Seventy years ago a titanic struggle took place in the Atlantic Ocean. This campaign in the Atlantic was eventually known as the "Battle of the Atlantic." This battle was not about the most powerful navy; nor was it about glorious battles fought between warships and submarines. The "Battle of the Atlantic" was a commerce war waged by German U-boats (submarines) against the merchant marine of Great Britain and its allies. The name "Battle of the Atlantic”, was first used by Winston Churchill in 1941 to describe this epic campaign by U-boats to strangle Britain. For nearly six years, Germany launched almost 1,100 U-boats into combat, in an attempt to isolate and blockade the British Isles, thereby forcing the British out of the war. It was a fight which nearly choked the shipping lanes of Great Britain, cutting off vital supplies of food, fuel and raw materiels needed to continue fighting.
    By the end of the war, German U-Boats in the "Battle of the Atlantic" had sent over 2,828 ships of 14.6 million tons of Allied shipping, and 175 warships to the bottom of the sea. In exchange, the Allies sank almost 784 U-boats, and over 30,000 of the 39,000 German sailors who put to sea, never returned - the highest casualty rate of any armed service in the history of modern war.
    Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander of the German U-boat force, understood the potential of the submarine’s unconventional ability. During World War One, he himself was a U-boat captain. Admiral Dönitz believed Germany could fight a naval power like Great Britain, and win. He was the only officer in the German High Command who believed that victory in the "Battle of the Atlantic" could only be achieved by German U-boats, and that such a victory would lead to a successful, early conclusion of the Second World War. Others did not share his view and held the notion that big guns and unsinkable battleships were the key to control of the High Seas.
    As an island nation, the United Kingdom was highly dependent on imported goods. Britain required more than a million tons of imported materiel per week in order to survive and fight. In essence, the Battle of the Atlantic was a tonnage war: the Allied struggle to supply Britain, and the Axis struggle to cut off the merchant shipping which enabled Britain to keep fighting. From 1942 onwards, the Germans also sought to prevent the build-up of Allied supplies and equipment in the British Isles in preparation for the invasion of occupied Europe. The defeat of the U-boat threat was a pre-requisite for pushing back the Germans. The outcome of the battle was a strategic victory for the Allies—the German blockade failed—but at great cost.
    In September 1939, when Germany attacked Poland and WWII began, Admiral Karl Dönitz, the Commander of the German U-boat fleet, had 57 U-boats at his disposal. Early that month, the British liner Athenia became the first passenger ship to be sunk by a U-boat in the war. 112 people lost there lives in the attack. A few days later, the Bosnia became the first cargo ship to be sunk by a U-boat. At the same time, the Allies resorted to the WWI practice of massing ships into more easily defended convoys. This system had proven successful in WWI.
    During the "Battle of the Atlantic," Germany’s U-boat fleet operated out of the north German bases before the fall of France. After June 1940, they primarily used bases on the west coast of France to get to the Atlantic. U-boats operated as far as the east coast of South America, the west and southern coasts of Africa, north of Iceland and throughout the mid-Atlantic.
    Germany fought the "Battle of the Atlantic" primarily with two ocean going classes of U-boats - Type VII and Type IX. Type VII was the work horse of the German U-boat fleet. The type VII had a surface displacement of 750 tons, had a speed of 17 knots surfaced and 8 knots submerged, and it had a range of 6,500 miles at a speed of 12 knots. The boat was armed with four torpedo tubes forward and one aft and carried 14 torpedoes. They were also armed with an 88mm deck gun and a 20mm deck gun, and later 37mm, for air defense. Over 700 Type VII U-boats were completed during the war. The larger type IX U-boats were over 1,000 tons surface displacement, and had a speed of 18 knots surfaced and 8 knots submerged. These ocean going U-boats had a range of 11,000 miles and were armed with four torpedo tubes forward and two aft. These boats were also armed with 105mm deck gun and a 20mm for air defense. Before the end of the war 283 Type IX were completed. During the war German ship yards were building U-boats at the rate of 20 per month.
    On the Allied side, the weapons that fought in the "Battle of the Atlantic" covered a wide range of platforms and technologies. The Flower class corvette was by far the most numerous. They were followed by the escort aircraft carriers, which were built on commercial hulls of about 10,000 tons. Almost 100 escort carriers were built by the U.S. and Britain. Allied aircraft of every kind, submarine detecting devices such as the ASDIC, the search radar, the high frequency direction finders, and the ULTRA code breaking system, all contributed to the final Allied victory in the "Battle of the Atlantic."
