous estimates of raw material consumption; indeed, the inaccuracies of the Ministry of Production's forecasts serve as a reminder of the limitations of wartime planning even in its later stages.
These overestimates of consumption managed that the United Kingdom managed quite well in 1942 and the early months of 1943 with a volume of imports lower than the stipulated minimum. If it should also be proved that the estimates of minimum stock levels were in some degree inflated, the conclusion would be that the British could in this period have maintained an unimpaired war effort at an even lower level of imports: alternatively, that they could have gone on longer than the Government believed at the low rate of imports actually achieved. To some extent, the estimates of consumption hang together; if the former were inflated, then it followed that minimum stock levels, calculated on the basis of so many weeks' supply, were also overestimated."
Britain did not come as close to danger as thought so at the time, the safety margins were thinning out to where a bad year for agriculture would create major problems. Arable land had gone from 12 million to 17.4 million acres, the 1943 wheat crop was 3,435,000 tons, but the 1945 one was 2,174,000 tons. While 1,705,000 tons of US food arrived in 1943. For a series of 15 main food stuffs (Wheat, Barley, Oats, Mixed corn, Rye (grain), Potatoes, Sugar beet, Beans, Peas, Turnips and swedes, Mangolds, Hops, Mustard (seed), Fruit, Vegetables) Britain increased output from the per war average of 28,500,000 tons to 42,546,000 tons in 1943 but down to 40,759,000 tons in 1944 and 40,473,000 tons in 1945. In Great Britain the cattle herd went up by 10%, Sheep down 25%, pigs and poultry down 50% each, fish consumption per capita halved until late in the war. In 1942/43 Britain was relying on reasonable growing seasons in Britain.
The RN started WWII with a nominal strength of 107 new, 79 old destroyers and 32 sea/ocean going anti submarine ships, total 218 plus the French fleet. In December 1940 it was 90 new, 71 old, 50 ex US and 18 Hunt class destroyers, plus 64 escorts, total 247, the building program kicked delivered in 1941 so December strength was 88 new, 66 old, 47 ex US and 44 Hunt class destroyers, plus 224 escorts, total 471. Figures include those under repair, refit etc. Losses to the above ships were 3 in 1939, 42 in 1940 and 33 in 1941, including 48 modern destroyers, it took until July 1943 before the modern destroyer strength regained its September 1939 figure.
By end 1942 the above categories had 503 ships, end 1943 it was 685 ships, end 1944 it was 818. Escort carrier strength as of December 1941 to 1944 were 1, 7, 35, 40.
The battle fleet started with 15 battleships, 6 carriers and 64 cruisers, end 1944 it was 14 battleships (including several in reserve), 9 carriers and 60 cruisers (including those in reserve). This excludes Free French, Dutch, Greek etc. ships under RN control but not RN ships manned by allies.
German passive sonar was better than allied and could usually detect ships beyond U-boat visible horizon, with limitations on bearings.
Yep, well, the prospect of staving to death tends to focus the mind wonderfully.Churchill and better his commanders thought otherwise.
B-24I have a book in my collection, Aggressors: Patrol Aircraft Vs. Submarine that has artwork of a B-24A Liberator Mk 1, AM929, of 120 Sqdrn, flown by Sqdrn Ldr Terrence Bulloch, among others, that was the top scoring aircraft against U-boats, being credited with sinking four as well as sharing in the kill of another and damaged a number of others in addition to forcing quite a few to submerge.
So if AM929 is the top scoring sub killer of all time, which aircraft type was the top scoring U-boat killer of WW2? And note that even if the U-boats were not normally operating in the mid-Atlantic, they had to transit that area to reach the US coast, and they certainly did not do that submerged.
Not quite. An RAF Liberator damaged U-456 with a Mark 24 on 13 May 13. It was sunk by RN surface units the next day. On that same day (14th) a USN PBY sank U-357 or 640.Third, the air dropped acoustic homing torpedo, which sank a U-boat on its very first action, also giving the USN the honor of being the very first military to use guided missiles in combat. The effort had the substantial additional benefit of showing the USN that there were people who could design, develop, and build torpedoes a hell of a lot better than those idiots at the USN-operated RI torpedo Factory.
The longest continuous underwater voyage by a U-boat was 68 days by U978 during a patrol from Norway to the English Channel and back again between Oct & Dec 1944.And note that even if the U-boats were not normally operating in the mid-Atlantic, they had to transit that area to reach the US coast, and they certainly did not do that submerged.
The Liberator allocation, in my view, was a mistake largely driven by Harris and Churchill in their drive to maximise the air offensive over Germany. A 10% reduction in Bomber Command could have doubled Coastal Command's LR and VLR fleet. The poor results being achieved over Germany were small returns compared with what more aircraft could have done around convoys and transit routes. However it is a hugely complicated story and does not lend itself to brief answers.
You have a point but as I said the topic does not lend itself to easy answers so I should probably have avoided a one paragraph comment. I don't have the time to go through events in date order to do it justice.Your perception of Liberator allocation is at fault here; the Liberator was not used in large numbers by Bomber Command until 1943/1944 and even then in the Far East, not in the European Theatre. A small number of Liberator Is and IIs had been used in North Africa but the largest British operator in the first couple of years of the war was Coastal Command, which ordered large numbers of the type unhindered by Harris' influence. Harris was happy for Halifaxes to go to Coastal Command because he didn't like the type, but the only "restriction" he imposed was that no Lancasters should go to Coastal Command.
That is the problem, ther are so many quotes and dates. The truth is compex.
Who was to state that bombing German and French targets was of a lesser priority than hunting U boats at the time?
I think nuuumannn makes sensible arguments.
They knew. WW1 .
No. They did know about german subs. Not projecting, just facts. PSo, what happened between WW1 and WW2? The Treaty of Versailles? German disarmament? German rearmament? the Nazis, "Peace in our Time"? Did the British or anyone else know in 1935 or 1939 even that this was exactly what the Germans were going to do again? How many U boats did Germany have in 1939 when the war broke out? Did the British have an exact figure of how many there were? Was there sufficient number for the Germans to to launch such a campaign in 1939? How could anyone have predicted, before the war, just what or how much the Wehrmacht was going to be capable of during the war? A conflict that while everyone saw it coming, no one predicted just how it might play out?
See, you're projecting because of what you know from the past - "the benefit of hindsight". Without the benefit of knowing what you know, there is no way that the British Air Ministry in 1939 or even a year later could have known that German U boats were going to be as great a threat as it was by 1942. In 1939 the priority was different to what it was in 1940, 1941, 1942 etc, etc, let alone before the war. What about the Germans themselves? Their priorities constantly changed during the war, let alone before it. If Operation Seelowe went ahead and succeeded, was there a need for a large number of U boats instead of a bigger surface fleet, which is what Hitler wanted to begin with? See, it was impossible to know, even with the knowledge of the Great War, exactly what was going to happen once the shooting started.
No. They did know about german subs. Not projecting, just facts. P
As is that subs almost strangled blighty. Again.
Churchill umong others made it very clear.
Wasn't Churchill quoted as saying "the only thing that kept me awake was the U-boat threat" or words to that effect?