Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

When the German Navy entered the war, its main forces were: 4 battleships (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Bismarck, Tirpitz); 3 10,000-ton pocket battleships (Deutschland, Sher Admiral Hipper, Graf Spee); 3 heavy cruisers (Admiral Hipper, Prinz Eugen, Blücher); 6 light cruisers, 26 converted from merchant ships Auxiliary cruisers and some other auxiliary ships.When Germany was engaged in submarine warfare, Dönitz, the commander of the German Navy's submarine force, had only 56 submarines. Britain's survival and continued operations during the war depended entirely on the guarantee of sea transportation. The strategic mission of the German Navy was to cut off Britain's "lifeline" at sea and paralyze Britain.The specific tactics are to send large battleships to the British sea transport line alone, resolutely avoid fighting with the opponent's main ships, and exclusively attack the enemy's cargo ships, adopting the guerrilla tactics of hit and run.After the war broke out, the German navy began to attack British merchant ships. The pocket battleships "Deutschland" and "Earl Spee" cruising in the Atlantic Ocean repeatedly succeeded, forcing the British navy to dispatch two ships with the "Ark Royal" and "Hermes". 11 large surface ships, including French and New Zealand ships, including an aircraft carrier, searched for the "Earl Spee" in the Atlantic Ocean. On December 13, 1939, two British heavy cruisers and two light cruisers intercepted and damaged the "Graft Spee" near the mouth of the Plata River in South America, and the latter retreated into the port of Montevideo, Uruguay. A request to stay for 72 hours was rejected by the Uruguayan government. On the afternoon of December 17, under the bluff of the British fleet, the desperate Germans sank the "Graf Spee" themselves.In the following months, Germany temporarily abandoned the use of naval assault ships.

When the "Earl Spee" was still searching for prey, on October 14, the German submarine U-47 sank the British battleship "Royal Oak", and 786 officers and soldiers on board died on the seabed. In late November, the German battleships "Scharnhorst" and "Gneiseno" sank the British light cruiser "Rawalpindi". In April 1940, the entire surface fleet and most of the submarine forces of the German Navy were engaged in the invasion of Norway, undertaking tasks such as transportation, escort, and bombardment of coastal fortifications. During this period, the German and British fleets fought in Norwegian waters, and both sides suffered losses. In October 1940, the German pocket battleship "Admiral Scheer" entered the Atlantic Ocean. A month later, the heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper" also sailed into the Atlantic Ocean to capture the British merchant fleet.When they returned to base the following spring, they all had a lot to gain.The British navy was deeply troubled by the German tactics, and often dispatched several times the number of ships to search for them. This kind of search was as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.

In the spring of 1941, Raeder ordered the battleship "Bismarck" and the heavy cruiser "Prince Eugen" to sail to Bergen, Norway, preparing to detour north of Iceland and enter the Atlantic Ocean.The British Navy mobilized five battleships "King George V", "Prince of Wales", "Rodney", "Ramiy", and "Revenge" around the Atlantic Ocean. The three battlecruisers "Prestige" and "Retaliation" and the two aircraft carriers "Victory" and "Ark Royal" searched and rounded up the German battleship "Bismarck". On May 24, a British squadron discovered the "Bismarck" and fought with it. The pride of the Royal Navy-the battlecruiser "Hood" was sunk. After playing hide-and-seek with the British fleet for two days, the "Bismarck" was finally entangled by the British battleships "Rodney" and "King George V" who arrived in time, and was sunk during the battle. .The British finally avenged the Hood. The sinking of the Bismarck ended the German practice of attacking British Atlantic routes with large surface ships.Raeder's status vis-à-vis Hitler declined markedly.In the future, the task of attacking the opponent's escorting transport fleet on the high seas fell on Dönitz's submarine force and a few warships disguised as merchant ships.

