hist2004
04-22-2004, 01:45 PM
by John Barrett
The U-boat War, 1939-42
Opening Shots
On the outbreak of war in September 1939, Donitz had 39 U-boats stationed near the main British shipping lanes. On the first day of hostilities, the liner "Athenia", was sunk by a U-boat commanded by Kapitan Franz-Julius Lemp. The German commander had mistaken her for a troop-transport, but the deaths of a large number of civilians, including Americans caused an immediate widespread outcry. Hitler had in fact forbidden unrestricted submarine warfare of the kind which had helped bring the USA into World War I, in the hope that Britain might, after the fall of Poland, agree to a compromise peace.
Within a few weeks however, the Fuhrer accepted that there was no immediate prospect of such an end to the war, and began lifting the restrictions on submarine warfare. Britain responded by arming merchant ships and ordering them to fire on U-boats on sight. In response Donitz authorised his commanders to attack without warning any ship in convoy, or behaving in "a suspicious manner", and within a designated zone around the British Isles unrestricted submarine warfare was permitted, although neutral vessels, in theory, were not supposed to be attacked.
During the first few months of the war there were rarely more than six or seven U-boats at sea at any one time, and they mainly operated in the North East Atlantic. The main concentration was in the Western Approaches to the English Channel, where shipping lanes converged and the concentration of targets was heaviest. Donitz was not as yet able to mount the kind of assault he had ideally envisaged, for the demands of the other armed forces meant that far fewer than the planned 29 new U-boats a month were being constructed. British mining in the Channel forced U-boats to make their way to the operational zone via a long detour around the British Isles, which greatly reduced the length of time they could spend on station. The net result of all this was that Donitz rarely had more than 20 boats available for Atlantic operations at any one time, of which only about half a dozen would actually be on station.
Although such a small force could hardly bring Britain to her knees, they had a number of individual successes. The British responded to the U-boat threat by forming "hunter-killer" groups, sometimes built around an aircraft carrier, but this policy went into sharp reverse when on September 19th 1939, the U-9 sank the carrier "Courageous" in the Western Approaches, with the loss of 518 men. This was followed quickly by another sharp blow, when on October 14th, Gunther Prien, in U-47 , penetrated the supposedly impregnable defences of the British Home Fleet's principal base at Scapa Flow, and sank the battleship "Royal Oak".
Learning from their experiences in World war I, the British had introduced a limited convoy system from the outbreak of war, but both the fastest and slowest ships were excluded, and left to sail independently. It was among these "independents" that the U-boats scored their greatest success. By the end of 1939, only four ships out of a total of 5,756 sailing in convoy had been lost, compared with the sinking of 102 "independents".
Even so, the shortage of convoy escorts, and the small number and limited range of aircraft available to RAF Coastal Command made it fortunate that Donitz had not, initially, enough U-boats to exploit his opponent's weakness. He would be further frustrated in April 1940, when Hitler diverted the U-boats to take part in "Operation Weserubung", the invasion of Norway, where the submarines' lack of success was compounded by failings in the firing mechanism of their magnetic torpedoes. In June these began to be replaced by a new type of contact percussion torpedo.
The "Happy Time", 1940-41
Despite all obstacles, the U-boats had sunk 224 ships totaling 1.3 million tons between September 1939 and June 1940. And now the Fall of France improved their prospects considerably, as the Germans took possession of French naval bases along the Atlantic coast. The first French U-boat base was established in July 1940 at Lorient on the Bay of Biscay, and quickly was followed by bases at Brest, St Nazaire and La Palice in Brittany. Use of these bases not only gave the U-boats direct access to the Atlantic, but also shortened their journey to the operational area by over 1,000 miles. This allowed a greater number of U-boats to be at sea at any one time, and also to push their range much further out into the Atlantic. A further impetus to German operations came with the basing in Western France of long-range Focke-Wulfe 200 "Kondor" bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. These aircraft, with a range of 2,200 miles, could not only bomb Allied merchant ships, but more importantly, track their course for waiting U-boats.
The British were facing other problems. The threat of a German invasion of Britain during the summer of 1940 resulted in many destroyers being withdrawn from convoy escort duties to wait in the Channel for Hitler's armada. The fall of France, whilst easing matters for the U-boats, forced Britain, in order to reduce attacks by the Luftwaffe, to shift her main convoy routes from the Western Approaches and the English Channel to the North West Approaches and the port of Liverpool. This not only imposed a great strain on Britain's western ports, but also increased convoy journey times by up to 40%. Until new air bases were eventually developed in Northern Ireland, and later in Iceland, the lack of naval bases in now independent Eire, which had been available to the Royal Navy in World War I, caused further problems.
On August 17th, Hitler, confident in the advantages which his U-boats now had, declared a total blockade of Britain. . The following months would later be remembered by U-boat men as "the happy time". Though total merchant tonnage lost in the autumn of 1940 was less than that of two years later, at 2,373,070 tons for the year it was still bad enough, and to make matters worse for the Allies, it was achieved by an average of only 21 U-boats at sea at any one time. During the year a total of 26 U-boats were lost.
The autumn of 1940 saw Donitz beginning to transfer the focus of his activities to the mid-Atlantic, where he could attack weakly-escorted convoys beyond the range of air support. September saw the first wolf-pack operation, when ten U-boats intercepted two convoys off the west coast of Ireland, and sank 16 ships. The following month saw what would prove to be the single most successful U-boat operation of the war, when a pack of 12 boats, in a four -night operation, sank 32 merchant ships of a total 154,661 tons.
Donitz was not however satisfied with the rate of success being achieved. Despite the somewhat unco-ordinated assistance provided by the "Kondors", Goring was unwilling to give much Luftwaffe support to Donitz, whom he saw as a rival, and there were still insufficient U-boats available to approach the rate of sinkings at which U-Boat Command was aiming. During 1940 German shipyards were only producing U-boats at an average of four and a half vessels a month. In 1941 this would be stepped up to a monthly average of 17 U-boats , but lengthy training needed for their crews meant that most would not be in action until 1942.
In an effort to fill the gap, Donitz turned to Germany's Italian ally. Italian submarines had proved less than impressive during the Spanish Civil War, and they proved hardly more successful in Atlantic operations. Their commanders were unfamiliar with German tactics and the wolf-pack concept, and from December 1940, despairing of overcoming these problems, Donitz assigned the Italians their own sector of the Atlantic and left them to their own devices. Between September 1940 and July 1943 about 30 Italian submarines operated at different times in the Atlantic, and sank a total of 105 Allied merchant ships for the loss of 16 of their own vessels.
So far as the German U-boat effort was concerned, Donitz received an encouraging boost early in 1941, when the first of the new longer-ranged Type IX U-boats came into service, and commenced operations on the South Atlantic trade routes.
The British were suffering severely from shortages of escort vessels. New construction from British shipyards would not start to become available much before 1942, and the 50 "Destroyers for Bases" supplied by the United States in the summer of 1940 did not adequately bridge the gap. In the spring of 1941 the United States agreed to assume responsibility for the protection of convoys West of 26 degrees west Longitude. In July 1941, at British request, US troops took over the garrisoning of Iceland, which was becoming an increasingly vital naval and air base in the Battle of the Atlantic.
This increased American involvement in the Atlantic struggle could serve only to make actual hostilities between the United States and Germany sooner or later inevitable. Indeed such a situation, though unacknowledged, existed from about September 1941, when the USS "Greer", came into conflict with a U-boat. In October, The USS "Kearney" was torpedoed and damaged whilst on convoy duty, and soon afterwards the USS "Reuben James", was sunk by a U-boat with the loss of 115 lives. The actual declaration of war, in December, thus only formalised a situation which was fast becoming reality in any case.
Operation Drum Roll
Donitz had long been eager to turn his sea wolves loose against the vulnerable shipping lanes of the American East Coast. Hitler, fearful of bringing the USA into the war prematurely, had resisted his U-boat supremo's pleas to initiate action there. Instead he had ordered that a third of operational U-boats be deployed to the Mediterranean, where they achieved relatively little of value against the limited numbers of Allied merchant ships operating there.
At last, in January 1942, Donitz was given the long-for permission to strike at the USA. "Operation Paukenschlag" ("Drum Roll") began in the middle of the month, and initially involved only five U-boats, manned by veteran crews, operating off the North American coast between the Gulf of St Lawrence and Cape Hatteras. In the space of two weeks the five U-boats sank 20 merchant ships totaling 150,000 tons. This was merely a foretaste of the massacre to come.
Though a hell for the crews of so many merchant ships, the eastern US seaboard in the spring of 1942 was a paradise for U-boat men. There was as yet no convoy system ; vessels sailed individually, making free use of their radios, fully lit at night, against the brilliantly illuminated backdrop of coastal cities where a blackout would not be fully in operation for another five months. During daylight hours the U-boats remained submerged, and surfaced at nightfall to wreak havoc with guns and torpedoes. On an average night, a U-boat might hope to claim three victims, with resulting immense losses in supplies and munitions.
For the U-boat men, these six months in what they termed the "golden west" were the high point of the submarine campaign. In May 1942 the number of U-boats operating on the Eastern seaboard reached a high point of 30 vessels, for the first time supplied by U-tankers (Type X and supply U-boats or "milch cows", (Type XIV). Each of these could keep a flotilla of a dozen Type VII's at sea for an additional month.
But by now the crest of success for "Operation Drumbeat" had peaked. In April 1942 the USA began to implement a convoy system for its coastal convoys, and this fully operational by August. The great slaughter, which had cost 360 merchant ships totaling about 2,250,000 tons, for a loss of only eight U-boats, was over.
But out in the Atlantic, the climax of the U-boat war was only just beginning.
The Climax, July 1942-May 1943
By July 1942 the days of easy pickings for the U-boats along the Eastern Seaboard of the USA were over. It was time for Donitz to switch his efforts back to his old hunting grounds in the mid-Atlantic. He had seemingly ample grounds for optimism. In May 1942 German experts had produced a study which concluded that if the U-boats were able to sink a monthly average of 700,000 tons of Allied merchant ships for the rest of the year, Britain, despite all the efforts of shipbuilding yards on both sides of the Atlantic, would be doomed.
