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80-845: The American Campaign Medal was established per Executive Order 9265 on 6 November 1942, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and announced in War Department Bulletin 56, 1942. The criteria were initially announced in Department of the Army (DA) Circular 1, dated 1 January 1943, so that the ribbon could be authorized prior to design of the medal. The criteria for the medal were announced in DA Circular 84, dated 25 March 1948 and subsequently published in Army Regulation 600–65, dated 22 September 1948. The American Campaign Medal

160-548: A medal when it is not appropriate to wear the actual medal. Each country's government has its own rules on what ribbons can be worn in what circumstances and in which order. This is usually defined in an official document and is called "the order of precedence" or "the order of wearing." In some countries (particularly in North America and in Israel), some awards are "ribbon only," having no associated medal. According to

240-637: A German takeover. It was in these circumstances that Winston Churchill, who had become Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, first wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt to request the loan of fifty obsolescent US Navy destroyers. This eventually led to the " Destroyers for Bases Agreement " (effectively a sale but portrayed as a loan for political reasons), which operated in exchange for 99-year leases on certain British bases in Newfoundland , Bermuda and

320-511: A dead relative on the right side of the chest. Medals and ribbons not specifically mentioned in the "Order of wear" are also generally worn on the right side of the chest. Sequencing of the ribbons depends on each country's regulations. In the United States, for example, those with the highest status—typically awarded for heroism or distinguished service—are placed at the top of the display, while foreign decorations (when allowed) are last in

400-419: A disaster within days. On 14 September 1939, Britain's most modern carrier, HMS  Ark Royal , narrowly avoided being sunk when three torpedoes from U-39 exploded prematurely. U-39 was forced to surface and scuttle by the escorting destroyers, becoming the first U-boat loss of the war. Another carrier, HMS  Courageous , was sunk three days later by U-29 . German success in sinking Courageous

480-1054: A flotilla of 27 Italian submarines operated from the BETASOM base in Bordeaux to attack Allied shipping in the Atlantic, initially under the command of Rear Admiral Angelo Parona , then of Rear Admiral Romolo Polacchini and finally of Ship-of-the-Line Captain Enzo Grossi . The Italian submarines had been designed to operate in a different way than U-boats, and they had a number of flaws that needed to be corrected (for example huge conning towers, slow speed when surfaced, lack of modern torpedo fire control), which meant that they were ill-suited for convoy attacks, and performed better when hunting down isolated merchantmen on distant seas, taking advantage of their superior range and living standards. While initial operation met with little success (only 65343 GRT sunk between August and December 1940),

560-401: A larger impact on the battlefield. In times of war, it is not uncommon for commanders and other high value individuals to wear no markings on their uniforms and wear clothing and insignia of a lower ranking soldier. Service medals and ribbons are generally worn in rows on the left side of the chest. In certain commemorative or memorial circumstances, a relative may wear the medals or ribbons of

640-467: A patrol line of U-boats searched for a convoy and when one was found all U-boats converged and attacked together at night on the surface. Neither aircraft nor early forms of Sonar , (called ASDIC by the British), were considered a serious threat at the time. ASDIC could not detect a surfaced submarine and its range was less than that of an electric torpedo , aircraft could not operate at night and, during

720-434: A raider hunting for independently sailing ships, and to avoid combat with superior forces. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 allowed Hitler to renounce the treaty of Versailles, and to build a fleet 35% the size of Britain's fleet. A building program for four battleships, two aircraft carriers, five heavy cruisers, destroyers and U-boats was immediately initiated. With the agreement, Hitler thought that conflict with

800-456: A standard practice of wearing full service ribbons on combat utility clothing. Others strictly prohibit this. These regulations are generally similar to the regulations regarding display of rank insignia and regulations regarding saluting of more senior ranks. The reasoning for such regulations is to prevent these displays from enabling opposing forces to easily identify persons of higher rank and therefore aid them in choosing targets which will have

880-416: A theatre covering millions of square miles of ocean. The situation changed constantly, with one side or the other gaining advantage, as participating countries surrendered, joined and even changed sides in the war, and as new weapons, tactics, counter-measures and equipment were developed by both sides. The Allies gradually gained the upper hand, overcoming German surface-raiders by the end of 1942 and defeating

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960-481: A variety of colors. In the case of the U.S. government, it maintains a specific list of colors used on its ribbons, based on the Pantone Matching System and Federal Standard 595 color systems: There is a variety of constructions of service ribbons. In some countries, service ribbons are mounted on a "pin backing", which can be pushed through the fabric of a uniform and secured, with fasteners, on

