The Battle Of The Atlantic

[Sailor Steve]

I just started reading this fine book yesterday, The Battle of the Atlantic: The First Complete Account of the Origins and Outcome of the Longest and Most Crucial Campaign of World War II; by Terry Hughes and John Costello. Even though it was published thirty years ago, I'm still learning new things.

We were assembled aft and the Emden's Executive Officer told us that England had declared war on Germany. It was not a happy moment. We recalled that our fathers had told us how they cheered on the declaration of war, but nobody knew now what to say. We all thought "Now we're in a mess".
-Werner Schuenemann, Wilhelmshaven, 3 September 1939

The sinking of the Athenia by U-30:

I was standing on the upper deck when suddenly there was a terrific explosion. I reckon I must be a very lucky woman because when I recovered from the shock I saw several men lying dead on the deck.
-Mrs Elizabeth Turner, Toronto

In an effort to hide the fact that Fritz-Julius Lemp had torpedoed a liner, he was made to destroy that page from his patrol log and substitute a fake one. The German Propaganda Ministry even went so far as to accuse Churchill (then First Lord of the Admiralty) of planting a bomb on the liner to make the Germans look bad and gain sympathy for the cause of the British. On 13 September Admiral Raeder told the US Atache in Berlin "It could not possibly have been caused by a German submarine, since the nearest one was 170 miles away".

[mr chris]

Sounds like a very intresting book Steve will have to put that on the list to buy at some point.

[Mush Martin]

Its true the Battle of the atlantic started within a very few hours after
the declaration of war and ran the length of the war.

[flintlock]

Yes, the sinking of the Athenia was an unfortunate mistake, to put it mildly. To be fair though, Lemp didn't realize it was an unarmed passenger liner he had fired on. The Athenia was blacked out and apparently had been zigzagging like a combat vessel. This combined with her unusual route via Rockall Banks made Lemp mistakenly deduce she was an armed British merchant cruiser.

On that same patrol Lemp even scooped up a couple of downed British pilots his sub shot down, and had them dropped off in Iceland so they could receive medical attention.

[ReallyDedPoet]

I have read Bitter Ocean, The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-45 by David Fairbanks White, a good read but by the sounds of it SS, not as good this one. Thanks for this, I am adding to my list

[mr chris]

Originally Posted by reallydedpoet

I have read Bitter Ocean, The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-45 by David Fairbanks White, a good read but by the sounds of it SS, not as good this one. Thanks for this, I am adding to my list

Im happy to hear that Bitter Ocean is a good read as it is one of many books i got for xmas.

[Sailor Steve]

The Asdic Myth

The faithful effort has relieved us of our great danger...that our methods are now so efficient that we will need fewer destroyers in the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
-Winston Churchill, 1936

So important is the development of Asdic that the submarine should never again be able to present us with the problem we were faced with in 1917...one destroyer could do the work of a whole flotilla.
-Admiralty Report

What I didn't know before was that early Asdic sets didn't even have screens. It was up to the skill of the operator to interpret the time between signal and return, and estimate the range to the target. Also, echoes were obtained from schools of fish, whales, wrecks, the sea bed or even different layers of water. We know that thermal layers could be useful, but the fact appears to be that Asdic was not nearly as reliable as the escorts would have liked. Also, in September 1939 only about 1 in 10 destroyers had it at all.

[mookiemookie]

I just bought it from Amazon. I had just finished "Torpedoes in the Gulf" and I've been without a book for a couple of days. It was torture.

And I also resisted the urge to add to my order the "banana hammock" thong that Amazon always advertises on the forum banner ads. :rotfl:

[Jimbuna]

I just started reading this fine book yesterday, The Battle of the Atlantic: The First Complete Account of the Origins and Outcome of the Longest and Most Crucial Campaign of World War II; by Terry Hughes and John Costello. Even though it was published thirty years ago, I'm still learning new things.

Your bang on the money there Steve
IMHO the best Allied account and equalled only by Clay Blair 'Hitler's U-Boat War' for the German perspective and same author 'Silent Victory' for the US in the Pacific

[Sailor Steve]

Harbor Raiding

The Scapa flow raid came about because Admiral Doenitz (sorry, the library's keyboard doesn't do umlauts) had been studying intelligence photographs of nets, minefields and blockships, and discovered the hole in the blockship barrier in Holm Sound. He decided that a u-boat could get through and asked Gunther Prien if he wanted the job. Together they planned the attack, and Prien was lucky enough to get in one day before the British brought in a fourth blockship and sealed the hole.

Winston Churchill called the sinking of the Royal Oak "A magnificent feat of arms".

No other British naval base was ever raided by a u-boat.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

No other British naval base was ever raided by a u-boat.

Regular harbors were another story. When Operation Neuland (a companion to Paukenschlag, with u-boats attacking tankers in the Caribbean) U-156 raided Curacao, to find it defended by nothing but a converted Dutch whaleboat. Hartenstein sank two tankers and used his deck gun on the oil storage tanks. Three other u-boats sank another seven tankers.

[Rykaird]

Originally Posted by flintlock

Yes, the sinking of the Athenia was an unfortunate mistake, to put it mildly. To be fair though, Lemp didn't realize it was an unarmed passenger liner he had fired on. The Athenia was blacked out and apparently had been zigzagging like a combat vessel. This combined with her unusual route via Rockall Banks made Lemp mistakenly deduce she was an armed British merchant cruiser.

Clearly, Lemp forgot to hit the "," key before shouting "Los!" (Just kidding, I've been reading the other thread about not using an external camera.)

[IronOutlaw]

Alt+148 should result in the "ö" you require.