Though this was more than twice the average monthly sinkings for 1941, Donitz felt confident of success. At the end of 1941, his U-boat fleet had totalled 236 vessels, which had been sinking 13 Allied merchant ships for every one of their own number lost. They had reduced the total available British merchant fleet by 3 million tons compared with the start of the war. And now Donitz was returning to the Atlantic convoy routes in a stronger position. He had a total U-boat strength of 331, of which 141 were operational and an average of 50 constantly on patrol. U-boat HQ at Chateau Kernival in Brittany had become expert in the close orchestration of the increasingly effective "wolf-pack" tactics.
Even more significantly, and often overlooked in favour of the better-known Allied successes in breaking the "Enigma" codes, the German cryptologists at "B-Dienst" had pierced the Royal Navy codes giving details of the assembly points and sailing times of convoys, often giving U-boat HQ between 10 and 20 hours advance warning of enemy intentions. Just as valuable was German success which between February 1942 and June 1943 frequently enabled them to read the daily British Admiralty estimate of U-boat dispositions, though like the Allies, the Germans had to forgo using much information to avoid the enemy suspecting their success.
Despite the steadily increasing numbers of escort vessels becoming available for the convoys, increased air support, and technological advances in anti-submarine warfare, the results of the U-boat war in the second half of 1942 seemed to justify Donitz's hopes. During the last few months of the year, aided by the diversion of many Allied escorts to support the "Torch" landings in North Africa, the U-boats were sinking a monthly average of 650,000 tons. If the vessels sunk by aircraft, mines and such few surface raiders as were still at large were added to this total, Germany seemed on the verge of achieving the sinking rate demanded by her experts.
Unfortunately for Donitz's hopes, his planners had seriously underestimated Allied , particularly American, construction capacity. During 1943 US shipyards would produce 20 million tons of merchant shipping, ample to replace a total Allied loss during the previous year of about 7 ½ million tons, overestimated by the Germans as twice as much. Though there had been many apparently striking U-boat successes, such as the attack in August on convoy SC94, which had lost 26 ships, and the November assault on SC107, which sank 15 ships, these were deceptive. In fact, therefore, though not fully appreciated by either side, or indeed by many modern historians, at the end of the year the U-boats were no closer to decisive victory. Furthermore, the steadily increasing effectiveness of Allied anti-submarine measures was hinted at by the less favourable , for the Germans, sinking ratio, now running at 10 merchant ships for every U-boat lost.
The Decisive Months
It was apparent to both sides that the first half of 1943 would be decisive. Donitz began the year believing that the rate of sinkings being achieved by his crews was slightly outpacing the rate of Allied shipbuilding. His U-boat fleet had now increased to 400 vessels, of which 200 were operational, and an average of 100 at sea -10 more than the total which, at the start of the war, Donitz had argued would have been sufficient to bring decisive victory, although his estimates then had not allowed for US involvement.
Yet Allied effectiveness was also increasing. There were now over 500 escort vessels available, sufficient not only to provide stronger close protection for convoys, but also to allow the formation of "support" or hunter-killer groups, to reinforce convoys under attack. Equally significant were the on-going advances in anti-submarine warfare being made by the Allies. During the autumn of 1942 the increasingly effective air operations against U-boats crossing the Bay of Biscay in transit to and from their French bases received the welcome assistance of airborne radar. For a time in the autumn of 1942 the U-boats were given some protection against this threat by a radar detection device, but in February 1943 the Allies introduced a new short-wave radar which proved undetectable until the closing stages of the war.
Although it is unclear whether Donitz had fully grasped the fact, by the beginning of 1943 there were unmistakable signs that, if it had ever really existed, the window of opportunity for a decisive German victory in the Battle of the Atlantic was closing rapidly. The first four months of the year saw the rapid introduction by the Allies of a whole range of improved anti-submarine equipment and techniques. As well as improved aircraft-mounted radar, escort carriers were beginning to prove their worth and surface escorts were being equipped with radar, high frequency direction finders and improved anti-submarine weapons such as the "hedgehog" depth charge thrower.
Not only were escorts and aircraft proving more effective, there were also more of them. Between February and May the number of long-range "Liberator" anti-submarine aircraft available rose from ten to over sixty. Although the vast majority of US Navy escort vessels had been diverted by the needs of the Pacific War, leaving the RN and RCN to perform about 96% of escort duties in the North Atlantic, increasing the size of convoys had made it possible to raise the average number of escorts from six to nine, without increasing the vulnerability of the convoy. Sufficient escorts had also been released to allow the formation of five British convoy-support groups, the best known being that operating out of Liverpool under Captain J.F. "Johnny" Walker. They were later reinforced by a US group. Each group consisted of between five and seven destroyers and frigates, and three also had an escort carrier. Their role was to accompany convoys through the mid-Atlantic air gap., where they were most vulnerable to attack, whilst the presence of an escort carrier helped provide air support for the entire crossing.
Of equal, though again often underrated significance, was the success by now consistently being achieved by the Allied radio direction finders. Between July 1942 and May 1943 they managed to divert 105 out of a total of 174 North Atlantic convoys away from wolf-pack ambushes, and enabled another 23 partially to avoid such traps. Only 16 ran into large U-boat concentrations, and it was these which suffered the bulk of losses.
Despite all these favourable portents for the Allies, the first three months of 1943 saw continued notable U-boat successes. They were aided in part by wintry conditions in the North Atlantic, which made Allied detection less effective, and also by the introduction of the new U-boat "Enigma" cypher known to Bletchley Park as "Shark", which remained unbroken until the end of March.
In February convoy ON 16 lost 14 ships, with the overall merchant ship/U-boat kill ratio for the month standing at 7:1, a decline from the German high point of the previous year, but still offering U-boat Command grounds for hope.
The particularly foul weather of March, with convoys and their escorts straggling through gales, blizzards and hail, saw some of the fiercest battles of the war. The beginning of the month saw roughly 50 U-boats at sea. Between 7-10 March, convoy SC 121 lost six ships, with 199 men of their crews, experienced seamen who could be less easily spared than their ships. The next two convoys, SC 122 and HX 229, were even more savagely mauled by 44 U-boats from wolf packs "Sturmer", "Dranger" and "Raubgraf" - the greatest U-boat concentration achieved in the entire war. A total of 22 ships of 146,000 tons were lost between March 8-18. But tragic though the loss of merchant ships and their crewmen was, of ultimately greater significance was that throughout the entire battle, the U-boats had failed to sink or damage a single escort vessel, whilst seven of their own number had been damaged, with two U-boats being sunk later by Allied aircraft on their way back to base.
By April the tide had begun to turn. Though battles were once more fiercely contested, the Allies lost only half as many merchant ships as in March, whilst 14 U-boats were accounted for.
Feeling the battle slipping away from him, Donitz ordered a supreme effort for May. The decisive action came in the first week of the month with a concerted attack on convoy ON 55. After initial German successes, the balance tilted with the arrival of a Royal Navy support group, assisted by fog which hindered U-boat operations. On 5/6th May a total of 7 U-boats were sunk compared with 12 merchant ships. It was the beginning of a disastrous trend for Donitz. By the end of May he had lost from all causes 41 U-boats , more than a quarter of his operational strength, for barely the same number of Allied merchant vessels. The losses, as Donitz, admitted, were "intolerable". On May 24th he ordered all but a token number of U-boats away from the North Atlantic in what was termed "a temporary shift to areas less endangered". Though no one would be sure of it for a long time to come, Germany had lost the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Bitter End, 1943-1945
On 31st May, a week after calling off the U-boat offensive in the North Atlantic, Donitz reported on the situation to Hitler. After listing all the current allied advantages, the head of the Kriegsmarine outlined the various technological developments which he hoped would tilt the war once more in the U-boat waffe's favour. Already being tested was the "Naxos" short-wave radar detector. Improved acoustic and homing torpedoes were under development, as was the "schnorkel" breathing apparatus which could be fitted to existing U-boats so that they would no longer need to surface in order to recharge their batteries. Further in the future, among Germany's promised array of "wonder weapons", were the revolutionary new Type XXI and XXIII U-boats. In the more immediate term, Donitz was hoping to counteract at least the growing Allied threat from the air by fitting his U-boats with quadruple AA guns.
Even so, immediate prospects were grim, but both Hitler and Donitz were adamant that that the U-boat war should continue in some form. On all fronts the war was turning against Germany, and at least the U-boats could make a contribution to the defence of the Reich by tying down Allied resources which might otherwise be used elsewhere. Thinking in particular of the growing devastation being inflicted upon German cities by Allied bombing, Donitz asked: "Could the submariner stand aside as a spectator, saying there was nothing he could do or would do, and telling the women and children they must put up with it? …A continuation of the U-boat campaign would involve certain and deliberate self-sacrifice. I finally came to the bitter conclusion that we had no option but to fight on."
From June 1943 the U-boats faced the additional disadvantage that their cryptologists could no longer break Royal Navy codes, whilst "Triton" or "Shark" was decoded virtually without a break until December 1944. In September Donitz attempted to renew the Atlantic campaign. But although his U-boats were now equipped with the new short-wave radar detector and acoustic torpedoes, the outcome was ignominious and costly failure. Convoys continued either to evade the U-boats, or strong escorts beat off the attackers at a heavy cost to the wolf-packs. Those U-boats, which, usually in groups, attempted to fight on the surface with their improved AA defences against Allied aircraft, were generally sunk.
On 12th November, noting gloomily that "The enemy holds every trump card… knows all our secrets and we know none of his", Donitz abandoned wolf-pack tactics in the North Atlantic. For the next six months U-boat commanders would operate individually on their own initiative, a tactic which could never be more than a nuisance to Allied shipping in convoy. During this period, in all theatres, a total of 107 Allied ships (600,000 tons) , only eight of them in convoy, would be sunk, whilst 136 U-boats were lost- a, for the Germans, truly miserable ratio of 0.78 merchant ships sunk for each U-boat destroyed.
Sacrifice
From early 1944 all German intentions were focused on the imminent Allied invasion of Europe. The U-boat force was still numerically impressive, with a total of 449 submarines in commission. Of these, 287 were still undergoing trials or crew training, and 162 were operational, with an average of 43 at sea on any one day. But all were effectively obsolete, and increasingly viewed by their crews as "iron coffins".
