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Part 1 of this series: • How German Submarines ...
In the middle of 1942, the Allied navies in the Atlantic were facing a dire situation. For the last six months German U boats had unleashed a devastating wave of sinkings along the American East coast, pushing allied shipping losses in the Atlantic to record levels. But over the next twelve months, in a colossal effort, the American and Royal Navies turned the campaign around, culminating in a series of colossal convoy battles that crushed the U-boat force, secured control of the Atlantic, and paved the way for Allied victory in world war 2.
0:00 - The Rampage of the U-Boats
2:00 - Convoy: Actually a Good Idea
2:30 - Allied Strength: Line Go Up
4:10 - The Great U-Boat Offensive
5:30 - The Battle for Convoy ONS5
6:20 - The Destruction of the U-Boats
8:12 - Allied Victory and what it meant
Credits:
Lead Animation for this video by:
/ scuffed_lund
Supporting animation by:
/ addaway23
Artwork by:
/ chrisbyflanker
Written, Directed and Produced by:
/ addaway23
Come join the historigraph discord: / discord
Sources:
Evan Mawdsley, The War for the Seas
Phillips Payson O’Brien, How the War was Won
Michael Gannon, Black May
Michael Gannon, Operation Drumbeat
Stephen Roskill, The War at Sea (Vols 1-3)
Naval Staff History, The Defeat of the Enemy Attack on Shipping, 1939-45
Music Credits:
"Rynos Theme" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
"Crypto" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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"Stay the Course" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Other music and SFX from Epidemic Sound
This video took a bit longer to make than it was supposed to due to some tech issues, but its finally here! Episode 1 in this series: kzhead.info/sun/gsarpsN_m6iEmWg/bejne.html Get Early Access to videos and support their creation on Patreon: www.patreon.com/historigraph
ok
Bad video. You should have mentioned the RCN in the intro.
@@waynesworldofsci-tech Be less dumb.
@@waynesworldofsci-tech I did - 'Royal Navies' with Canadian ensign clearly visible
@@historigraph Most don’t know our WW2 Naval ensign. You need to mention the country. I grew up with regimental and warship photos in every second house. Canada finished the war with the third largest navy in the world. Out of five D-Day beaches we got one, the Brits and Yanks two each. No one else got a beach. We all too often get rolled into the Royal Navy. Yes, we used similar equipment (with mods for our more northern climate), but we built most of them ourselves, designed and built our own medium tank, the Ram, and designed and manufactured our own radars and sonars. We were the third major player on the Western Front.
As I recall, the Royal Canadian Navy numbered over 100,000 sailors, almost all in the Atlantic. 270 of its ocean-going escort vessels (Patrol Boats, Corvettes, Frigates, etc) fought in the Atlantic anti-submarine convoy escort actions across the Atlantic. As well, more than 7 RCAF squadrons of long-range aircraft operated continuously from Canadian shores. RCAF and RCN assets were integrated into overall RN control during convoy missions. Just saying, we were there, heart and soul.
The entire theatre was commanded by Leonard W. Murray of the RCN.
Feels like were always forgotten on the world scale whenever anyone is disucussing either of the WWs. Just important we as Canadians remember our efforts and those who sacrificed. The world may always forget, but as history has shown, underestimating Canada often leads to major surprises once we do show up.
The Canadian navy was the 5th largest by 1945, and sunk 31 German Uboats
Canadian effort should not be underestimated. Industrially Canada was also an essential part of the Allies. Canadian factories manufactured more tanks and trucks than Italy and Japan combined.
And were very much appreciated.
I had heard that it wasn't a case of Admiral King not learning the obvious convoy and costal blackout lessons, but of him resenting the British and so pointedly doing the opposite of any advice they gave him.
A lot of authors seem to concur that he wasn't a big fan of the Brits, yeah
Except he was well known to hate everyone, much like Gen."Vinegar" Stillwill; to say he only hated the British, which seems to be a narcissistic viewpoint. This would also ignore that Adm. King had no authority over anything on land. So, turning out lights on the coast was a civilian matter. Not King. Lack of ships to cover everything required this was even pointed out by the British. They could cover main convoys and a couple major Naval engaments, but not convoys from one US port to another. The Germans only recently to that point had the subs large enough to get all the way to US ports.
Between like 1776 and the 1940's, there were quite a number of American generals and officers who very much resented the British. I've read about quite a few American admirals and generals in WWII who were described as "Anglophobic" and used slurs like "the L*meys". That resentment didn't totally come out of the blue. There were moments in that stretch of time where British leadership and generals had looked down on their American counterparts. And of course, there were moments of conflict that soured opinions. Thankfully, the animosity has seemed to diminish greatly!