When the "Bismarck" was sunk, the German "Scharnhorst", "Gneisenauer" and "Prince Eugen" were staying in the French port of Brest, and the English Channel separated them. Indigenous bases separated. On February 11, 1942, these three large German battleships slipped through the English Channel without anyone noticing and arrived safely in waters near the Netherlands, embarrassing the British Navy.A month later, on March 17, the British Navy successfully attacked the German submarine base in Port Saint-Nazaire.This time the British used the "Campbeltown" destroyer to charge and block the locks of the port. The next morning, when a group of senior German naval officers were checking the "Campbeltown" and were about to try to clear it, the time bomb suddenly exploded , the ship lock and all the people present were destroyed.The British finally saved some face.

On December 31, 1942, the German fleet consisting of the pocket battleship "Lützow", the heavy cruiser "Admiral Hipper", 6 destroyers, and 2 light frigates encountered the same British convoy. Although there were only 5 destroyers and 2 light frigates, the commander of the British fleet, Sherbrooke, was fearless and charged fiercely, so that the German fleet had to deal with him with all its strength, while the British merchant fleet took the opportunity to flee into a fog In the curtain.This is one of the most thrilling naval battles of World War II.After Hitler received the naval battle report, he was furious and threatened to scrap all the heavy warships and use the steel for the army and air force.He ordered Admiral Raeder to report to him and personally accept the order to scrap the large battleship.

On Christmas Eve in 1943, the German battleship "Scharnhorst" set off from Norway to intercept an escort convoy heading for the northern part of the Soviet Union. The weaker British escort destroyer put on an aggressive posture. The "Scharnhorst" did not know the truth and retreated quickly, but was intercepted by another British mainland squadron.After the battle, the battleship HMS Scharnhorst was torpedoed by the British cruisers HMS Belfast, HMS Jamaica and other destroyers.At this time, there was only one battleship left in Germany, the "Tirpitz".In order to prevent the German Navy from attacking the convoy in the northern part of the Soviet Union, or breaking into the Atlantic Ocean like the "Bismarck", the British Navy decided to use an aircraft carrier to destroy the "Tirpitz". On April 3, 1944, five aircraft carriers of the British Royal Navy, HMS Victory, HMS Fury, HMS Tracker, HMS Searcher and HMS Kaiser, were dispatched together to attack the aircraft carriers moored in Alta, northern Norway. The battleship "Tirpitz" in the Kafjord at the entrance of the fjord launched a fierce air attack and severely damaged it.But the ship's 8-inch-thick armored deck was still impenetrable.The Germans transferred the injured "Tirpitz" to Trimso. On November 12, 1944, British long-range bombers from the mainland poured about 6 tons of bombs on the "Tirpitz" battleship , and knocked it down in one fell swoop.At this point, the surface ships of the German Navy could no longer pose a threat to the Allied Atlantic routes.

When the war broke out in September 1939, Dönitz had to go to war with a pitiful number of 56 submarines, when he thought at least 300 were needed.On the first day of the war, the German U-30 submarine sank the American passenger ship "Assinia", which made the British adopt the convoy system of the transport fleet without hesitation. The transport ships with a speed of 9 to 14.9 knots form a fleet, and the ships outside this speed range sail alone. On September 17, in the waters near Ireland, the German submarine U-29 sank the British 22,500-ton "Intrepid" aircraft carrier.Meanwhile, German submarines sank some 154,000 tons of Allied and neutral ships throughout September.By the end of 1939, only 12 of the 5,756 transport ships escorted by the British had been lost, of which 4 were sunk by submarines; among the merchant ships sailing alone, 102 were sunk.Doenitz lost 9 submarines, accounting for about one-sixth of the German submarine force.