During the spring about 73 U-boats were deployed in the French Biscay ports or the Norwegian bases to combat Allied invasion attempts. But when the Normandy landings began in June, U-boat attempts to intervene proved to be another costly failure. Their movements betrayed by "Ultra" intercepts and improved detection equipment, subject to ferocious air attack and highly effective surface hunters, the U-boats were chased, harried, and in many cases sunk. Though they continued their heroic and sacrificial efforts in the English Channel and North Sea well into the summer, the final balance sheet for the U-boats' attempt to disrupt the Allied invasion provided further grim reading. By the end of August, when the U-boat campaign was abandoned, they had sunk 21 Allied ships, including 5 warships, for a loss of 19 U-boats and 1000 officers and men.
At the end of August, with the Biscay bases threatened by capture or siege, all seaworthy U-boats there were withdrawn to Norway. From here they would mount Germany's last forlorn attempt to disrupt Allied by shipping by operating in British coastal waters. Here they would be able to make more effective use of the "schnorkel", and thus be more difficult to detect. But even so, results proved meagre, and operational effectiveness was reduced by lack of major repair facilities in the Norwegian bases, which often forced U-boats to run the gauntlet of Allied air power when returning to Germany for maintainance. The most that could be said was that the loss ratio was slightly more favourable to the Germans than it had been for some time. Between August 1944 and the end of the year, 8 merchant ships, two warships and a tug were sunk for the loss of 8 U-boats, a ratio of 1.5. But such results were insignificant in the scale of Allied resources.
Even so, the U-boat command did not finally abandon hope. Its senior officers attempted to gain comfort from the fact that the "schnorkel" and the new radar search detector made U-boats less vulnerable to discovery. But this advantage largely disappeared once they revealed their location by attempting an attack. Another apparent advantage seemed to be presented to the Germans in December, when a change in "Enigma" procedures once more prevented the Allies from reading the U-boat codes, whilst a situation in which the majority of U-boats were now operating singly meant that were far fewer radio signals to aid in pinpointing submarines' locations.
However the Allies were devoting massive resources to the war against the U-boat. During December 1944 they concentrated 426 escort vessels and 420 RAF Coastal Command aircraft in home waters. The result was further disappointment for the Kriegsmarine. In November they had sunk one escort carrier and six merchant ships for the loss of seven U-boats; in December the exchange was seven merchant ships for three U-boats.
Right up until the end of the war a few U-boats continued to operate in the North Atlantic, including an ill-fated attempt to revive wolf-pack tactics off the US coast. Results were meager; by the end of the war U-boats in the Atlantic had sunk 11 merchant ships, one frigate and one minesweeper, whilst three U-boats had been lost out of the 22 sent to operate in this area. At least, however, they had managed to occupy the attentions of 17 escort groups.
The final months of the war saw no upturn in U-boat fortunes. They managed to sink 63 merchant ships, but the ever-increasing Allied onslaught, particularly from the air, accounted for 152 U-boats.
Only in the final days of the war did the first of the new types of U-boat begin to become operational. A Type XXIII, U2336, had the distinction of sinking the last two merchant ships of the war, on May 8th, when, unbeknown to her commander, hostilities had actually ceased. The only Type XXI actually to become operational, U2511, sailed from Bergen , and was off the Faroe Islands when she received the signal to cease hostilities, and ended active operations by making an undetected dummy attack on a Royal Navy cruiser. At the end of the war, The Kriegsmarine still possessed 393 U-boats, of which 126 were operational, and 43 at sea.
The U-boats at sea responded to the order to surrender in various ways. About 23 came into British ports to surrender, three to Canada and four to the USA. Others returned home or scuttled themselves . Two eventually fetched up in the River Plate in Argentina, creating almost certainly unfounded reports that they had carried into hiding various high-ranking Nazis. About 154 U-boats were surrendered intact in German or Norwegian naval bases, and 218, including 82 Type XXI and 29 Type XXIII, scuttled themselves rather than surrender.
Final Reckoning
Depending on the means of calculation, estimates of total U-boats lost from all causes during the war vary between 777 and 821. There are similar variations in estimates of the number of their victims. So far as the Battle of the Atlantic proper is concerned, an accepted figure is 2603 merchant ships with the loss of 30,000 Allied seamen. The toll exacted on Donitz's U-boat crews rated with those of Allied bomber crews as the highest in any branch of any armed services in World War II. Of a total of 40,900 men who served in U-boats, 28,000, or 70%, were lost, including a son of Grand Admiral Donitz.
Churchill later wrote that the U-boat threat had been the only thing which had really worried him during the war, but more recent studies tend to suggest that Donitz never came within measurable distance of achieving victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. The failure to build up an adequate U-boat force prior to the outbreak of war was critical in this, as well as the enormous shipbuilding capacity of the Allies following the entry of the US into the war. But, certainly to those who fought and died in it, the Battle of the Atlantic was one of the grimmest and most bitterly contested campaigns of World War II.
The Arctic War - The Russian Convoys
For those who took part in them, the Arctic convoys were probably among the most difficult of any missions mounted in World War II. The German invasion of Russia in June 1941 brought Great Britain a new ally, but also created new demands on her limited resources. As the Red Army reeled under the massive German onslaught, it became increasingly doubtful whether the Soviet Union would be able to hold out for long. The decision by the British Government in August 1941 to send military supplies to her new ally, via the North Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel, was as much for reasons of politics and morale boosting as to provide any really significant military assistance. Indeed, especially after US entry into the war, something like three-quarters of Allied supplies sent to Russia went via the Pacific or through Iran.
The decision would involve mainly the British, but also at times the US and other allied navies, together with countless merchant seamen of many nationalities, in some of the most bitterly fought actions of the war.
Between August 1941 and the spring of 1945, some forty convoys, coded "PQ", made the long voyage from British ports to North Russia. They faced some of the harshest climatic conditions in the world, battling in the winter days of almost perpetual darkness against the natural hazards of ice, fog and ferocious storms. In these far Northern latitudes, summer brought less adverse weather conditions, but the almost perpetual daylight rendered the Allied convoys vulnerable to attack by their German opponents at almost anytime
During the long campaign, the German High Command used virtually every weapon in their arsenal in an attempt to sever the supply route. Aircraft from Norwegian bases were within range of the convoys for much of their voyage, and their bombing and torpedo attacks took a high toll of Allied vessels. They were joined for much of the time by U-boats, diverted from the Atlantic battleground, which added their own contribution to the perils facing the convoys.
Perhaps the greatest threat, and the one that caused most concern to the Allies, was presented by the German surface fleet. The loss of the "Bismarck", and the increasing vulnerability of the French Atlantic ports to air attack, convinced Hitler that the days of effective commerce raiding by surface ships were at an end. This realisation coincided with the start of the Arctic convoys, and was fed by the Fuhrer's long standing conviction that the Allies were planning to invade Norway. An obvious solution to all of these problems was to transfer the bulk of the larger surface vessels of the "Kriegsmarine" to Norwegian bases. Here they would be both able to oppose any Allied landings and prey on the convoys to Russia. This, at least, was the theory, but it soon became apparent that there was a basic contradiction at work in the need to avoid unnecessary risks to Germany's small surface fleet in order to preserve them to oppose Allied landings, whilst at the same time acting boldly to disrupt the convoys. It was a dilemma which the Kriegsmarine would never be able to resolve, and which would cost it dearly.
The First Battles
From early 1942, the Germans began to build up their naval forces in the Norwegian ports. There was generally a flotilla or more of their large destroyers, notably the formidable Z-class vessels, based in Norway, which could provide a formidable opponent even for a British 6" cruiser, but of greatest concern to the British Admiralty were some half a dozen heavy ships. These included at various times the pocket battleship "Lutzow", the heavy cruisers "Admiral Hipper" and "Prinz Eugen", and those light cruisers that were still fit for service. But the most acute threat, which persisted for much of the war, was presented by the formidable battleships "Scharnhorst", and, sister ship to the "Bismarck", the 35,000 ton 16" gun armed "Tirpitz".
For as long as these vessels remained operational, they presented a continual menace which tied down both British, and sometimes US, heavy ships which were urgently required elsewhere, especially in the Far East.
The first important German sortie was mounted in March 1942, when "Tirpitz" with three destroyers sailed to intercept Convoy PQ12. Once again, British knowledge of the "Enigma" codes gave warning of enemy intentions, and Admiral Sir John Tovey, with heavy units of the Home Fleet, including battleships "King George V" and "Duke of York", together with the battlecruiser "Renown" and aircraft carrier "Victorious" sailed from Scapa Flow to intercept. But hopes of a repetition of the sinking of the "Bismarck" were thwarted when British torpedo planes failed to score a single hit, and the German squadron returned safely to port, resolved to take no further risks, especially if an enemy carrier was reported at sea.
The next skirmish took place at the end of march, when the Convoy PQ13, when three German destroyers were intercepted by the British covering force, the cruiser "Trinidad" , and two destroyers. In confused fighting in the midst of a heavy snowstorm, the German destroyer Z26 was sunk, but the "Trinidad" was hit by one of her own torpedoes which reversed course after being affected by the very low temperatures. Although temporarily repaired in Russia, she was sunk in May by air attack whilst attempting to return to Britain.
Another skirmish followed in May, when the British light cruiser "Edinburgh" was lost following damage from a U-boat and three German destroyers, although one of the German vessels was also sunk.
These skirmishes were plainly not enough to stop the convoys, so in June the German Naval Command resolved once more to commit its heavy ships against the next Russia-bound convoy, PQ17. The Allies were partially aware of enemy intentions, and committed a particularly strong force to protect the convoy. As well as a particularly large close escort, a powerful covering force, made up of both British and United States vessels was organised. It included four heavy cruisers, HMS "London" and "Norfolk" , and the USS "Tuscaloosa" and "Wichita". In support was the entire Home Fleet, including the battleships HMS "Duke of York" and the USS "Washington", the carrier "Victorious", two cruisers and eight destroyers.
