SBattleforAtlanticCaseStudyPageSix

Allied success in the spring of 1943, as notable as it was however, rode on a thin margin,
and initially, in April, stemmed from only six special support groups comprised of no more
than 3 aircraft carriers, 12 ocean support groups, and initially 40 Liberators. Official Royal
Navy historian Stephen Wentworth Roskill wrote "For what it was worth this writer's view is
that in the early spring of 1943 we had a very narrow escape from defeat in the Atlantic."
Combined arms efforts carried the day. This allowed for the increasing weight of Allied
resources to press home the tactical and technological advantage throughout the
remainder of 1943 and the war.[81] Although Germany continued the campaign, the
German inability to react as quickly and flexibly as the Allies crippled the U-boat fleet. By
late in 1942 the Allies had introduced a whole suite of new weapons, tactics, and locator
systems, yet Germany operated First World War submarine designs.[82]

The German failure to keep pace in naval and electronic technological fields allowed Allied
ASW efforts to gain the upper hand and win the campaign in the Atlantic.[83] Nonetheless,
after the war the British Captain C.D. Howard-Johnston, Director of the Anti-U-boat arm of
the British Navy reported, "the new U-boat with new propulsion, the new torpedoes, the
new W/T gear, has enabled the U-boat arm to complete this war to all intents and
purposes undefeated at sea." In support of the U-boats efficacy as an asymmetric weapon
one need look no further than the 25 U-boats operating in British waters on May 5, 1945
tying down over 400 Allied ASW ships, and 800 ASW aircraft. The U-boats had proved a
tremendous cost effective weapon for diminishing the impact that should have logically
resulted from the great disparity in naval strength both the Royal Navy and United States
Navy possessed over the German Navy.[84]

The Battle of the Atlantic ranked among the most important campaigns during World War
Two. The Battle featured a flawed but potentially war-winning effort by Germany;
effectively deploying asymmetric means to challenge the hegemony of the Allied surface
fleets. Whether Germany could have won the Battle of the Atlantic is debatable at best,
and far from likely. Nonetheless, whether Germany needed to achieve outright victory in
the Atlantic if Germany was to win the War is debatable as well. As it was the scope of
the battle and scale of the carnage reached staggering levels on both sides.

During the Second World War, Nazi Germany built 1,162 submarines with 696 lost in action.
As for the remaining U-boats, their crews scuttled 220 U-boats, 156 surrendered, and 2
escaped to Argentina. Seventy-six percent of the men serving on these U-boats were
killed or captured with 27,491 killed and 5,000 becoming prisoners of war from the 39,000
men who served in the Ubootwaffe. No other arm from any other military suffered a higher
casualty rate than the Third Reich's U-boat arm during World War II.[85]

The Allies paid a heavy price for success. The Axis sank over 5,000 ships aggregating 21.5
million tons during the War with 2,775 merchant ships of 14.5 million tons lost to
submarines in the Atlantic. The British Merchant Marine and Royal Navy suffered by far the
worst losses of the Allied powers fighting in the Atlantic with 30,248 and 73,642 killed
respectively. In addition, German U-boats helped send 175 warships to the bottom of the
Atlantic with once again the British bearing the brunt of these losses. The Royal Air Force's
Coastal Command also lost 5,866 men and 1,777 aircraft combating the German Navy
during World War Two.[86]

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