@@SeattlePioneerThe issue was that, outside of his abrasive personality, his decision making and leadership was really quite good
For a 10 minute video you've explained the key points of the Battle of the Atlantic very well. Well done sir!
+1 When I see a good video and it's 27 minutes long, I'm like, come on bro?! Perfect video.
He talked about the submarine war and didn't mention the words "depth charge" or "sonar" once.
@@adrianmillard6598True, but at least he mentioned the hedgehog.
@@adrianmillard6598 Direction finding is asdic and hedgehog mines replaced traditional depth charges
The Russian Navy was extremely important in these battles,...after all they defeated the Germans all by themselves! Just ask a Commie!
The writing on the wall for the U-boat arm came much earlier. In early March of 1941, over the course of ten days, Germany lost its three most distinguished and celebrated U-boat aces. Prien and Schepke were lost with all hand in their boats and Kretschmer was captured after losing his boat. It was such a shock to Hitler that he staged the release of information on the three aces over the course of the coming summer to soften the blow to the home front. What most people don’t realize is that U-boats spent most of their time on the surface. On the surface they operated at 18 knots(convoys operated at 7-12 knots). Submerged U-boats could only do 8 knots for two hours before draining ALL battery power. They could operate longer at lower speeds. So, U-boats had to be on the surface to position themselves for attacks. They could submerge to fire torpedoes after the set up. The advent of radar and the ability to protect convoys with air cover is what did the U-boats in. Great video.
@@derrickislander I forgot about the see-saw battles over ENIGMA. Allied convoys were constantly using decrypts to skirt around wolf pack patrol lies in the vast Atlantic. Little known, but Kreigsmarine Intelligence was pretty adept at breaking merchant navy radio traffic. While Royal Navy cyphers were much harder to crack, convoys could be located by tapping into comms amongst the merchant fleet.
I think you’ll find that radio comms were kept to a minimum, due to RDF. Enigma was broken, but it had to be broken more than once. Germans changed it.
@@peterwebb8732 The Allies knew the Germans had broken merchant marine codes. They calculated that the costs of changing the code would be more than the losses in ships. Rather cold blooded calculus but that is what happened.
My British great grandfather perished towards the end of the war in the merchant navy. It's too easy to forget the sacrifices of the early 20th century
My great grandfather was a skididi toilet.
@@Battleofthehumanrightsmovement Get off the internet. You won't regret it.
A major element in the allies controlling the North Atalnatic Gap was Chuchill's brilliant manouvere to invoke the 1373 Anglo-Portugese Treaty of Military Alliance. This led to an agreement for Great Britain to consrtuct an airfield on the Azores which allowed the RAF Coastal Command to finally get the air coverage they needed.
A humorous incident occurred when Franco and Salazar (the Spanish and Portuguese dictators) met with Hitler. Salazar detested Hitler, when Hitler raised the possibility of Germany basing submarines in the Azores, Salazar (apparently with a straight face) "reluctantly" declined, citing the 1373 Treaty of Windsor. Hitler apparently nearly choked. He later remarked of the meeting "I would prefer to have a root-canal than go through that again".
@@rogerbeesley-lo5tj That last quote I'm pretty sure was when Hitler meet Franco.
@@cpj93070 I may be in error as to whether Salazar ever met Hitler. He did however respond to German requests to base submarines in the Azores as I described above. You are correct; the root canal comment was made after a conference with Franco.
The casualty rate of the submarine service of the Kreigsmarine was not just worse than any other branch in WW2, it was probably worse than any other force in history over an extended conflict. You were likely to survive in some concentration camps than in a submarine.
...how does it compare to Bomber Command? I heard it suffered hideous losses over the war. Btw that’s an earnest inquiry, not arguing.
@@mikereger1186 Wikipedia says 44.4%. Far more sorties than the U-boats as well so the odds of surviving a single sortie were much higher.
@@mikereger1186Doing a tour as a tail gunner in a heavy bomber was probably the next worst position you could be in. Probably around 50% casualties. But when you were hit there was a *chance* you might be able to parachute out, and if you survived your 30 missions then you were finished. Whereas you were 99.9% a goner if you got depth charged and - like with the rest of the German forces - you'd just keep being sent on missions until you didn't come back.