The Allies were itching for action with the German Battle Group, believed to include "Tirpitz and "Lutzow". But then the British First Sea Lord, Admiral Dudley Pound, made a fatal error. Believing surface action to be imminent, he ordered PQ 17 to scatter, whilst its escorts prepared for battle. In fact, the German squadron was still in Altenfjord. Pound's decision had left the merchant vessels of PQ17 at the mercy of enemy U-boats and aircraft. In the massacre that followed, 22 out of 35 vessels were sunk, carrying with them to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean 430 tanks, 210 aircraft, 3,350 lorries and jeeps, and 100,000 tons of other cargo. It was the greatest German victory against the Russian convoys of the entire war, and partly because of this, and the long summer days, but also because of the need of shipping for Mediterranean operations, the decision was made to suspend the Russian convoys until the autumn.
Hitler Throws a Tantrum
Convoys were resumed in September 1942, and, in a portent for the future, Admiral Covey now provided strong "fighting destroyer" escorts, designed to deter German surface attacks without risking the heavy ships of the Home Fleet. Also with PQ18 was the escort carrier HMS "Avenger". Although the Germans took a high toll, sinking 13 merchant ships, they themselves suffered an unacceptable rate of exchange with the loss of three U-boats and 22 aircraft.
The demands of "Operation Torch" (the Allied landings in North Africa) caused a further suspension of the Russian convoys until December. By now the Russian offensive against Stalingrad was increasing pressure on the Axis forces in the East, so much so that the Battle Group in Norway was urged by Raeder to take more decisive action when the Russian convoys were resumed. The convoys now sailed under new code names; those to Russia had the prefix JW and those returning RA. Convoys would now often be run in two parts, and this was the case JW51 . JW51 A reached Murmansk without incident, but the second part-JW51B was forced south towards the Norwegian coast by bad weather. This seemed to the opportunity for which the German surface forces had been waiting. In the almost total Arctic darkness of 31st December 1942, the convoy was attacked by the pocket battleship "Lutzow", and the heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper", escorted by six destroyers. Facing them was the convoy close escort of six destroyers, under Captain Sherbrooke, supported by a covering force consisting of the cruisers HMS "Sheffield" and "Jamaica", with two more destroyers under Rear-Admiral Burnett.
There seemed every chance of a notable German success, but a combination of bold handling of Sherbrooke's escorts, and the timidity displayed in particular by the commander of the "Hipper" , resulted in the Germans being kept at bay until they eventually broke off the action. British losses were one destroyer and one minesweeper. The Germans suffered damage to Lutzow, and one destroyer, the Friedrich Eckholdt, sunk. Sherbrooke, who lost an eye in the action , was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Reaction in Germany was much less favourable. A furious Hitler ranted at Grand Admiral Raeder, and demanded the decommissioning and scrapping of all the Kriegsmarine's major surface units. Raeder resigned in protest, and was replaced by the U-boat chief, Admiral Karl Donitz. But, though expected to support the eclipse of the surface fleet, Donitz proved to have other ideas. He persuaded the now calmer Hitler to rescind his order. Though some surface ships were relegated to training duties in the Baltic, a Battle Group, centred around the "Tirpitz" and "Scharnhorst", was to be retained in Norwegian waters with the purpose of tying down Allied naval strength.
The End of the "Scharnhorst"
The continuing demands of the Mediterranean theatre, where the approaching end of thee Tunisian campaign opened the prospect of an invasion of Southern Europe, as well as the war against Japan, were placing urgent calls on British and American surface ships. So the continued threat either of attacks on the Russian convoys, or even a breakout into the Atlantic by the German Battle Group, gave the British Admiralty considerable concern. "Tirpitz" completed a refit in January 1943, and two months later was joined by "Scharnhorst".
The Royal Navy reacted on 22 September by mounting a daring operation against the German battleships using midget submarines known as "X-craft". Despite heavy loss, these vessels succeeded in planting charges under "Tirpitz" which caused severe damage, particularly to her machinery and steering gear. The battleship would be out of action until the following March, whilst the departure for Germany of "Lutzow" left "Scharnhorst " as the only major operational surface ship in Norway.
By now the tide of the war on the Eastern Front had turned decisively against Germany, and Donitz decided to commit the "Scharnhorst" to action during the long winter nights whenever an opportunity presented itself. The chance seemed to have come on 20th December, when Convoy JW55B left Loch Ewe in Northern Scotland, bound for Murmansk. By 22nd December "Scharnhorst", in her lair in Altenfjord , was ready for sea. There were however serious differences of opinion in German Naval Command on whether to commit Germany's largest remaining active capital ship to action. Flag Officer, Group North, Admiral Otto Schniewind was sceptical of the chances of success, and the man who would actually command the operation, Admiral Erich Bey, Flag Officer, Northern Task Force was also dubious. He was particularly concerned about a lack of air reconnaissance reports, leaving him with no idea of the whereabouts of the heavy ships of the British Home Fleet. Donitz overruled these objections, and at 1412 hours on Christmas Day, "Scharnhorst", escorted by six destroyers, was ordered to sea.
Weather conditions were atrocious, the German flotilla sailing in the teeth of a howling southerly gale, with rain and snow showers reducing visibility. However, "Scharnhorst's" crew, elated by the prospect of action after long inactivity, were in high spirits.
If they had known the actual situation, the Germans would have been less confident. Acting as distant support to the convoy was a detachment of the Home Fleet under Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, consisting of the battleship "Duke of York", the cruiser "Jamaica" and four destroyers, whilst in a covering role Admiral Burnett had the 6" gun cruisers "Belfast", "Sheffield" and the 8" "Norfolk". Either force was capable of giving "Scharnhorst" serious problems, and united would be more than a match for her.
Whilst Bey received no accurate information from German intelligence, "Ultra" intercepts had confirmed "Scharnhorst's" sailing to the British by 0217 hours on 26 December. During the early hours of the morning both sides were steering converging courses on an area of the Arctic Ocean between Bear Island and the North Cape of Norway. Bey was coming up from the south, Burnett from the northeast, and Fraser from the west, although he was still some 200 miles away from the threatened convoy. JW55B was ordered to change course to a northerly direction, taking it further away from the German battle group.
The weather continued to worsen, and at 0730 hours Bey ordered his destroyers, which were finding conditions difficult, to return to base. "Scharnhorst" would continue alone. At 0840 hours, the radar of Burnett's ships detected the German battleship, and at 0939 the British cruisers opened fire. Bey had been taken by surprise, and his uncertainty was heightened when two 8" shells from "Norfolk" struck home, putting "Scharnhorst's " forward radar out of action. Partially blinded, the German ship turned south into the concealing darkness and outran the British cruisers.
With contact lost, Burnett moved to protect the convoy, knowing that Fraser was heading north to support him at 24 knots. Bey, unwilling to be accused of lack of determination by his superiors, turned north again, hoping to gain touch with the convoy, but was once more intercepted by Burnett's force. At 1220 hours the British opened fire at a range of 11000 yards. An exchange of fire, in which "Norfolk" was damaged, followed before "Scharnhorst" turned away. This time, Bey had given up, and was set on returning to Altenfjord. He was not to know that it was too late.
Burnett, unwilling to become too closely engaged with the German ship, shadowed "Scharnhorst" by radar, homing in Fraser, who was approaching from the west. At 1617 hours, the "Duke of York's" radar picked up "Scharnhorst", at a range of 20 miles, and, as the distance closed, at 1650 star shells from the British battleship and "Belfast" illuminated their quarry. Once again the "Scharnhorst" turned away, and for some time seemed likely to make good her escape thanks to her superior speed. Her gunnery remained accurate, but "Duke of York", though straddled, was not hit, some German shells failing to explode.
On board "Scharnhorst" damaged steadily mounted as shell after shell from "Duke of York's" 14" guns struck home. Then one shot penetrated "Scharnhorst's " engine room, causing damage that fatally slowed her. By 1830, pounded with 13 hits by 14" shells, the German battleship was plainly doomed. At 1850 she was hit three or four times by torpedoes fired by Fraser's destroyers. The blazing and listing "Scharnhorst" was sent to the bottom by concentrated shell and torpedo fire from the British force. Despite rescue attempts, only 36 of her crew were rescued from the icy sea. It was the last big-gun action in the history
A postscript to the story of "Scharnhorst's " last battle came in October 2000, when it was announced that her wreck had been located and filmed by a team from the Norwegian Navy and TV. The battered hulk of the "Scharnhorst" , which capsized on sinking, lay upside down 300 metres below the surface of the Arctic Ocean.
Death of the "Tirpitz"
Of Germany's major capital ships, only the battleship "Tirpitz" now remained as a potential threat to the Russian convoys. Once more, "Ultra" kept the British fully informed of work to repair her after the damage inflicted in September 1943. By April 1944, knowing that "Tirpitz" was almost fit for sea, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser mounted "Operation Tungsten", a strike involving aircraft from the carriers "Victorious" and "Furious". A force of 40 Barracuda bombers, escorted by 79 fighters caught the German battleship on 3 April just as she was sailing for sea trials in Altenfjord. Hit or near-missed by 16 bombs, "Tirpitz" was once more left heavily damaged, especially in her fire control system, losing 122 men killed and 316 wounded.
It would take three months to repair the damage, and during the this time the Royal Navy launched further carrier strikes, all frustrated by smokescreens and heavy AA defences.
By the end of August, frustrated by their failure to finish off "Tirpitz" , which was still tying down resources needed in the Far East, the Allied Joint Planning Staff handed over to RAF Bomber Command the task of completing the job. An attack on "Tirpitz's" anchorage at Kaafjord on 15 September by Lancaster bombers armed with 12000 lb "Tallboy" bombs and "Johnnie Walker" 400lb mine-bombs obtained one Tallboy" hit on the battleship that inflicted devastating damage to her bow section.
German engineers estimated that it would be impossible to carry out permanent repairs unless "Tirpitz" could be got back to Germany, which was impractical in her present condition. So "Tirpitz" was towed to Tromso, to act as a floating battery in the event of invasion. Here on 12 November she was struck by a further attack by Bomber Command. Hit three times, "Tirpitz" capsized, with the loss of 1204 or 1900 officers and men.
It was the end of any serious threat to the Russian convoys. Though U-boat attacks continued, only a total of seven merchant ships and six escorts were sunk in the final nine months of the war at a cost of nine U-boats. Over a million tons of cargo had reached the northern Russian ports during the same period, a triumphant conclusion to the long saga of the Arctic convoys.
