Quote:
Originally Posted by Snestorm
Any ship sailing in convoy, with the exception of a few neutral convoys consisting primarily of ships from the scandiavian countries, were fair game. Any ship entering the declared zone, with the exception of well marked and lit irish ships, were fair game. Eventualy any ship coming from Scandinavia, to be ascertained on a course to England, was fair game. (See uboat.net Schepke. He was hailed as an Ace in Germany for sinking ships mostly hailing from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Not one of my favorite kaleuns).
The big problems kaleuns faced with neutrals, convoys, and Hitler came much later.
It wasn't the merchants that were the problem. They remained fair game.
The problem was "neutral" USN destroyers escorting enemy shipping. US warships were off limits.
To realy confound things, 50 four stack (Clemson Class) DDs were given to the RN by the USN. One beligerant navy, and one "neutral" navy, both using the same class ship.
Result: U-552 sinks USS Reuben James. (Hitler declared war a short time after, making life much easier for Kaleunt Topp).
These neutral convoys were inspired by England as much as they were by Germany.
RN policy was to stop all neutrals crossing the surface blockade, inspect their papers, then send them on to England to further "inspect" the cargo.
The "inspection" of the cargo consisted of determing exactly how much of that cargo was appsolutely essential to the destination neutral country . . . . Then auctioning off the rest before sending the vessel back on it's way.
US flagged ships were not exempt, and the US government never protested.
Always remember history and "history" are written by the winners.
Isn't it interesting how US policy changed so drasticly from 1812 to 1939?
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I just finished a cool book called
The Battle of the Atlantic. It did appear in some cases that a lot of what you are talking about, with the officially-neutral USN destroyers escorting UK convoys was done purposefully by FDR to kind of goad the Kriegsmarine into attacking to allow us to enter the war. This is very "conspiracy theory" way of looking at it, but it's well-known that FDR wanted very badly to enter the war to help the UK out, but the public at the time was in favor of remaining neutral. Reading between the lines, the public would have needed justification to enter the war, as was the case with WWI and the
Lusitania. This may have been an effort to arrange this.
We've seen similar things before and since. Anyone remember the Cold War interceptions of bombers by NATO and the USSR? There are plenty of photos of an F-14 or F-106 flying formation with an intruding Tu-95. I'm sure there are a few of a Mig-23 trailing a B-52 on the other side. Opponents taunt one another all the time, to varying degrees. Occasionally, an impulsive shot gets fired and history changes. Lexington/Concord is a good example of this, I think.