@@mikereger1186If U Boats were number 1 in casualty rates, then Bomber Command would be number 2 with a fatality rate of 44%
For Bomber Command, both the British and Americans had loss rates for planes that generally ran between 15-30%. Depending on exactly which period of the war you were talking about and the target. US and UK Bomber Command crew losses were likewise high, and varied by position and platform. But in general the number I’ve seen quoted was the chances of an individual bomber crewman becoming a casualty (KIA/WIA/POW) was about 35% over the course of their service. The German U-Boat crew losses in absolute numbers were lower, but as a proportion were catastrophic. Germany lost 75% of their U-Boats and their crews during the war. Very, very few crewmen survived the sinking of their subs but it sometimes happened. The chance of a German submariner surviving more than a handful of patrols was basically zero.
Was fortunate to have met a RN veteran of the Battle of the Atlantic and also the Arctic convoys. He was torpedoed twice iirc and lucky to have survived. One ought remember that most of the convoy escorts had open bridges and exposed to the elements, the woollen clothing would get soaked. Conditions were even worse in the Arctic, where the constant sea spray froze in the rigging and on the superstructure. We especially should not forget the role played by the civilian merchant seamen.
Even during the war, as a boy, I was allowed into the docks in Durban and had visited RN and MN ships - and, since my sister worked for the S African equivalent of NAAFI, many were invited to visit us. Open bridges were more-or-less state of the art. Woollen clothing of the upper body was of course protected by oilskins. Seafaring is not fun.
the Battle of the Atlantic is the longest lasting single continuous battle ever fought anywhere in the world, lasting over 😂6 years, from the declaration of war, in 1939, until the final ending of hostilities in 1945. and there were only two branches of the services represented, (one from each side,) who can say that they were involved, and saw action from the very first day to the last. they are also the two branches which suffered by far the highest death rates of any branch of any military service of any other country who took part in WW 2 on the allied side, the Merchant navy suffered by far the highest death toll than any other service, on both sides, with only the German U Boat fleet suffering higher losses than the Merchant Navy. they are also the only services who can claim to have fought in the battle of the Atlantic from the very first day to the last, on the allied side, the highest casualty rate ever suffered by a single convoy was a convoy made up of UK merchant ships, with mainly British and US crews, which had set off from Iceland, bound for Murmansk, via North Norway, out of the 34 merchant vessels which set off in convoy to Russia, only 11 ships made it to Murmansk, all of the rest, 23 ships, were sunk due to enemy action, with 153 Merchant Navy personnel losing their lives in the worst allied merchant navy convoy disaster ever. and yet, despite the dedication shown time and again, risking their lives daily, at a speed rarely exceeding 10 knots, every day for the two weeks it took a convoy to cross the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York, then another 2 weeks to return, there were no such thing as “tours of duty” offered to the ordinary British Merchant navy man, if he wanted to get payed, he simply had to sign articles and set sail, no ship, no pay…which meant many merchant navy men spent at least 5 years criss-crossing the Atlantic, my father being one of them, he was also on some Artic convoys, though he fortunately he missed the PQ 17 disaster, he rarely spoke of his war experiences, with one particular occurrence which he mentioned from time to time, and said that he would tell me some time, but he never did, dying of a massive heart attack at the age of 66, one year after he retired, i did however hear the story, and its one of the most harrowing stories ever to come out of the dark days of WW2, and it is the story of the “city of Benares” a fast liner, with 100 children aboard' making for canada, and a new life away from the war, she was considered too fast to be torpedoed, and set off ahead of the convooy my father was on, then word came through that she had been hit and was sinking, by the time the convoy arrived, the Benares was gone , with most survivors in the water, .the convoy kept its speed up, fearing the u boat might still be around, despite every vessel putting out grabnets, not one survivor made it aboard a convoy vessel, out of the 100 children who entered the water alive, and who could be heard shouting for help, only 7 survived, my father maintained the convoy ran them down, a fact he never got over, and why he found it hard to tell the story, right up to his death in 1981,
@@robertmagnusjamieson1759 Had heard the stories of ships not being allowed to stop to pick up survivors, which must have been hard on the crews hearing cries for help. Must have been terrible to witness children being left behind. No wonder your father found it difficult to talk about.
As a Writer and Historian in Aruba for the last 26 years, permit me to say that the little island of Aruba, the Lago Oil Refinery and its employees played an important role during WWII. The refinery was suplying out of every 12 gallons of the 100 octane Aviation gasoline used by the Allies, one gallon was from the Lago refinery. No wonder the Germans sent U-boats U-156 and U-502 to destroy the refinery, the lake tankers which were brining the Lake Maracaibo cude oil. One February 16, 1942, @1:31am Aruba was schocked when U-156, with its Captain Werner Hartenstein sent his first torpedo (in the Western Hemisphere) on the SS Pedernales, destryoed it partially, did ot sink, but two minutes later torpedoed the other lake tanker SS Oranjestad which sank half hour later. Eight victims on the SS Pedernales and 15 on the SS Oranjestad. The U-502 sank SS San Nicolas, SS Tia Juana from the Lago refinery. 17 victims on the SS San Nicolas and 7 on the SS Tia Juana. I wrote nine books, four on the WWII. The story is long.