Another link for the U-Boat war:
http://www.uboatwar.net/uboats.htm
Regards,
Hist2004
The U-boat War, 1939-42
Opening Shots
On the outbreak of war in September 1939, Donitz had 39 U-boats stationed near the main British shipping lanes. On the first day of hostilities, the liner "Athenia", was sunk by a U-boat commanded by Kapitan Franz-Julius Lemp. The German commander had mistaken her for a troop-transport, but the deaths of a large number of civilians, including Americans caused an immediate widespread outcry. Hitler had in fact forbidden unrestricted submarine warfare of the kind which had helped bring the USA into World War I, in the hope that Britain might, after the fall of Poland, agree to a compromise peace.
Within a few weeks however, the Fuhrer accepted that there was no immediate prospect of such an end to the war, and began lifting the restrictions on submarine warfare. Britain responded by arming merchant ships and ordering them to fire on U-boats on sight. In response Donitz authorised his commanders to attack without warning any ship in convoy, or behaving in "a suspicious manner", and within a designated zone around the British Isles unrestricted submarine warfare was permitted, although neutral vessels, in theory, were not supposed to be attacked.
During the first few months of the war there were rarely more than six or seven U-boats at sea at any one time, and they mainly operated in the North East Atlantic. The main concentration was in the Western Approaches to the English Channel, where shipping lanes converged and the concentration of targets was heaviest. Donitz was not as yet able to mount the kind of assault he had ideally envisaged, for the demands of the other armed forces meant that far fewer than the planned 29 new U-boats a month were being constructed. British mining in the Channel forced U-boats to make their way to the operational zone via a long detour around the British Isles, which greatly reduced the length of time they could spend on station. The net result of all this was that Donitz rarely had more than 20 boats available for Atlantic operations at any one time, of which only about half a dozen would actually be on station.
Although such a small force could hardly bring Britain to her knees, they had a number of individual successes. The British responded to the U-boat threat by forming "hunter-killer" groups, sometimes built around an aircraft carrier, but this policy went into sharp reverse when on September 19th 1939, the U-9 sank the carrier "Courageous" in the Western Approaches, with the loss of 518 men. This was followed quickly by another sharp blow, when on October 14th, Gunther Prien, in U-47 , penetrated the supposedly impregnable defences of the British Home Fleet's principal base at Scapa Flow, and sank the battleship "Royal Oak".
Learning from their experiences in World war I, the British had introduced a limited convoy system from the outbreak of war, but both the fastest and slowest ships were excluded, and left to sail independently. It was among these "independents" that the U-boats scored their greatest success. By the end of 1939, only four ships out of a total of 5,756 sailing in convoy had been lost, compared with the sinking of 102 "independents".
Even so, the shortage of convoy escorts, and the small number and limited range of aircraft available to RAF Coastal Command made it fortunate that Donitz had not, initially, enough U-boats to exploit his opponent's weakness. He would be further frustrated in April 1940, when Hitler diverted the U-boats to take part in "Operation Weserubung", the invasion of Norway, where the submarines' lack of success was compounded by failings in the firing mechanism of their magnetic torpedoes. In June these began to be replaced by a new type of contact percussion torpedo.
The "Happy Time", 1940-41
Despite all obstacles, the U-boats had sunk 224 ships totaling 1.3 million tons between September 1939 and June 1940. And now the Fall of France improved their prospects considerably, as the Germans took possession of French naval bases along the Atlantic coast. The first French U-boat base was established in July 1940 at Lorient on the Bay of Biscay, and quickly was followed by bases at Brest, St Nazaire and La Palice in Brittany. Use of these bases not only gave the U-boats direct access to the Atlantic, but also shortened their journey to the operational area by over 1,000 miles. This allowed a greater number of U-boats to be at sea at any one time, and also to push their range much further out into the Atlantic. A further impetus to German operations came with the basing in Western France of long-range Focke-Wulfe 200 "Kondor" bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. These aircraft, with a range of 2,200 miles, could not only bomb Allied merchant ships, but more importantly, track their course for waiting U-boats.
The British were facing other problems. The threat of a German invasion of Britain during the summer of 1940 resulted in many destroyers being withdrawn from convoy escort duties to wait in the Channel for Hitler's armada. The fall of France, whilst easing matters for the U-boats, forced Britain, in order to reduce attacks by the Luftwaffe, to shift her main convoy routes from the Western Approaches and the English Channel to the North West Approaches and the port of Liverpool. This not only imposed a great strain on Britain's western ports, but also increased convoy journey times by up to 40%. Until new air bases were eventually developed in Northern Ireland, and later in Iceland, the lack of naval bases in now independent Eire, which had been available to the Royal Navy in World War I, caused further problems.
On August 17th, Hitler, confident in the advantages which his U-boats now had, declared a total blockade of Britain. . The following months would later be remembered by U-boat men as "the happy time". Though total merchant tonnage lost in the autumn of 1940 was less than that of two years later, at 2,373,070 tons for the year it was still bad enough, and to make matters worse for the Allies, it was achieved by an average of only 21 U-boats at sea at any one time. During the year a total of 26 U-boats were lost.
The autumn of 1940 saw Donitz beginning to transfer the focus of his activities to the mid-Atlantic, where he could attack weakly-escorted convoys beyond the range of air support. September saw the first wolf-pack operation, when ten U-boats intercepted two convoys off the west coast of Ireland, and sank 16 ships. The following month saw what would prove to be the single most successful U-boat operation of the war, when a pack of 12 boats, in a four -night operation, sank 32 merchant ships of a total 154,661 tons.
Donitz was not however satisfied with the rate of success being achieved. Despite the somewhat unco-ordinated assistance provided by the "Kondors", Goring was unwilling to give much Luftwaffe support to Donitz, whom he saw as a rival, and there were still insufficient U-boats available to approach the rate of sinkings at which U-Boat Command was aiming. During 1940 German shipyards were only producing U-boats at an average of four and a half vessels a month. In 1941 this would be stepped up to a monthly average of 17 U-boats , but lengthy training needed for their crews meant that most would not be in action until 1942.
In an effort to fill the gap, Donitz turned to Germany's Italian ally. Italian submarines had proved less than impressive during the Spanish Civil War, and they proved hardly more successful in Atlantic operations. Their commanders were unfamiliar with German tactics and the wolf-pack concept, and from December 1940, despairing of overcoming these problems, Donitz assigned the Italians their own sector of the Atlantic and left them to their own devices. Between September 1940 and July 1943 about 30 Italian submarines operated at different times in the Atlantic, and sank a total of 105 Allied merchant ships for the loss of 16 of their own vessels.
So far as the German U-boat effort was concerned, Donitz received an encouraging boost early in 1941, when the first of the new longer-ranged Type IX U-boats came into service, and commenced operations on the South Atlantic trade routes.
The British were suffering severely from shortages of escort vessels. New construction from British shipyards would not start to become available much before 1942, and the 50 "Destroyers for Bases" supplied by the United States in the summer of 1940 did not adequately bridge the gap. In the spring of 1941 the United States agreed to assume responsibility for the protection of convoys West of 26 degrees west Longitude. In July 1941, at British request, US troops took over the garrisoning of Iceland, which was becoming an increasingly vital naval and air base in the Battle of the Atlantic.
This increased American involvement in the Atlantic struggle could serve only to make actual hostilities between the United States and Germany sooner or later inevitable. Indeed such a situation, though unacknowledged, existed from about September 1941, when the USS "Greer", came into conflict with a U-boat. In October, The USS "Kearney" was torpedoed and damaged whilst on convoy duty, and soon afterwards the USS "Reuben James", was sunk by a U-boat with the loss of 115 lives. The actual declaration of war, in December, thus only formalised a situation which was fast becoming reality in any case.
Operation Drum Roll
Donitz had long been eager to turn his sea wolves loose against the vulnerable shipping lanes of the American East Coast. Hitler, fearful of bringing the USA into the war prematurely, had resisted his U-boat supremo's pleas to initiate action there. Instead he had ordered that a third of operational U-boats be deployed to the Mediterranean, where they achieved relatively little of value against the limited numbers of Allied merchant ships operating there.
At last, in January 1942, Donitz was given the long-for permission to strike at the USA. "Operation Paukenschlag" ("Drum Roll") began in the middle of the month, and initially involved only five U-boats, manned by veteran crews, operating off the North American coast between the Gulf of St Lawrence and Cape Hatteras. In the space of two weeks the five U-boats sank 20 merchant ships totaling 150,000 tons. This was merely a foretaste of the massacre to come.
Though a hell for the crews of so many merchant ships, the eastern US seaboard in the spring of 1942 was a paradise for U-boat men. There was as yet no convoy system ; vessels sailed individually, making free use of their radios, fully lit at night, against the brilliantly illuminated backdrop of coastal cities where a blackout would not be fully in operation for another five months. During daylight hours the U-boats remained submerged, and surfaced at nightfall to wreak havoc with guns and torpedoes. On an average night, a U-boat might hope to claim three victims, with resulting immense losses in supplies and munitions.
For the U-boat men, these six months in what they termed the "golden west" were the high point of the submarine campaign. In May 1942 the number of U-boats operating on the Eastern seaboard reached a high point of 30 vessels, for the first time supplied by U-tankers (Type X and supply U-boats or "milch cows", (Type XIV). Each of these could keep a flotilla of a dozen Type VII's at sea for an additional month.
But by now the crest of success for "Operation Drumbeat" had peaked. In April 1942 the USA began to implement a convoy system for its coastal convoys, and this fully operational by August. The great slaughter, which had cost 360 merchant ships totaling about 2,250,000 tons, for a loss of only eight U-boats, was over.
But out in the Atlantic, the climax of the U-boat war was only just beginning.
The Climax, July 1942-May 1943
By July 1942 the days of easy pickings for the U-boats along the Eastern Seaboard of the USA were over. It was time for Donitz to switch his efforts back to his old hunting grounds in the mid-Atlantic. He had seemingly ample grounds for optimism. In May 1942 German experts had produced a study which concluded that if the U-boats were able to sink a monthly average of 700,000 tons of Allied merchant ships for the rest of the year, Britain, despite all the efforts of shipbuilding yards on both sides of the Atlantic, would be doomed.