1040-409: Is authorized for participation in the antisubmarine campaign. To qualify individuals must have been assigned to or attached to, and present for duty with, a unit with antisubmarine campaign credit. Service ribbon A medal ribbon , service ribbon or ribbon bar is a small ribbon , mounted on a small metal bar equipped with an attaching device, which is generally issued for wear in place of

1120-451: Is purple with a white vertical stripe at each end (see photo). However, there are some military awards that do not have a suspension ribbon, but have an authorized ribbon and unit award emblem. The Soviet Order of Victory is a badge that was worn on the military parade uniform. However, a ribbon bar representing the Order of Victory was worn on a military field uniform. Ribbon bars come in

1200-709: The Luftwaffe (Air Force) against the Royal Navy , Royal Canadian Navy , United States Navy , and Allied merchant shipping. Convoys , coming mainly from North America and predominantly 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 beginning September 13, 1941. The Germans were joined by submarines of

1280-514: The European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal . It depicts an American bald eagle between the dates 1941 – 1945 and the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA . The ribbon is 1 + 3 ⁄ 8 inches (35 mm) inches wide in oriental blue in the center is a 1 ⁄ 8 inch (3.2 mm) inch center stripe divided into thirds of old glory blue, white, and scarlet. Between the center and

1360-780: The First World War , countries tried to limit or abolish submarines. The effort failed. Instead, the London Naval Treaty required submarines to abide by " cruiser rules ", which demanded they surface, search and place ship crews in "a place of safety" (for which lifeboats did not qualify, except under particular circumstances) before sinking them, unless the ship in question showed "persistent refusal to stop...or active resistance to visit or search". These regulations did not prohibit arming merchantmen, but doing so, or having them report contact with submarines (or raiders ), made them de facto naval auxiliaries and removed

1440-794: The West Indies , a financially advantageous bargain for the United States but militarily beneficial for Britain, since it effectively freed up British military assets to return to Europe. A significant percentage of the US population opposed entering the war, and some American politicians (including the US Ambassador to Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy ) believed that Britain and its allies might actually lose. The first of these destroyers were only taken over by their British and Canadian crews in September, and all needed to be rearmed and fitted with ASDIC. It

1520-555: The defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II . At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany , announced the day after the declaration of war, and Germany's subsequent counter-blockade. The campaign peaked from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943. The Battle of the Atlantic pitted U-boats and other warships of the German Kriegsmarine (Navy) and aircraft of

1600-426: The metric bands , lacked target discrimination and range. Moreover, corvettes were too slow to catch a surfaced U-boat. Pack tactics were first used successfully in September and October 1940 to devastating effect, in a series of convoy battles. On September 21, convoy HX 72 of 42 merchantmen was attacked by a pack of four U-boats, which sank eleven ships and damaged two over the course of two nights. In October,

1680-577: The 40th parallel north latitude and the 35th meridian west longitude, thence south along the meridian to the 10th parallel north latitude, thence southeast to the intersection of the Equator and the 20th meridian west longitude, thence south along the 20th meridian west longitude to the South Pole. The western boundary is located from the North Pole, south along the 141st meridian west longitude to

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1760-624: The Allied convoys singly, U-boats were directed to work in wolf packs ( Rudel ) coordinated by radio. The boats spread out into a long patrol line that bisected the path of the Allied convoy routes. Once in position, the crew studied the horizon through binoculars looking for masts or smoke, or used hydrophones to pick up propeller noises. When one boat sighted a convoy, it would report the sighting to U-boat headquarters , shadowing and continuing to report as needed until other boats arrived, typically at night. Instead of being faced by single submarines,

1840-544: The American Campaign Medal were for service within the American Theater between 7 December 1941 and 2 March 1946 under any of the following conditions: The boundaries of American Theater are as follows: The eastern boundary is located from the North Pole, south along the 75th meridian west longitude to the 77th parallel north latitude, thence southeast through Davis Strait to the intersection of

1920-469: The Atlantic were Carlo Fecia di Cossato , commander of the submarine Enrico Tazzoli , and Gianfranco Gazzana-Priaroggia , commander of Archimede and then of Leonardo da Vinci . Despite their success, U-boats were still not recognised as the foremost threat to the North Atlantic convoys. With the exception of men like Dönitz, most naval officers on both sides regarded surface warships as