Thank you for the information on a slice of the war not covered by anyone else apart from you.
what are the books called? I remember reading a novel about someone on those islands when I was little
@@dave_h_8742 This slice of the war is very well known and very well covered. don't be ignorant.
Aruba? I had no idea!
Very interesting side piece of history. So many WW2 victims, especially civilian workers, don't get their stories told. Thank you.
It's hard to imagine that for every four sailors serving in the uboat arm, three of them did not make it to the end of the war. Absolutely brutal
I’ll always be proud of my Canadian brothers and sisters who died crossing and protecting the crossing I myself am joining the navy this July
Thanks for serving. Give me a fast ship as I intend to go in harms way.
So you're in boot right now. Stay motivated. It's a mindset and you just gotta adopt it. You may even need to lie to yourself about it. False motivation is better than no motivation
Lol Canada is greater India now 😂
My father-in-law fought that battle, flying in the belly of PBYs out of Iceland hunting U-boats. He said they would take bets on the way back to base on how many planes had slid off the icy runways. Truly the Greatest Generation.
Thank you merchant navy sailors. The true unsung heroes of WW2
I cannot imagine knowing that my ship was going through the freezing waters of the North Sea to Russia with subs and German battleships in the way.
@@recoil53 How about even a convoy to North Africa or Italy in 1943? U-Boats were literally everywhere, and until the September capitulation, you also had to possibly deal with the Italian Navy, with its own three large battleships.
I agree. 36,749 British, 9,521 American and 1,600 Canadian merchant seamen died in ww2
The numbers of ships and submarines built and destroyed in WWII is just staggering! Building those submarines and huge ships was not an easy task, yet they cranked out thousands and lost hundreds
ships and boats back then were certainly a lot simpler than what we have now, plus, ww2 saw all major combatants mobilize enormous resources to fight this war, this is very much total war and gearing your country for waging war
@@justit1074 simpler is relative. They were state of the art back in the day.
@@Luke_Sandy_High_Ground of course
The major economies of the world at full capacity are truly massive
And in recent decades, a cruiser being sunk makes headlines all over the world (Belgrano in the Falklands and Moskva in the Russia-Ukraine War). I have to chuckle about it a bit considering that whole aircraft carriers sinking was the norm in the World War II. Literally EVERY modern war looks small compared to it.
One of the best history channels out there. Alongside operations room and epic history channel. Incredible!
I think my favourite of all the battles in WWII Glad that someone realises how important this was
It was arguably the most important battle/theatre of the war, but definitely the most important one that the average person on the street has never heard of.
I always consider the greatest land battle in the entire war was at Stalingrad. Both sides had enormous losses but it showed the chink in the German armor; the Soviets developed a fighting spirit and destroyed the myth of the unbeatable German army. Hitler, never a good tactician, exposed his armies to unnecessary losses by refusing to allow any retreat.
Another excellent video, with superb graphics and archive film. Thank you for all your work, you have a terrific channel.
The Battle of the Atlantic by the start of 1943 seemed to be another slugfest after 1942, but then by May it suddenly all but over. It's not exactly like that, but the switch up in balance of power was quite brief.
Yeah , it takes time to build the parts that go into factories that make the parts. A lot of people don't appreciate the whole unseen supply side of the economy. Once the designs were done, the factories reconfigured, and they made production efficient it was just an impossible battle for the Axis. I think the US alone built 17 Essex carriers, almost 100 escort carriers, and several hundred destroyers just during the war. The US trained 435K pilots & air crew alone. The Axis HAD to win a quick war, but a sucker punch like Pearl Harbor meant the US population would be angry enough for a long, drawn out war.
May 1943 was the decisive month - the Germans lost 41 U-boats, an unsustainable rate of attrition.
My dad was in the Canadian Merchant Navy, the Germans sunk the Newfoundland ferry in oct 41, the old man said it took Halifax command 2 weeks to send a destroyer to chase them out of the area. At low tide in Louisbourg NS you can see the large concrete blocks that held the sub nets down in the mouth of the harbour.
Absolutely incredible video as always, keep up the amazing work!
