Things could have been very different for the German navy had Hitler not gone to war sooner then he had led his naval commanders to believe. In 1939, Donitz had been told by Hitler that he would not begin anything for 6 years, and that would be enough time to grow a U-Boat fleet of 300+ (mainly type VII's), and replace all of the aged type II's. Donitz planned on being able to keep 100 boats at sea at all times. As it was, Donitz went to war with only 57 boats (and only about 38 or so of those ready for war time service, including many type II's which were never designed for blue water operations).
The Royal Navy operated a lot in Norwegian waters and the med (look up the famous 10th flotilla's actions there). In the pacific a major area of operations was the Malacca Straits (between Kuala Lampur and Sumatra). More so then any other submarine force, they did a lot of covert operations (landing agents and commando's, supplying resistance forces, and keeping Malta fighting and alive), and a lot of mine laying. They lost 74 submarines during the war, about half of them to inshore mines which reflects their main deployments to near shore waters. According to the Royal Navy Submarine museum web site, they sank "2 million tons of enemy shipping and fifty seven major war vessels, including thirty five enemy submarines, by gun and torpedo".
P.S. an excerpt from wikipedia's entry for HMS Torbay, who's commander, Lieutenant Commander Miers won the VC:
Quote:
"Lieutenant Commander Anthony Cecil Chapel Miers DSO Royal Navy Whilst on patrol in HM Submarine Torbay off the Greek coast on the 4th March 1942.
Lieutenant Commander Miers sighted a northbound convoy of four troopships entering the South Corfu Channel and since they had been too far distant for him to attack initially, he decided to follow in the hope of catching them in Corfu Harbour. During the night 4/5 March, Torbay approached undetected up the channel and remained on the surface charging her battery. Unfortunately the convoy passed straight through the channel but on the morning of the 5th March, in glassy sea conditions, Miers successfully attacked two store ships present in the roadstead and then brought Torbay safely back to the open sea. The submarine endured 40 depth charges and had been in closely patrolled enemy waters for seventeen hours.[1]
Having sunk in the region of 50 ships, Torbay was reassigned to the Pacific Far East in early 1945"
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