The Battle of the Atlantic was one of the most important battles during the Second World War. Britain’s survival depended on the vital supplies being shipped from the United States, but the growing menace of Hitler’s U-boats threatened to cut them off.
If those supplies dried up, Britain’s defeat in the war was inevitable. As Churchill once wrote, ‘… the only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.’ The tactics of the German submarines needed to be understood, unpicked and outsmarted. The answer lay not on the battlefield but on a board game played with chalk, string and wooden figurines.
The wargame was conducted and carried out by a group of select ‘Wrens’ (members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service) and a discharged navy captain.
Here’s how they used it to tip the Battle of the Atlantic in the Allies’ favour.