Another great video! Well done! Perfect as always, keep up the great work!
back to watching history videos again, and i have to say the quality is over the top. great work
Overall, a great video that gives a good summation of the stages of the lengthy and hard fought Battle of the Atlantic. However, I take some issue with a couple of aspects. The first is, although you show the Canadian blue ensign in the video (which was not the national flag of Canada during WWII by the way, just the Naval Jack), you never mention the Royal Canadian Navy and its essential role on the Battle of the Atlantic. Canadian warships made up approximately 40% of all the escorts during the battle (Canada launched as many Flower Class corvettes as the Royal Navy) and arguably the battle would have been lost without Canada's contribution along with those of Britain and the USA. Rear Admiral Murray of the RCN was the operational commander of the western Atlantic Ocean, commanding from St. John's, Newfoundland. My second issue is that you gloss over the responsibility Ernest King held for the dismal record of sunken merchant ships in the first half of 1942. It wasn't merely that the US was unprepared and overly committed in the Pacific. King LOATHED the Royal Navy and so refused to follow any advice or suggestions offered by the Navy that had been fighting the Kriegsmarine for over three years already, no matter how logical or necessary. He REFUSED to force coastal cities to have blackouts, thus making darkened Allied ships easily silhouetted against those same city lights for U-boats to aim at. American ships talked openly on their radios in plain English, often revealing ship movements to listening U-boats. US ships didn't zigzag, the most effective defence against from being torpedoed and American patrols kept to a strict schedule that the German submarines quickly learned and thus avoided. And most egregious of all, he refused to organise the merchant ships into convoys, as the British suggested. The Royal Navy had made this mistake in WWI, preferring to go a-hunting for German U-boats, not realising that by using convoys the U-boats were forced to come to them. Britain was on the point of starvation in 1917 before the First Sea Lord decided to institute the convoy system. In WWII, the British started using convoys from day one, having learned the lesson well from the previous war. King's other issue was that he had no faith in Naval intelligence, even that provided by his own Navy. And since most of the intelligence he was receiving came from the British, he dismissed it out of hand, despite how important it often was. However, he was very good at blaming his subordinates for his own shortcomings and it was because of all of this that FDR had to finally step in and force him to do his job properly. He was apparently horrible to work for as well - his own daughter is reputed to have said once, "My father is the most even-tempered man I have ever met. He's in a constant rage."
While all of those ships were being sunk along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. there was complete disregarding of the proof of convoy system by King ignoring the fact a Canadian navy escorted convoy from South America up that same coastline did not lose one ship during the worst period of those 360 sunk unescorted ships.
A disappointing video for both reasons. Apparently the creator is as disinclined to give due credit to the Royal Canadian Navy as King was.
That last statement was tongue in cheek but good job trying to pass it as fact. But yeah aside from Montgomery he was really hated by all sides of the allies.
@brustar5152 more uneducated dribble. There was no disregard of convoy system. Alot of those ships sunk were in ports not in transit. Also so you have a slightest clue how big the US is? From the ports of New Orleans to New York, there was not enough ships or planes to cover the entire sea board. Maybe if the US hadn't been shipping the British and other allies so many aircraft and other defense weapons systems as part of lend lease there would have been more planes available to do ASW work
@@Matt-mt2vi I'd be careful accusing others of "uneducated dribble", mate. Perhaps you should take a look at the maps showing where the ship sinkings took place. Unless a lot of those ports were hundreds of miles east of the shoreline, you are rather mistaken. Also, the majority of the "defense systems" were older US Coast Guard cutters and vintage WWI destroyers, neither particularly well suited to anti-submarine work. That's why Canada had to give the USN our Flower Class corvettes as a stop gap while US yards scrambled to build suitable anti-submarine warships, many of which were the British-designed River Class frigates..
Very well done! Your videos are my favorite history documentaries. Really appreciate all your hard work! Wish i could like these videos 20 times a piece!
Super video. Love the fast pace and the graphic aids relating to the losses.
That was probably the best summation of the BoA Ive seen. Outstanding work.
Thanks for the amazing recap! it was really fun to watch.
This was excellent. Particularly interesting the bit about the convoys benefiting the Soviets too, which one doesn't often realize. (Only thing I was hoping to see was a shot of a PBY-5A.) Thank you for this.
Excellent post, very clearly presented. Thanks for posting.
Gee, this may come as a shock folks but the Royal Canadian Navy played a very big part of the North Atlantic battle against the U-Boats...Oh, don't forget Canada was at war 10 Sept.39 so we sorta had a head start. Our little corvettes were the terror of the U-Boat boys.
typical american view of things.
The Canadians were the third largest navy in the world by number of ships (almost entirely destroyers and corvettes) by the end of the war.
@@hanzzel6086 true
@@hanzzel6086 tbf there wasnt really much competition for third place.