Though this was more than twice the average monthly sinkings for 1941, Donitz felt confident of success. At the end of 1941, his U-boat fleet had totalled 236 vessels, which had been sinking 13 Allied merchant ships for every one of their own number lost. They had reduced the total available British merchant fleet by 3 million tons compared with the start of the war. And now Donitz was returning to the Atlantic convoy routes in a stronger position. He had a total U-boat strength of 331, of which 141 were operational and an average of 50 constantly on patrol. U-boat HQ at Chateau Kernival in Brittany had become expert in the close orchestration of the increasingly effective "wolf-pack" tactics.
Even more significantly, and often overlooked in favour of the better-known Allied successes in breaking the "Enigma" codes, the German cryptologists at "B-Dienst" had pierced the Royal Navy codes giving details of the assembly points and sailing times of convoys, often giving U-boat HQ between 10 and 20 hours advance warning of enemy intentions. Just as valuable was German success which between February 1942 and June 1943 frequently enabled them to read the daily British Admiralty estimate of U-boat dispositions, though like the Allies, the Germans had to forgo using much information to avoid the enemy suspecting their success.
Despite the steadily increasing numbers of escort vessels becoming available for the convoys, increased air support, and technological advances in anti-submarine warfare, the results of the U-boat war in the second half of 1942 seemed to justify Donitz's hopes. During the last few months of the year, aided by the diversion of many Allied escorts to support the "Torch" landings in North Africa, the U-boats were sinking a monthly average of 650,000 tons. If the vessels sunk by aircraft, mines and such few surface raiders as were still at large were added to this total, Germany seemed on the verge of achieving the sinking rate demanded by her experts.
Unfortunately for Donitz's hopes, his planners had seriously underestimated Allied , particularly American, construction capacity. During 1943 US shipyards would produce 20 million tons of merchant shipping, ample to replace a total Allied loss during the previous year of about 7 ½ million tons, overestimated by the Germans as twice as much. Though there had been many apparently striking U-boat successes, such as the attack in August on convoy SC94, which had lost 26 ships, and the November assault on SC107, which sank 15 ships, these were deceptive. In fact, therefore, though not fully appreciated by either side, or indeed by many modern historians, at the end of the year the U-boats were no closer to decisive victory. Furthermore, the steadily increasing effectiveness of Allied anti-submarine measures was hinted at by the less favourable , for the Germans, sinking ratio, now running at 10 merchant ships for every U-boat lost.
The Decisive Months
It was apparent to both sides that the first half of 1943 would be decisive. Donitz began the year believing that the rate of sinkings being achieved by his crews was slightly outpacing the rate of Allied shipbuilding. His U-boat fleet had now increased to 400 vessels, of which 200 were operational, and an average of 100 at sea -10 more than the total which, at the start of the war, Donitz had argued would have been sufficient to bring decisive victory, although his estimates then had not allowed for US involvement.
Yet Allied effectiveness was also increasing. There were now over 500 escort vessels available, sufficient not only to provide stronger close protection for convoys, but also to allow the formation of "support" or hunter-killer groups, to reinforce convoys under attack. Equally significant were the on-going advances in anti-submarine warfare being made by the Allies. During the autumn of 1942 the increasingly effective air operations against U-boats crossing the Bay of Biscay in transit to and from their French bases received the welcome assistance of airborne radar. For a time in the autumn of 1942 the U-boats were given some protection against this threat by a radar detection device, but in February 1943 the Allies introduced a new short-wave radar which proved undetectable until the closing stages of the war.
Although it is unclear whether Donitz had fully grasped the fact, by the beginning of 1943 there were unmistakable signs that, if it had ever really existed, the window of opportunity for a decisive German victory in the Battle of the Atlantic was closing rapidly. The first four months of the year saw the rapid introduction by the Allies of a whole range of improved anti-submarine equipment and techniques. As well as improved aircraft-mounted radar, escort carriers were beginning to prove their worth and surface escorts were being equipped with radar, high frequency direction finders and improved anti-submarine weapons such as the "hedgehog" depth charge thrower.
Not only were escorts and aircraft proving more effective, there were also more of them. Between February and May the number of long-range "Liberator" anti-submarine aircraft available rose from ten to over sixty. Although the vast majority of US Navy escort vessels had been diverted by the needs of the Pacific War, leaving the RN and RCN to perform about 96% of escort duties in the North Atlantic, increasing the size of convoys had made it possible to raise the average number of escorts from six to nine, without increasing the vulnerability of the convoy. Sufficient escorts had also been released to allow the formation of five British convoy-support groups, the best known being that operating out of Liverpool under Captain J.F. "Johnny" Walker. They were later reinforced by a US group. Each group consisted of between five and seven destroyers and frigates, and three also had an escort carrier. Their role was to accompany convoys through the mid-Atlantic air gap., where they were most vulnerable to attack, whilst the presence of an escort carrier helped provide air support for the entire crossing.
Of equal, though again often underrated significance, was the success by now consistently being achieved by the Allied radio direction finders. Between July 1942 and May 1943 they managed to divert 105 out of a total of 174 North Atlantic convoys away from wolf-pack ambushes, and enabled another 23 partially to avoid such traps. Only 16 ran into large U-boat concentrations, and it was these which suffered the bulk of losses.
Despite all these favourable portents for the Allies, the first three months of 1943 saw continued notable U-boat successes. They were aided in part by wintry conditions in the North Atlantic, which made Allied detection less effective, and also by the introduction of the new U-boat "Enigma" cypher known to Bletchley Park as "Shark", which remained unbroken until the end of March.
In February convoy ON 16 lost 14 ships, with the overall merchant ship/U-boat kill ratio for the month standing at 7:1, a decline from the German high point of the previous year, but still offering U-boat Command grounds for hope.
The particularly foul weather of March, with convoys and their escorts straggling through gales, blizzards and hail, saw some of the fiercest battles of the war. The beginning of the month saw roughly 50 U-boats at sea. Between 7-10 March, convoy SC 121 lost six ships, with 199 men of their crews, experienced seamen who could be less easily spared than their ships. The next two convoys, SC 122 and HX 229, were even more savagely mauled by 44 U-boats from wolf packs "Sturmer", "Dranger" and "Raubgraf" - the greatest U-boat concentration achieved in the entire war. A total of 22 ships of 146,000 tons were lost between March 8-18. But tragic though the loss of merchant ships and their crewmen was, of ultimately greater significance was that throughout the entire battle, the U-boats had failed to sink or damage a single escort vessel, whilst seven of their own number had been damaged, with two U-boats being sunk later by Allied aircraft on their way back to base.
By April the tide had begun to turn. Though battles were once more fiercely contested, the Allies lost only half as many merchant ships as in March, whilst 14 U-boats were accounted for.
Feeling the battle slipping away from him, Donitz ordered a supreme effort for May. The decisive action came in the first week of the month with a concerted attack on convoy ON 55. After initial German successes, the balance tilted with the arrival of a Royal Navy support group, assisted by fog which hindered U-boat operations. On 5/6th May a total of 7 U-boats were sunk compared with 12 merchant ships. It was the beginning of a disastrous trend for Donitz. By the end of May he had lost from all causes 41 U-boats , more than a quarter of his operational strength, for barely the same number of Allied merchant vessels. The losses, as Donitz, admitted, were "intolerable". On May 24th he ordered all but a token number of U-boats away from the North Atlantic in what was termed "a temporary shift to areas less endangered". Though no one would be sure of it for a long time to come, Germany had lost the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Bitter End, 1943-1945
On 31st May, a week after calling off the U-boat offensive in the North Atlantic, Donitz reported on the situation to Hitler. After listing all the current allied advantages, the head of the Kriegsmarine outlined the various technological developments which he hoped would tilt the war once more in the U-boat waffe's favour. Already being tested was the "Naxos" short-wave radar detector. Improved acoustic and homing torpedoes were under development, as was the "schnorkel" breathing apparatus which could be fitted to existing U-boats so that they would no longer need to surface in order to recharge their batteries. Further in the future, among Germany's promised array of "wonder weapons", were the revolutionary new Type XXI and XXIII U-boats. In the more immediate term, Donitz was hoping to counteract at least the growing Allied threat from the air by fitting his U-boats with quadruple AA guns.
Even so, immediate prospects were grim, but both Hitler and Donitz were adamant that that the U-boat war should continue in some form. On all fronts the war was turning against Germany, and at least the U-boats could make a contribution to the defence of the Reich by tying down Allied resources which might otherwise be used elsewhere. Thinking in particular of the growing devastation being inflicted upon German cities by Allied bombing, Donitz asked: "Could the submariner stand aside as a spectator, saying there was nothing he could do or would do, and telling the women and children they must put up with it? …A continuation of the U-boat campaign would involve certain and deliberate self-sacrifice. I finally came to the bitter conclusion that we had no option but to fight on."
From June 1943 the U-boats faced the additional disadvantage that their cryptologists could no longer break Royal Navy codes, whilst "Triton" or "Shark" was decoded virtually without a break until December 1944. In September Donitz attempted to renew the Atlantic campaign. But although his U-boats were now equipped with the new short-wave radar detector and acoustic torpedoes, the outcome was ignominious and costly failure. Convoys continued either to evade the U-boats, or strong escorts beat off the attackers at a heavy cost to the wolf-packs. Those U-boats, which, usually in groups, attempted to fight on the surface with their improved AA defences against Allied aircraft, were generally sunk.
On 12th November, noting gloomily that "The enemy holds every trump card… knows all our secrets and we know none of his", Donitz abandoned wolf-pack tactics in the North Atlantic. For the next six months U-boat commanders would operate individually on their own initiative, a tactic which could never be more than a nuisance to Allied shipping in convoy. During this period, in all theatres, a total of 107 Allied ships (600,000 tons) , only eight of them in convoy, would be sunk, whilst 136 U-boats were lost- a, for the Germans, truly miserable ratio of 0.78 merchant ships sunk for each U-boat destroyed.
Sacrifice
From early 1944 all German intentions were focused on the imminent Allied invasion of Europe. The U-boat force was still numerically impressive, with a total of 449 submarines in commission. Of these, 287 were still undergoing trials or crew training, and 162 were operational, with an average of 43 at sea on any one day. But all were effectively obsolete, and increasingly viewed by their crews as "iron coffins".