The British escort transport team is generally organized into a "square formation" with a wide front and narrow wings, forming 10 columns, 4 ships in each column, 600 yards between columns, and 400 yards between the front and rear ships. The battleships are guarded in a "box shape". "Curtain" for escort, that is, to deploy an escort ship at the corner of the "Planet", and other ships will be in position within the fan directly in front of the "Planet".This formation could reduce the threat of a flank attack from the opponent's submarines, but after the threat of German surface ships was eliminated, the British abolished this formation and adopted a wide-frontal rectangular formation. In 1942, the escort ships were equipped with shipboard radars and high-frequency radio direction finders, which increased the distance between the escort warning screen and the fleet from 4,000 yards to 6,000 yards, and the distance between columns from 600 yards to 6,000 yards. The spacing between the German submarines was further increased, and this formation reduced the torpedo hit rate of German submarines by 50%.

In the spring of 1940, Dönitz personally supervised the construction of naval bases in France. German submarines departed from these bases to patrol the Atlantic Ocean, and the distance could be shortened by more than half. With the support of the German Air Force, the strategic capabilities of these naval submarines were greatly enhanced. In mid-July 1940, Dönitz used "wolf pack tactics" for the first time at 260 nautical miles west of Scotland.The characteristic of this tactic is that when a submarine discovers a transport fleet, it does not attack immediately, but follows it in a hidden underwater, and reports the fleet's course, speed and formation to the Land Submarine Command. .Then, the submarine commander on land began to implement tactical command, ordering other submarines in the "wolf pack" to get in touch with the tracking boat.Then, the maritime commander took over the command and coordinated the boats to carry out surface attacks at night, sinking the escort ships first, and then destroying the transport fleet.Soon, Dönitz discovered that it was difficult for maritime commanders to implement effective on-site command, so he sat in the submarine command headquarters and directly commanded by radio.

In order to cooperate with the German submarine offensive, Italy sent 27 submarines to the Atlantic Ocean and stationed in Bordeaux, France, in the Bay of Bicas. However, the performance and quality of Italian submarines were poor, so Dönitz did not organize them into the wolf pack combat order, and designated They were in charge of the waters south of the 45th parallel, where the Allied fleets were seldom present at the time, and therefore Italian submarines seldom found targets. In July 1940, the British escort area was expanded from 15°W to 17°W, thereby offsetting the increased combat patrol time of German submarines, but at the same time large escort ships were deployed to defend the English Channel, which greatly weakened the The convoy force on the Atlantic Ocean was reduced, and sometimes a fleet was escorted by only one warship.As the summer wore on, the number of British ships sunk increased rapidly: 107,009 tons lost in March, 158,218 tons lost in April, 288,461 tons lost in May, 585,496 tons lost in June, 586,913 tons lost in July, 397,229 tons lost in August , September lost 448,621 tons.Among them, the loss of ships sailing alone is twice that of the escort ships. German submarines are unwilling to use wolf pack tactics to deal with the transport fleet, and like to attack ships sailing alone.As the scope of the British escort continued to expand westward, Doenitz's "wolves" also had to attack the escort fleet.One of the worst hits was 250 nautical miles northwest of Brady Flanders in Northern Ireland when an SC-7 convoy of 34 merchant ships was attacked by seven German submarines, which had combat experience The submarine broke through the security curtain composed of four escort ships and sank 17 merchant ships in the midnight melee.Just after this night battle, the HX-79 convoy consisting of 49 fast merchant ships and a weak escort encountered another "wolf pack" composed of 6 submarines. These submarines defeated the escort ships again and sank 14 merchant ships.When several submarines finished launching torpedoes and were preparing to return, the HX-79A transport fleet heading east broke into this sea area again, resulting in the loss of 7 more merchant ships.These few battles brought Doenitz's submarine warfare to a climax. During this "pleasant time", he sank 217 merchant ships of the opponent at the cost of only 6 submarines, totaling more than 1.1 million tons.