@@Luke_Sandy_High_Ground True, but keep in mind the Canadians started the war with 2 rusty old protected cruisers and a handful of equally terrible destroyers. And yes, a lot of those ships were U.S AND UK built, but a fair few (especially the Flowers) were home built.
Well presented and concise. This is the way to teach history. Not only that, but this is one of the few youtubers with a British accent that I can understand.
My grandfather was on convoy duty in the Atlantic. One night 6 ships were sunk around his!!! My grandmother told me that when he came home he would have night terrors and she would have to change the sheets nightly because he would sweat so bad at night. Their both long since passed away but seeing this made me think of them. Miss them both.😢
A brilliantly concise take, thank you
I’d love another in-depth covering of a land battle like you did with Narvik for example!
Thanks for an excellent overview of the most important battle of WWII.
Your like : view ratio says it all - your videos are excellent, been watching since the fall of france videos which feels like forever ago! Hope you stick around amigo.
Love your content. I finished your playlist on the anglo-germanic naval rivalry
Thanks for the fascinating look into a part of WWII that I knew very little about!
This is a genuinely outstanding channel.
This straight up is one of the best and most interesting videos I have ever seen! 👍
360 allied merchant ships sunken in Atlantic waters? That’s bloody disastrous
Admrial king was a a bad Anglophobia, his hate of the english made him ignore all advice from the royal navy about naval escorting costing countless lives, he should of been shot for treason
Still only a small piece of all the shipping that arrived unharmed
Yeah ww2 was massive 😮
Never heard of liberty ships?
But less so if during that same space of time the allies have built 370 merchant ships. U-Boats sunk vs U-Boats launched is also important. In a war of logistics whoever has an attrition of matériel is losing - by about May 1943 that was the U-Boats. More merchants to make up losses and then some. More advanced warships with latest detection gear and weaponry, better training facilities etc etc. More warships means ample convoy protection but also allows for hunter-killer groups sweeping ahead and not tethered to the convoy, and with the resources to find, fix and kill a u-boat. If Donitz and German industry couldn’t compete with that, if they couldn’t churn out more U-boats than they lost and with better technology, then the outcome was basically inevitable.
Never stormed a beach, never drove a tank, never took an inch of land nor liberated any citys. But enableling it all while sitting on a silver plate for wolfs to come and eat them whole surrounded by stormy ice cold water. O7
Many thanks for this interesting, concise, account of a crucial phase in the war !
Great video!
I enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up But wished you posted more than just one a month. I say this because I really enjoy your videos!!
Great material - thank you so much!
The Eighth air force suffered about half of the U.S. Army Air Force's casualties (47,483 out of 115,332), including more than 26,000 dead. The Eighth's brave men earned 17 Medals of Honor, 220 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 442,000 Air Medals. so it is the allied equivalent
Bombers were really a lethal enviroment in WW2. RAF Bomber Command suffered 63,976 casualties out of a force of 125,000, including 55,573 killed. I think 22 VCs were awarded to Bomber Command in WW2. For comparison, Fighter Command "only" suffered 4905 casualties with 3,690 killed. Coastal command was slsightly higher with 5,866 killed in action.
In terms of casualty rates RAF bomber command was probably the Allied equivalent of the German U-boat arm. That being said all western allied bomber forces suffered heavier than average losses.
A very nice and high-quality explanation, really interesting. We can say that the loss of the Battle of the Atlantic laid the foundation for the disastrous defeat of the Axis.
Brilliant video about the impacts of the Atlantic battle
Superb as always man
Very Good video and I decided to subscribe.Waiting for more good content.Keep up the fabulous works.
Very well explained and very good graphics
Thanks for the video
Excellent graphs, statistics and analysis.
Good video. My father in law joined the Navy on 12/8/41 at 16. By early 1942 he was a torpedo man in the destroyer escort fleet, doing convoy duty in the North Atlantic. He also made 37 trips through the Panama Canal seeing Naval combat in both the Atlantic & Pacific theaters. I was fortunate enough to hear some of these stories first hand, when he realized that I too am a Navy vet. Not only did I hear his but I also hear some of my brothers father in law (USMC WWII). I will never forget those men or their stories, we miss you Brownie & Norm. Thanks to all now serving, Including or British allies, those who have, and those who will in the future. FLY NAVY!!!
US Navy #1
Got all the high points, tells the story. Good job.
Excellent video and narration.
Excellent presentation!
Great content and presentation. 😊
I'd love a series on other seiges of WW2, the videos in the Budapest series were some of the best you've made and we're fantastic to watch. You could do stalingrad, leningrad or Berlin there's so many options.