During the spring about 73 U-boats were deployed in the French Biscay ports or the Norwegian bases to combat Allied invasion attempts. But when the Normandy landings began in June, U-boat attempts to intervene proved to be another costly failure. Their movements betrayed by "Ultra" intercepts and improved detection equipment, subject to ferocious air attack and highly effective surface hunters, the U-boats were chased, harried, and in many cases sunk. Though they continued their heroic and sacrificial efforts in the English Channel and North Sea well into the summer, the final balance sheet for the U-boats' attempt to disrupt the Allied invasion provided further grim reading. By the end of August, when the U-boat campaign was abandoned, they had sunk 21 Allied ships, including 5 warships, for a loss of 19 U-boats and 1000 officers and men.
At the end of August, with the Biscay bases threatened by capture or siege, all seaworthy U-boats there were withdrawn to Norway. From here they would mount Germany's last forlorn attempt to disrupt Allied by shipping by operating in British coastal waters. Here they would be able to make more effective use of the "schnorkel", and thus be more difficult to detect. But even so, results proved meagre, and operational effectiveness was reduced by lack of major repair facilities in the Norwegian bases, which often forced U-boats to run the gauntlet of Allied air power when returning to Germany for maintainance. The most that could be said was that the loss ratio was slightly more favourable to the Germans than it had been for some time. Between August 1944 and the end of the year, 8 merchant ships, two warships and a tug were sunk for the loss of 8 U-boats, a ratio of 1.5. But such results were insignificant in the scale of Allied resources.
Even so, the U-boat command did not finally abandon hope. Its senior officers attempted to gain comfort from the fact that the "schnorkel" and the new radar search detector made U-boats less vulnerable to discovery. But this advantage largely disappeared once they revealed their location by attempting an attack. Another apparent advantage seemed to be presented to the Germans in December, when a change in "Enigma" procedures once more prevented the Allies from reading the U-boat codes, whilst a situation in which the majority of U-boats were now operating singly meant that were far fewer radio signals to aid in pinpointing submarines' locations.
However the Allies were devoting massive resources to the war against the U-boat. During December 1944 they concentrated 426 escort vessels and 420 RAF Coastal Command aircraft in home waters. The result was further disappointment for the Kriegsmarine. In November they had sunk one escort carrier and six merchant ships for the loss of seven U-boats; in December the exchange was seven merchant ships for three U-boats.
Right up until the end of the war a few U-boats continued to operate in the North Atlantic, including an ill-fated attempt to revive wolf-pack tactics off the US coast. Results were meager; by the end of the war U-boats in the Atlantic had sunk 11 merchant ships, one frigate and one minesweeper, whilst three U-boats had been lost out of the 22 sent to operate in this area. At least, however, they had managed to occupy the attentions of 17 escort groups.
The final months of the war saw no upturn in U-boat fortunes. They managed to sink 63 merchant ships, but the ever-increasing Allied onslaught, particularly from the air, accounted for 152 U-boats.
Only in the final days of the war did the first of the new types of U-boat begin to become operational. A Type XXIII, U2336, had the distinction of sinking the last two merchant ships of the war, on May 8th, when, unbeknown to her commander, hostilities had actually ceased. The only Type XXI actually to become operational, U2511, sailed from Bergen , and was off the Faroe Islands when she received the signal to cease hostilities, and ended active operations by making an undetected dummy attack on a Royal Navy cruiser. At the end of the war, The Kriegsmarine still possessed 393 U-boats, of which 126 were operational, and 43 at sea.
The U-boats at sea responded to the order to surrender in various ways. About 23 came into British ports to surrender, three to Canada and four to the USA. Others returned home or scuttled themselves . Two eventually fetched up in the River Plate in Argentina, creating almost certainly unfounded reports that they had carried into hiding various high-ranking Nazis. About 154 U-boats were surrendered intact in German or Norwegian naval bases, and 218, including 82 Type XXI and 29 Type XXIII, scuttled themselves rather than surrender.
Final Reckoning
Depending on the means of calculation, estimates of total U-boats lost from all causes during the war vary between 777 and 821. There are similar variations in estimates of the number of their victims. So far as the Battle of the Atlantic proper is concerned, an accepted figure is 2603 merchant ships with the loss of 30,000 Allied seamen. The toll exacted on Donitz's U-boat crews rated with those of Allied bomber crews as the highest in any branch of any armed services in World War II. Of a total of 40,900 men who served in U-boats, 28,000, or 70%, were lost, including a son of Grand Admiral Donitz.
Churchill later wrote that the U-boat threat had been the only thing which had really worried him during the war, but more recent studies tend to suggest that Donitz never came within measurable distance of achieving victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. The failure to build up an adequate U-boat force prior to the outbreak of war was critical in this, as well as the enormous shipbuilding capacity of the Allies following the entry of the US into the war. But, certainly to those who fought and died in it, the Battle of the Atlantic was one of the grimmest and most bitterly contested campaigns of World War II.
The Arctic War - The Russian Convoys
For those who took part in them, the Arctic convoys were probably among the most difficult of any missions mounted in World War II. The German invasion of Russia in June 1941 brought Great Britain a new ally, but also created new demands on her limited resources. As the Red Army reeled under the massive German onslaught, it became increasingly doubtful whether the Soviet Union would be able to hold out for long. The decision by the British Government in August 1941 to send military supplies to her new ally, via the North Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel, was as much for reasons of politics and morale boosting as to provide any really significant military assistance. Indeed, especially after US entry into the war, something like three-quarters of Allied supplies sent to Russia went via the Pacific or through Iran.
The decision would involve mainly the British, but also at times the US and other allied navies, together with countless merchant seamen of many nationalities, in some of the most bitterly fought actions of the war.
Between August 1941 and the spring of 1945, some forty convoys, coded "PQ", made the long voyage from British ports to North Russia. They faced some of the harshest climatic conditions in the world, battling in the winter days of almost perpetual darkness against the natural hazards of ice, fog and ferocious storms. In these far Northern latitudes, summer brought less adverse weather conditions, but the almost perpetual daylight rendered the Allied convoys vulnerable to attack by their German opponents at almost anytime
During the long campaign, the German High Command used virtually every weapon in their arsenal in an attempt to sever the supply route. Aircraft from Norwegian bases were within range of the convoys for much of their voyage, and their bombing and torpedo attacks took a high toll of Allied vessels. They were joined for much of the time by U-boats, diverted from the Atlantic battleground, which added their own contribution to the perils facing the convoys.
Perhaps the greatest threat, and the one that caused most concern to the Allies, was presented by the German surface fleet. The loss of the "Bismarck", and the increasing vulnerability of the French Atlantic ports to air attack, convinced Hitler that the days of effective commerce raiding by surface ships were at an end. This realisation coincided with the start of the Arctic convoys, and was fed by the Fuhrer's long standing conviction that the Allies were planning to invade Norway. An obvious solution to all of these problems was to transfer the bulk of the larger surface vessels of the "Kriegsmarine" to Norwegian bases. Here they would be both able to oppose any Allied landings and prey on the convoys to Russia. This, at least, was the theory, but it soon became apparent that there was a basic contradiction at work in the need to avoid unnecessary risks to Germany's small surface fleet in order to preserve them to oppose Allied landings, whilst at the same time acting boldly to disrupt the convoys. It was a dilemma which the Kriegsmarine would never be able to resolve, and which would cost it dearly.
The First Battles
From early 1942, the Germans began to build up their naval forces in the Norwegian ports. There was generally a flotilla or more of their large destroyers, notably the formidable Z-class vessels, based in Norway, which could provide a formidable opponent even for a British 6" cruiser, but of greatest concern to the British Admiralty were some half a dozen heavy ships. These included at various times the pocket battleship "Lutzow", the heavy cruisers "Admiral Hipper" and "Prinz Eugen", and those light cruisers that were still fit for service. But the most acute threat, which persisted for much of the war, was presented by the formidable battleships "Scharnhorst", and, sister ship to the "Bismarck", the 35,000 ton 16" gun armed "Tirpitz".
For as long as these vessels remained operational, they presented a continual menace which tied down both British, and sometimes US, heavy ships which were urgently required elsewhere, especially in the Far East.
The first important German sortie was mounted in March 1942, when "Tirpitz" with three destroyers sailed to intercept Convoy PQ12. Once again, British knowledge of the "Enigma" codes gave warning of enemy intentions, and Admiral Sir John Tovey, with heavy units of the Home Fleet, including battleships "King George V" and "Duke of York", together with the battlecruiser "Renown" and aircraft carrier "Victorious" sailed from Scapa Flow to intercept. But hopes of a repetition of the sinking of the "Bismarck" were thwarted when British torpedo planes failed to score a single hit, and the German squadron returned safely to port, resolved to take no further risks, especially if an enemy carrier was reported at sea.
The next skirmish took place at the end of march, when the Convoy PQ13, when three German destroyers were intercepted by the British covering force, the cruiser "Trinidad" , and two destroyers. In confused fighting in the midst of a heavy snowstorm, the German destroyer Z26 was sunk, but the "Trinidad" was hit by one of her own torpedoes which reversed course after being affected by the very low temperatures. Although temporarily repaired in Russia, she was sunk in May by air attack whilst attempting to return to Britain.
Another skirmish followed in May, when the British light cruiser "Edinburgh" was lost following damage from a U-boat and three German destroyers, although one of the German vessels was also sunk.
These skirmishes were plainly not enough to stop the convoys, so in June the German Naval Command resolved once more to commit its heavy ships against the next Russia-bound convoy, PQ17. The Allies were partially aware of enemy intentions, and committed a particularly strong force to protect the convoy. As well as a particularly large close escort, a powerful covering force, made up of both British and United States vessels was organised. It included four heavy cruisers, HMS "London" and "Norfolk" , and the USS "Tuscaloosa" and "Wichita". In support was the entire Home Fleet, including the battleships HMS "Duke of York" and the USS "Washington", the carrier "Victorious", two cruisers and eight destroyers.