In the spring of 1941, the German submarine force achieved greater results, but in a week in March, Germany lost three of its best submarine tacticians and ace submarine captains, including Kress of the U-99 submarine Captain Teschmer, before he was captured, set the record for sinking 266,629 tons of Allied ships in World War II. From April 1, 1941, the British Admiralty took over the tactical command of the Coastal Defense Air Force, and British long-range bombers began to station in Ireland to provide air cover for the transport fleet.At the same time, the Canadian Navy also has the ability to escort in the Western Pacific, so by May, the first full escort fleet appeared in the North Atlantic, which marked the end of the second phase of the Atlantic battle.Since the outbreak of the war, German submarines have sunk a total of 650 merchant ships, 10% of which were ships in the escort fleet. After the surface ships received the cooperation of aviation, no ship in the transport fleet was sunk.At this time, when German submarines attacked the transport fleet, they lost 60% of their submarines. If the German Navy wanted to continue to maintain its previous record, it had to pay the price of an increase in the loss rate of its own submarines. With the gradual involvement of the United States in the war, the Battle of the Atlantic entered the third stage. In 1937, anti-war sentiment in the United States led Congress to pass the Neutrality Act, which stipulated the "cash and carry" principle for warring countries to trade with the United States, that is, to buy goods with cash and organize shipping by themselves.The neutrality law prohibited the sale of arms, but after the outbreak of the Great War, the neutrality law was amended to sell arms on the basis of "cash and carry".Because German merchant ships were unable to sail during the war, and the command of the sea was basically in the hands of Britain, the US neutrality act was actually beneficial to Britain. In May 1940, Churchill asked the United States to lease 50 destroyers to escort the convoy. At the end of July, the United Kingdom and the United States reached a deal. The United States gave the United Kingdom 50 "abandoned" destroyers in exchange for a 99-year lease of some naval bases from Newfoundland to Trinidad. On September 6, 1940, in retaliation, Hitler lifted the last restrictions on submarine attacks on British merchant shipping and allowed the sinking of American ships if necessary. In March 1941, the U.S. policy of "comprehensive assistance without participation in war" had a major development. Congress passed President Roosevelt's "Lend-Lease Act". The Navy was in charge of the journey from Newfoundland to Iceland, after which the British Navy took over.Following British diplomatic efforts, Iceland offered the United States the Reykjavik Air Base, allowing the US Air Force to provide air cover for convoys. On September 4, 1941, about 200 nautical miles southwest of Iceland, the German submarine U-652 first fired a torpedo at the USS Greer destroyer that was monitoring it. bomb.In this way, the German and American navies exchanged fire for the first time before war was declared.In the next month or so, Doenitz successfully used the "wolf pack tactics" to severely damage the US convoy convoy in the Atlantic Ocean, causing the inexperienced Americans to suffer a lot. On December 17, 1941, the German submarine group fought a fierce battle with the escort fleet centered on the British "Bold" escort aircraft carrier. The "Bold" aircraft carrier and another destroyer were sunk, and Germany also suffered heavy losses. Five submarines were destroyed. sunk.Doenitz began to have doubts about the effectiveness of "wolf pack tactics" in the Eastern Atlantic.At this time, the time to launch a submarine attack in North America was ripe. Dönitz sent a total of 11 submarines across the Atlantic Ocean to fight in North American waters, starting the fourth stage of the Battle of the Atlantic.The fierce offensive of German submarines achieved great results, and the loss of Allied merchant ships increased sharply: 124,070 tons were lost in December 1941, 327,357 tons were lost in January 1942, 467,451 tons were lost in February, and 537,980 tons were lost in March.However, Germany's 11 submarines did not lose any of them within 3 months. This was Dönitz's "second happy time".Especially in March 1942, the loss of merchant ships of the Allies around the world exceeded 800,000 tons, which was the first time in the history of World War II. The offensive of German submarines in North America shocked the Allies. Britain hastily freed up two escort fleets to reinforce them, and the United States established a chain transport fleet system to counteract the Germans' fierce attack.However, the