Very well presented. I’ve now subscribed.
Excellent video, thanks
Your videos are very well presented. I knew there were sinkings off the US east and Caribbean coasts, but didnt know there were so many. I did know that losses were severe enough to stimulate the development of synthetic rubber (from oil) to replace the losses of natural rubber from South America. Very informative channel.
Amazing work
One anecdote I just want to add is that of the absolute legend Johnny Walker. At the beginning of the war he was seen as an old and tired officer in the Royal Navy, some what past his prime. But by the end of the war he was largely responsible for anti submarine taskforces and should be given a lot of credit for the maneuvers used. Empire of the deep (a brilliant read) devotes a lot of content to him and I'd strongly recommend looking him up. He often goes unmentioned, unremembered and is also passed off as unremarkable. But my guy spent his war playing mad lad British tunes over the loudspeakers as he rammed subs. What a legend! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_John_Walker
One should not forget the contribution made by physicist Luis Alvarez, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Airborne Allied radars were giving advanced warning to German U-boats. When the aircraft approached, the U-boats simply submerged. Radar could not track them when submerged. Radar power weakens as the inverse SQUARE of the distance. Because there are TWO paths for reflected signals, radar RETURN signals decreased as the inverse FOURTH power of the distance. Alvarez's brilliant idea: Have the radars adjust energy to the THIRD power of the distance. The result was that radar signal strength received by the U-boats DECREASED as the aircraft approached. Hence, the U-boat captains were tricked into staying on the surface even while Allied patrol planes approached. However, the return signal INCREASED as the planes approached. By the time the U-boat captains realized that they had been tricked, it was too late, their boats could not evade allied weaponry. Nobody in the Kriegsmarine had the foggiest idea that they were being tricked, because the captains who had figured it out were dead.
Kinda sad this video doesn’t really mention the Royal Canadian navy who played a major roll in the battle of the Atlantic and convoy escort during the war…
he says allied
This is something people don't understand when they think all the major battles happened on the Eastern Front. You have to get soldiers, vehicles, and materiel to Europe to fight Germany and in the way of that are the deadly U-Boats
Correct. The unconscious brain takes what is as just existing. It takes conscious, deliberate thought, which is prompted by direct experience, to be consciously aware of the chain of events that must occur for, say, a Sherman tank to end up in northern France at the D-Day landings, along with a full supply of fuel, ammunition, spare parts and a trained crew. A person who doesn't do this intentional thought can easily, mindlessly assume it "just happens".
I heard that one battle that worried Churchill the most just happened to the Battle of the Atlantic.
Admiral King's daughter said he was a most even tempered man "he was always in a rage".
You failed to mention that the cracking of the enigma code have a tremendous advantage as u boats routinely gave away there position in radio messages to high command
when he said codebreakers i kinda put two and two together
Can't beat more videos from you
One early partial solution was to move the US coastal shipping to the existing and also urgently improved inland channels, i.e. between the islands and the main coast line. If you have a good map, you can see how amazingly long this navigation route really is, and how challenging it would be for U-boats to try interceptions there. Of corse that only served US domestic shipping.
My dad was stuck on the Azores off the coast of Spain . Deeply involved in the U boat war but thought he was missing the action . An airbase on the island killing U boats ... TOO bad he cannot see the history of what he was really doing ...
Thank you.
This was an excellent synopsis of the war in the Atlantic.
Except he missed the fact most convoy protection was done by the Royal Canadian Navy.
It’s often overshadowed, overlooked, or ignored. But the Battle of the Atlantic was the longest battle fought in the war. It may not have been fought with grand armies, but rather fought with intelligence agencies, navies, merchant vessels, and aerial craft. The Battle of the Atlantic secured the Allied victory by allowing them to be able to land supplies. Godspeed to those who perished. Requiescant in pace in aquis Atlantici. And to Historgraph, a very well made video. Superbly detailed and designed. Godspeed to you.
Very well done, and great detail. There are some points I would like to add. First, the US 10th Fleet was a major contributing factor, despite have no ships. It was an array of radio direction finders spread from Greenland to South America that allowed the allies to track the uboats by their radio communications with their command. Also, another factor in the early high shipping losses was the US failure to black out coastal cities. U-boats literally used the city lights in the background to target merchant ships. And do not take these points as criticisms at all. Any video can get bogged down with details, I only mention those because so few know about either.
EXCELLENT!!!!
I heartily recommend: ‘The Fighting Captain’ - about Frederick Walker RN - whose ship (HMS STARLING) sank 14 U-boats.