The Allies were itching for action with the German Battle Group, believed to include "Tirpitz and "Lutzow". But then the British First Sea Lord, Admiral Dudley Pound, made a fatal error. Believing surface action to be imminent, he ordered PQ 17 to scatter, whilst its escorts prepared for battle. In fact, the German squadron was still in Altenfjord. Pound's decision had left the merchant vessels of PQ17 at the mercy of enemy U-boats and aircraft. In the massacre that followed, 22 out of 35 vessels were sunk, carrying with them to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean 430 tanks, 210 aircraft, 3,350 lorries and jeeps, and 100,000 tons of other cargo. It was the greatest German victory against the Russian convoys of the entire war, and partly because of this, and the long summer days, but also because of the need of shipping for Mediterranean operations, the decision was made to suspend the Russian convoys until the autumn.
Hitler Throws a Tantrum
Convoys were resumed in September 1942, and, in a portent for the future, Admiral Covey now provided strong "fighting destroyer" escorts, designed to deter German surface attacks without risking the heavy ships of the Home Fleet. Also with PQ18 was the escort carrier HMS "Avenger". Although the Germans took a high toll, sinking 13 merchant ships, they themselves suffered an unacceptable rate of exchange with the loss of three U-boats and 22 aircraft.
The demands of "Operation Torch" (the Allied landings in North Africa) caused a further suspension of the Russian convoys until December. By now the Russian offensive against Stalingrad was increasing pressure on the Axis forces in the East, so much so that the Battle Group in Norway was urged by Raeder to take more decisive action when the Russian convoys were resumed. The convoys now sailed under new code names; those to Russia had the prefix JW and those returning RA. Convoys would now often be run in two parts, and this was the case JW51 . JW51 A reached Murmansk without incident, but the second part-JW51B was forced south towards the Norwegian coast by bad weather. This seemed to the opportunity for which the German surface forces had been waiting. In the almost total Arctic darkness of 31st December 1942, the convoy was attacked by the pocket battleship "Lutzow", and the heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper", escorted by six destroyers. Facing them was the convoy close escort of six destroyers, under Captain Sherbrooke, supported by a covering force consisting of the cruisers HMS "Sheffield" and "Jamaica", with two more destroyers under Rear-Admiral Burnett.
There seemed every chance of a notable German success, but a combination of bold handling of Sherbrooke's escorts, and the timidity displayed in particular by the commander of the "Hipper" , resulted in the Germans being kept at bay until they eventually broke off the action. British losses were one destroyer and one minesweeper. The Germans suffered damage to Lutzow, and one destroyer, the Friedrich Eckholdt, sunk. Sherbrooke, who lost an eye in the action , was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Reaction in Germany was much less favourable. A furious Hitler ranted at Grand Admiral Raeder, and demanded the decommissioning and scrapping of all the Kriegsmarine's major surface units. Raeder resigned in protest, and was replaced by the U-boat chief, Admiral Karl Donitz. But, though expected to support the eclipse of the surface fleet, Donitz proved to have other ideas. He persuaded the now calmer Hitler to rescind his order. Though some surface ships were relegated to training duties in the Baltic, a Battle Group, centred around the "Tirpitz" and "Scharnhorst", was to be retained in Norwegian waters with the purpose of tying down Allied naval strength.
The End of the "Scharnhorst"
The continuing demands of the Mediterranean theatre, where the approaching end of thee Tunisian campaign opened the prospect of an invasion of Southern Europe, as well as the war against Japan, were placing urgent calls on British and American surface ships. So the continued threat either of attacks on the Russian convoys, or even a breakout into the Atlantic by the German Battle Group, gave the British Admiralty considerable concern. "Tirpitz" completed a refit in January 1943, and two months later was joined by "Scharnhorst".
The Royal Navy reacted on 22 September by mounting a daring operation against the German battleships using midget submarines known as "X-craft". Despite heavy loss, these vessels succeeded in planting charges under "Tirpitz" which caused severe damage, particularly to her machinery and steering gear. The battleship would be out of action until the following March, whilst the departure for Germany of "Lutzow" left "Scharnhorst " as the only major operational surface ship in Norway.
By now the tide of the war on the Eastern Front had turned decisively against Germany, and Donitz decided to commit the "Scharnhorst" to action during the long winter nights whenever an opportunity presented itself. The chance seemed to have come on 20th December, when Convoy JW55B left Loch Ewe in Northern Scotland, bound for Murmansk. By 22nd December "Scharnhorst", in her lair in Altenfjord , was ready for sea. There were however serious differences of opinion in German Naval Command on whether to commit Germany's largest remaining active capital ship to action. Flag Officer, Group North, Admiral Otto Schniewind was sceptical of the chances of success, and the man who would actually command the operation, Admiral Erich Bey, Flag Officer, Northern Task Force was also dubious. He was particularly concerned about a lack of air reconnaissance reports, leaving him with no idea of the whereabouts of the heavy ships of the British Home Fleet. Donitz overruled these objections, and at 1412 hours on Christmas Day, "Scharnhorst", escorted by six destroyers, was ordered to sea.
Weather conditions were atrocious, the German flotilla sailing in the teeth of a howling southerly gale, with rain and snow showers reducing visibility. However, "Scharnhorst's" crew, elated by the prospect of action after long inactivity, were in high spirits.
If they had known the actual situation, the Germans would have been less confident. Acting as distant support to the convoy was a detachment of the Home Fleet under Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, consisting of the battleship "Duke of York", the cruiser "Jamaica" and four destroyers, whilst in a covering role Admiral Burnett had the 6" gun cruisers "Belfast", "Sheffield" and the 8" "Norfolk". Either force was capable of giving "Scharnhorst" serious problems, and united would be more than a match for her.
Whilst Bey received no accurate information from German intelligence, "Ultra" intercepts had confirmed "Scharnhorst's" sailing to the British by 0217 hours on 26 December. During the early hours of the morning both sides were steering converging courses on an area of the Arctic Ocean between Bear Island and the North Cape of Norway. Bey was coming up from the south, Burnett from the northeast, and Fraser from the west, although he was still some 200 miles away from the threatened convoy. JW55B was ordered to change course to a northerly direction, taking it further away from the German battle group.
The weather continued to worsen, and at 0730 hours Bey ordered his destroyers, which were finding conditions difficult, to return to base. "Scharnhorst" would continue alone. At 0840 hours, the radar of Burnett's ships detected the German battleship, and at 0939 the British cruisers opened fire. Bey had been taken by surprise, and his uncertainty was heightened when two 8" shells from "Norfolk" struck home, putting "Scharnhorst's " forward radar out of action. Partially blinded, the German ship turned south into the concealing darkness and outran the British cruisers.
With contact lost, Burnett moved to protect the convoy, knowing that Fraser was heading north to support him at 24 knots. Bey, unwilling to be accused of lack of determination by his superiors, turned north again, hoping to gain touch with the convoy, but was once more intercepted by Burnett's force. At 1220 hours the British opened fire at a range of 11000 yards. An exchange of fire, in which "Norfolk" was damaged, followed before "Scharnhorst" turned away. This time, Bey had given up, and was set on returning to Altenfjord. He was not to know that it was too late.
Burnett, unwilling to become too closely engaged with the German ship, shadowed "Scharnhorst" by radar, homing in Fraser, who was approaching from the west. At 1617 hours, the "Duke of York's" radar picked up "Scharnhorst", at a range of 20 miles, and, as the distance closed, at 1650 star shells from the British battleship and "Belfast" illuminated their quarry. Once again the "Scharnhorst" turned away, and for some time seemed likely to make good her escape thanks to her superior speed. Her gunnery remained accurate, but "Duke of York", though straddled, was not hit, some German shells failing to explode.
On board "Scharnhorst" damaged steadily mounted as shell after shell from "Duke of York's" 14" guns struck home. Then one shot penetrated "Scharnhorst's " engine room, causing damage that fatally slowed her. By 1830, pounded with 13 hits by 14" shells, the German battleship was plainly doomed. At 1850 she was hit three or four times by torpedoes fired by Fraser's destroyers. The blazing and listing "Scharnhorst" was sent to the bottom by concentrated shell and torpedo fire from the British force. Despite rescue attempts, only 36 of her crew were rescued from the icy sea. It was the last big-gun action in the history
A postscript to the story of "Scharnhorst's " last battle came in October 2000, when it was announced that her wreck had been located and filmed by a team from the Norwegian Navy and TV. The battered hulk of the "Scharnhorst" , which capsized on sinking, lay upside down 300 metres below the surface of the Arctic Ocean.
Death of the "Tirpitz"
Of Germany's major capital ships, only the battleship "Tirpitz" now remained as a potential threat to the Russian convoys. Once more, "Ultra" kept the British fully informed of work to repair her after the damage inflicted in September 1943. By April 1944, knowing that "Tirpitz" was almost fit for sea, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser mounted "Operation Tungsten", a strike involving aircraft from the carriers "Victorious" and "Furious". A force of 40 Barracuda bombers, escorted by 79 fighters caught the German battleship on 3 April just as she was sailing for sea trials in Altenfjord. Hit or near-missed by 16 bombs, "Tirpitz" was once more left heavily damaged, especially in her fire control system, losing 122 men killed and 316 wounded.
It would take three months to repair the damage, and during the this time the Royal Navy launched further carrier strikes, all frustrated by smokescreens and heavy AA defences.
By the end of August, frustrated by their failure to finish off "Tirpitz" , which was still tying down resources needed in the Far East, the Allied Joint Planning Staff handed over to RAF Bomber Command the task of completing the job. An attack on "Tirpitz's" anchorage at Kaafjord on 15 September by Lancaster bombers armed with 12000 lb "Tallboy" bombs and "Johnnie Walker" 400lb mine-bombs obtained one Tallboy" hit on the battleship that inflicted devastating damage to her bow section.
German engineers estimated that it would be impossible to carry out permanent repairs unless "Tirpitz" could be got back to Germany, which was impractical in her present condition. So "Tirpitz" was towed to Tromso, to act as a floating battery in the event of invasion. Here on 12 November she was struck by a further attack by Bomber Command. Hit three times, "Tirpitz" capsized, with the loss of 1204 or 1900 officers and men.
It was the end of any serious threat to the Russian convoys. Though U-boat attacks continued, only a total of seven merchant ships and six escorts were sunk in the final nine months of the war at a cost of nine U-boats. Over a million tons of cargo had reached the northern Russian ports during the same period, a triumphant conclusion to the long saga of the Arctic convoys.
Another link for the U-Boat war:
http://www.uboatwar.net/uboats.htm
Regards,
Hist2004