    After the summer of 1940, the U-boats attacked in large "Wolf-Packs." When a U-boat came across a convoy, it would radio its position to a number of other submarines, which would close in on the convoy. Then they would wait until nightfall and make surface attacks in numbers. On 18 October 1940, a pack of U-boats attacked slow convoy SC-7, sinking 15 ships in 6 hours. Next day, reinforced by three more U-boats, the pack attacked the 49-ship convoy HX-79, sinking 12 ships in one night.
    On 19 November 1942, Admiral Max Horton became the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Approaches Command. This command was responsible for organizing and protecting convoys in the western part of the British Isles. He remained in this position until the end of hostilities on 15 August 1945. Horton’s leadership played a vital role in the final defeat of the U-boat menace. Horton used the increasing number of escorts that were available to the command to organize "support groups" that were used to reinforce convoys that came under attack. Unlike the regular escort groups, the support groups were not directly responsible for the safety of any particular convoy. This lack of responsibility gave them much greater tactical flexibility, allowing the support groups to detach ships to hunt submarines spotted by reconnaissance or picked up by high-frequency direction finding (HF/DF or Huff-Duff). In situations where the regular escorts would have had to return to their convoy, the support groups were able to persist in hunting a submarine for many hours until it was forced to the surface.
    By mid-1943, convoys were having far greater success in getting to Britain. In May, two convoys reached Britain without losing a single ship - and 6 U-boats were sunk. Between April 1943 and July 1943, 109 U-boats were lost. Admiral Dönitz withdrew his U-boats from the battle as a temporary measure. U-boats were never able to come back to the Atlantic in force as they did early in the war.
    The "Battle of the Atlantic" was the longest continuous military campaign of WWII, running from 1939, to the defeat of Germany, in 1945. It was at its height from mid-1940 to the end of 1943. The "Battle of the Atlantic" pitted U-boats and other warships of the German Kriegsmarine against Allied convoys. The convoys of merchant ships, coming mainly from North America and the South Atlantic and going to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, were protected for the most part by the British and Canadian navies and air forces. These forces were aided by ships and aircraft of the United States from September 13, 1941. The Germans were joined by submarines of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina Italia) after Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940. These Italian submarines operated mainly from the French port of Bordeaux. On occasion, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines were dispatched to the Atlantic to bring back desperately needed materiels, technical hardware, and blue prints for conducting the war in the Pacific.
    Early, during the war, German U-boat successes against British and American shipping were so remarkable, that on January 1943, the Allies issued a decree in Casablanca which made the defeat of German U-Boats a number one priority. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain, recalled, "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril."
    As in every war through history, atrocities were committed during the campaign in the Atlantic. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan, and Germany eased Roosevelt's political problems by declaring war on the United States. German U-boats were sent to the east coast and ravaged American shipping. One of these U-boats, U-552, spotted the coastal steamer David H. Atwater off Chincoteague, Virginia on 2 April 1942, with a load of coal bound for Massachussets. Without warning, the submarine opened fire on the defenseless American ship. As the crew scrambled for the lifeboats, U-552 gunners turned their machine guns on the crowded small craft. Twenty-four of the 27 sailors aboard were killed.On 3 April 1942, local resident, George Bert. Cropper, was called to the commercial harbor in West Ocean City to help ice the bodies, that were retrieved by the Coast Guard, for shipment to Norfolk. This incident might indicate that men of U-552 under the command of Erich Topp were involved in such an act of murdering helpless survivors. Erich Topp would later rise to the rank of admiral in the post-war West German Bundesmarine and become a minor celebrity in the decades following the war, writing his memoirs and meeting with U-boat buffs.
    Thirty-four German U-boat captains became aces for sinking 100,000 tons of allied shipping or more. These men sank 873 ships for a total of 4.8 million tons. Another 50 U-boat captains were aces for sinking between 50,000 and 100,000 tons each. They were responsible for sinking 717 ships for a total of 3.5 million tons.
    In perspective, during WWI, the Imperial German Navy U-boats were able to sink 5,708 ships for a total of 11 million tons. From 1915 to 1918, 178 U-boats were lost. Three of the highest scoring aces of all time came from WWI. Captain Loather von Arnauld de la Periere sank 194 ships for an incredible total of 455,868 tons, Captain Walter Forstman sank 149 ships of 391,607 tons, and Captain Max Valintiner sank 144 ships of 299,453 tons.
    In WWII during the "Battle of the Atlantic," the three highest scoring aces were Captain Otto Kretschmer who sank 46 ships of 273,043 tons, Captain Wolfgang Luth who sank 46 ships of 225,204 tons, and Captain Erich Topp who sank 35 ships of 197,460 tons.
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