Great film, once again 👍🙂
Cover some unheard modern conflicts as well please like the Sino Vietnamese and the Indo Pak wars
the Indo Pak war was just covered by Operations Room
Or mabey the Sri lankan civil war?
Angolan Bush war 🤔
My understanding is the operations research was another big factor in the success of the Allied campaign agains the U Boats. It is less well known than technological improvements like shipborne and airborn radar, the hedgehog, HUK groups, long range aircraft, etc. but it allowed them all to be used much more effectively.
I had the privilege several years ago of serving a massive dinner for some of the crew members on those merchant ships. I hated the job because of the snooty people we usually served, but that was a night where I thought everything needed to be perfect for them.
Thanks!
I was stationed on aWWII destroyer from 1968-1971 but recently there is a good movie GREYHOUND that shows the battle in the Atlantic Ocean and destroyers were single mount and more able to change directions than my double mount guns on my destroyer that was used at longer distance targets
those escorts defending the convoys still had a very tough job even when they started winning. radar on ships and planes was really new and prone to failure or miscalculation. one sweep would show a contact a few hundred yards away and the next sweep would show it at a wildly different distance. this put the entire convoy on alert sometimes lasting days because they knew the Uboats were there but the finicky radar combined with the horrendous weather made it one of the most difficult and decisive battles of WWII. If the Germans had not refused to believe we cracked their enigma code and had ship radar, the battle could have gone on a lot longer and maybe even lost.
Great little podcast but you should have talked a bit more about the enigma code breakers - that had a huge effect on shipping losses
That deserves a video itself
Thank you. I never knew all the facts about how the Allies beat the U-boats
Allied civilian sailors were the unsung heroes of WW2. Without their sacrifice, the USSR and UK would have been incapable to resist Nazi Germany.
The adage that "War is won by Logistics". Early on it was thanks only to the Lend Lease that kept the UK afloat at all really otherwise the Battle of Britain may very well have been lost. Similar goes for what the Soviets were receiving which propped them up just enough while they rebuilt or just plain built industry that was destroyed//non-existent West of the Volga onto the East side...just out of reach of the Germans.
It wasn't until the fifties that the government was forced to recognize their sacrifice and provide for widows and their families.
not to diminish their heroism, but Atlantic was only one route of supply going through Persia/India or even just through Pacific Ocean was possible and took most of the throughput
Eh, historians agree that the supplies sent to the USSR saved thousands of lives but that the USSR would have still won without them. The war would have raged on for many more years though. These sailors saved a lot of lives.
@@michimatsch5862 it's a politically charged question, so historians' answer highly depends on specific historians we'll see in a hundred years whose opinion prevails
Its an interesting lesson that any war beyond tactical short pitched battle turns into a game of logistics and production output.
A measure of how desperate things were on the US side early in the war was the creation of the Civil Air Patrol, volunteer civilian pilots with quasi-military status flying U-boat recon patrols in civilian aircraft painted bright yellow. As the regular forces ramped up, their job later became pilot training and air search and rescue, and they still exist today.
I fished a couple of liberty ships off the coast of Florida. Some were sunk in sight of land
Those two major convoys mentioned. I remember one of them only had 1 flower class corvette as escort
Allied engineering during wartimes was incredible ultimately winning the war
Indeed - people get obsessed about big tanks and V-weapons, but an allied destroyer or Liberator probably had far more state-of-the-art, and actually effective, tech on it than just about anything Germany created during the war.
@@bighamster2 but muh underwaffen! /s
In effect, the Allies, with the exception of the Soviet Union, were soundly defeated. The Allies lost a huge commercial zone in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Western colonies were liberated by Japan and disappeared. Communist guerrillas in the USSR and China were victorious, the rest of the world was a defeated nation
For anyone who's watching this, you're obviously interested in this period. You should check out the movie Greyhound with Tom Hanks. Absolutely stunning short movie about a crossing of the Atlantic for a convoy protection battleship. It was pure gripping action the entire time(about an hour and 10-20 minutes). I've watched it 3 times and each time, I'm on the edge of my seat.
My neighborhood in Canada had a ship named after it during WW2, the HMCS Swansea which sunk 4 U-boats over the course of the war which labeled it the most successful sub hunter in the Canadian navy.
One of my relatives ran the Atlantic through the war. He got sunk twice by U-boats. I've got nothing but respect for those who ran that gap in those early years, to deliver medicine, food and materiel for the soldiers and civilians in Britain.
Everyone had learned the value of keeping merchant ships together in convoys in WW1. Every navy had come to the conclusion either during or after the conflict that convoy's worked. For multiple reasons, including peace time draw dawn, lead to convoy's not being used or forgoetten in the early part of WW2.