Quote:
|
Originally Posted by jimbuna
Quote:
|
Britain came within 4 weeks of total collapse due to the supply lines being cut so drastically. The government could only have stayed in the war another 4 weeks, before they would have had to bow out. The U-boat men came close.
|
I'd like to know the source of this because one of my sources 'Clay Blair-Hitler's U -boat War' states that the Germans seldom ever had more than 20 subs on station in the Atlantic at any given time....and NEVER sank any more than 3% of the merchant shipping available to the Allies. :hmm: |
Having read that same book, I got the distinct impression that Clay Blair had an axe to grind and he was awfully slanted. Just my opinion though.
As I recall, the figure was 97 or 98% of allied shipping reached their destination safely. This is all well and good, however when you average out the percentage reaching port safely over the total war, you lose a sense of the ebb and flow of the way the war went. I could be wrong, but I find it hard to believe that during late 39 and throughout 1940 98% of shipping reached port safely. I feel Blair has distorted the numbers there.
uboataces says:
"The wolfpack attacks were extremely successful, leading to a colossal slaughter of British shipping. In the three month period from September 2 to December 2 1940, 157 allied ships had been sunk for a total of 847,000 tons. In the same period, only three u-boats had been lost, making the exchange rate of 1 to 52 - a horrendous rate of loss. Oil imports in Great Britain fell to half the normal rate covering only two thirds of her consumption. This rate of loss would soon bring Britain to her knees. Such was the calamity of the looming crisis, that it was at this point that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had privately confided that he feared the Battle of the Atlantic may have been lost – along with Britain’s ability to continue fighting."
http://www.uboataces.com/boa-fall-france.shtml