Germans invested in a 1,700-ton new supply submarine with multiple logistical functions-"Cow", and continued to expand their achievements in the third quarter of 1942.At the end of the year, the North American escort fleet adopted the method of coordinated escort by aircraft and surface ships, and finally defeated the long-range offensive launched by the German submarine force. Dönitz decided to return to the Atlantic Ocean and began the fifth stage of the Battle of the Atlantic.At this time, the rate of German submarine manufacturing had increased to 30 per month, which enabled Doenitz to take greater risks to attack the Allied transport fleet.On the other hand, most of the Allied aircraft and surface ships were equipped with radar, which made the German submarines face even greater losses.The Allies also organized a special anti-submarine support brigade, and rushed to wherever German submarines were found.Dönitz knew very well that submarine warfare could only achieve decisive victory in the mid-Atlantic. In order to avoid losses, Dönitz concentrated his forces on ships sailing in the so-called "Black Pit", which was located in Newfoundland, Ireland, The central sea between Iceland and Greenland.The Allies suffered heavy losses, with 807,754 tons sunk in November 1942, and this ferocity of attack culminated in 1943. Meeting in Casablanca in January 1943, the Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed that the Allied first priority must be to crush the German submarine force. On January 30, Raeder resigned as Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy due to the failure of naval surface ships to attack the British transport fleet in Norwegian waters, and Dönitz took over. On April 28, the moment of the final confrontation between the two sides in the North Atlantic finally arrived. In the waters south of Cape Favell in Greenland, the "wolf pack" composed of 51 submarines of Dönitz and the ONS-5 escort fleet of the Allies took place. Intense encounters.First, the Allied planes from the Greenland base cooperated with the escort ships and confronted the German submarines.A few days later, two anti-submarine support groups of the Allied forces came to join the battle. They gave full play to the role of radar and high-frequency radio direction finders. When the battle ended, 6 German submarines were sunk.Three weeks later, Allied aircraft and escorts sank 13 more German ships, while the transports lost five more.Then, in "Black May", German submarines suffered huge losses and 41 ships were sunk. Dönitz was forced to abandon the North Atlantic Ocean, preparing to make a comeback after technical conditions improved.In this way, in the 12 months before the D-Day landing, the Allied ships could pass the North Atlantic relatively smoothly. In July 1943, thanks to successful anti-submarine measures and the dramatic increase in U.S. shipbuilding capabilities, the Allies finally built more ships per month than were sunk each month around the world. At the end of 1943, the Allies in the Atlantic achieved an annual output of 14.4 million tons of merchant ships, 40% more than Germany estimated.Doenitz's tonnage war strategy finally went bankrupt. In late May 1943, Doenitz shifted the focus of operations to the southwestern waters of the Azores, where the submarine hunting group composed of US escort aircraft carriers and escort destroyers was eager to try, and the two sides competed.The Atlantic scramble enters its sixth phase.The Americans used a new type of anti-submarine self-guided torpedo to sink the German submarines repeatedly. The remaining German submarines were cornered and had to float to the surface to fight back, and suffered even greater losses.Sinking 15 German submarines in less than 3 months, he only lost 3 aircraft.Beginning on July 28, British bombers launched the "Bay of Biscay Massacre" against German submarines. In one week, they sank 9 German submarines, forcing Dönitz to stop the attack from Biscay in early August. The order to set sail from the bay base.The Allied forces actually blocked the German submarine base in France, and in this attack in the Bay of Biscay, a total of 28 German submarines were sunk. As early as 1942, a contest of military technology was launched in the Atlantic Ocean. British aircraft used radar to detect submarines and achieved some results.However, Germany quickly implemented anti-radar measures and equipped the "Metox" radar receiver, which has a much longer distance to receive radar signals than the target detection distance of the opponent's search radar. Therefore, the advantage of British anti-submarine aircraft temporarily disappeared. At the beginning of 1943, the United Kingdom developed a UHF radar with a wavelength of 10 cm. The wavelength of the radio wave emitted by this radar was undetectable by "Metox".In order to cooperate with this advanced radar, the Allied aircraft used an 80 million-light "Lee" searchlight to conduct surprise attacks on German submarines.In the seventh phase of the Battle of the Atlantic, Doenitz re-launched an attack on the main shipping lines of the North Atlantic Allies. He used the newly developed "Wren" sound-homing torpedo, which can automatically follow the sound source. Hit the propeller of the ship, mainly attack the escort ship, tear off the opponent's warning curtain, so that the merchant ship can be attacked with conventional torpedoes. In September 1943, Dönitz made small gains in the "Black Pit" sea area by using this new type of torpedo.But the United States quickly developed the "Foxer" noise generator, dragged it behind the ship, and attracted the "Wren" audio-guided torpedo to attack it.This technological contest finally ended in the victory of the Allies. In 1943, Germany lost a total of 237 submarines. In addition to the technical advantages of the Allied Forces, another reason was that Portugal agreed in October to the British Air Force to use the base in the Azores. The transport fleet in the Mid-Atlantic implemented night air escort and regular air patrols, which was a decisive blow to Dönitz.Dönitz was forced to stay away from important waters of the North Atlantic. In 1944, the British transport fleet to Murmansk, the Soviet Union became the only target of the German "Wolfpack" operation, which brought the battle for the Atlantic into the eighth and final contest.The United Kingdom sent escort ships with the escort aircraft carrier as the core, and was also closely covered by the anti-submarine support brigade.After a year of fierce confrontation, the British escort aircraft carrier sank a total of 13 German submarines in the northern waters, while the transport fleet to Murmansk lost only 6 ships.Subsequently, the Luftwaffe launched increasingly violent attacks on the transport convoy, which turned out to be fruitless.From February to March of this year, some German submarines refueling in the Cape Verde Islands and preparing to go to the waters of Cape Town and the Indian Ocean were hit hard by the US long-range escort submarine hunting group. In 1944, the Indian Ocean was the only area where German submarines could operate, but like patrolling in the Mediterranean Sea, they often never returned. Of the 45 submarines Germany sent to the Indian Ocean that year, 34 were sunk.The Allied losses averaged 30,580 tons per month in 1944 and 63,270 tons in the first four months of 1945.These figures suggest that German submarines had become a harassing force, no longer a threat to the Allies' transatlantic fleets.So far, the Battle of the Atlantic ended in Germany's defeat. In the battle for the Atlantic that lasted several years, the Axis powers sank a total of 2,775 Allied merchant ships with a total tonnage of 23,351,000 tons, of which 14,573,000 tons were sunk by German submarines, accounting for 62.4% of the total.Of the total merchant shipping losses of the Allies, ships escorting convoys accounted for only 28%, and the rest were ships sailing alone.A total of 1,175 German submarines were thrown into the war, and 781 were lost, of which 191 were sunk by the United States.The reason why the Allies were able to win the Atlantic War was mainly due to their overwhelming superiority in material and technological power, and on this basis, the convoy system of transport fleets was adopted.Facts have proved that the convoy of the transport fleet, which has a clear advantage in military technology, is the decisive force for offensive operations against attack submarines.It made German submarines lose the confidence and ability to continue attacking the Allied shipping fleets in the North Atlantic Ocean, so that these fleets will continue to transport supplies necessary for victory in the war to Europe, and this is the Second World War. One of the most important reasons for the Confederate victory in the Great War.From the perspective of the entire war, once the transport fleet encountered misfortune, the war was one step closer to failure, and every time a transport fleet arrived at its destination smoothly, the war was one step closer to victory.Therefore, the Battle of the Atlantic is also the best illustration for the concept that sea power is superior to land power, and the victory of the war belongs to the party that holds the sea power. On July 11, 1962, British Marshal Montgomery said in a speech in the British House of Lords: "The important lesson of history is that the opponent's land warfare strategy is doomed to end in failure. Fundamentally, the Second World War is a a struggle for control of sea lanes."