2000-579: The Atlantic", which he compared to the Battle of France , fought the previous summer. The first meeting of the Cabinet's "Battle of the Atlantic Committee" was on March 19. Churchill claimed to have coined the phrase "Battle of the Atlantic" shortly before Alexander's speech, but there are several examples of earlier usage. Following the use of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in

2080-454: The Atlantic. The power of a raider against a convoy was demonstrated by the fate of convoy HX 84 , attacked by the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer on 5 November 1940. Admiral Scheer quickly sank five ships and damaged several others as the convoy scattered. Only the sacrifice of the escorting armed merchant cruiser HMS  Jervis Bay (whose commander, Edward Fegen , was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross ) and failing light allowed

2160-532: The Axis attempt to stem the flow of merchant shipping that enabled Britain to keep fighting. Rationing in the United Kingdom was also used with the aim of reducing demand, by reducing wastage and increasing domestic production and equality of distribution. From 1942 onward, the Axis also sought to prevent the build-up of Allied supplies and equipment in the UK in preparation for the invasion of occupied Europe . The defeat of

2240-655: The Battle of the Atlantic from 1941 onwards. These were primarily Fw 200 Condors. The Condors also bombed convoys that were beyond land-based fighter cover and thus defenceless. Initially, the Condors were very successful, claiming 365,000 tons of shipping in early 1941. These aircraft were few in number, however, and directly under Luftwaffe control; in addition, the pilots had little specialised training for anti-shipping warfare, limiting their effectiveness. The Germans received help from their allies. From August 1940,

2320-551: The British Naval Cypher No. 3, allowing the Germans to estimate where and when convoys could be expected. In response, the British applied the techniques of operations research to the problem and came up with some counter-intuitive solutions for protecting convoys. They realised that the area of a convoy increased by the square of its perimeter, meaning the same number of ships, using the same number of escorts,

2400-399: The British admiralty failed to appreciate the limitations of ASDIC: range was limited, ASDIC worked only well if the speed of the operating vessel was below eight knots, ASDIC was hampered by rough weather and it took a very skilled operator to distinguish echoes from thermoclines , whales, shoals of fish and wrecks. Also, early versions could not look directly down, so contact was lost during

2480-522: The British and French immediately began a blockade of Germany , although this had little immediate effect on German industry. The Royal Navy quickly introduced a convoy system for the protection of trade that gradually extended out from the British Isles, eventually reaching as far as Panama , Bombay and Singapore . Convoys allowed the Royal Navy to concentrate its escorts near the one place

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2560-474: The British. According to his calculations, a fleet of 300 medium Type VII U-boats could sink a million tons of ships a month and within a year sink enough of the about 3,000 British merchant ships (comprising 17,5 million tons) to strangle the British economy. In the first world war, U-boats had been defeated mainly by the convoy system, but Dönitz thought this could be overcome with the Rudeltaktik :

2640-741: The Channel and along the east coast in defence of shipping lanes, and also offensive mine barrages on the German U-boat lanes toward the Atlantic Ocean. In 1939, the Kriegsmarine lacked the strength to challenge the combined British Royal Navy and French Navy ( Marine Nationale ) for command of the sea. Instead, German naval strategy relied on commerce raiding using capital ships , armed merchant cruisers , submarines and aircraft. Many German warships were already at sea when war

2720-461: The German U-boat torpedoes : both the impact pistol and the magnetic influence pistol (detonation mechanism) were defective, and the torpedoes did not run at the proper depth, often undershooting targets. Only one British warship was sunk by U-boats in more than 38 attacks. As the news spread through the U-boat fleet, it began to undermine morale . Since the effectiviness of the magnetic pistol

2800-530: The German tactics against the inadequate British anti-submarine methods. On 1 December, seven German and three Italian submarines caught HX 90 , sinking 10 ships and damaging three others. At the end of the year 1940, the Admiralty viewed the number of ships sunk with growing alarm. Damaged ships might survive but could be out of commission for long periods. Two million gross tons of merchant shipping—13% of

2880-621: The German war effort: Germany spent more money on producing naval vessels than it did every type of ground vehicle combined, including tanks. The Battle of the Atlantic has been called the "longest, largest, and most complex" naval battle in history. The campaign started immediately after the European war began, during the so-called " Phoney War ", and lasted more than five years, until the German surrender in May 1945. It involved thousands of ships in

2960-480: The Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) after Germany's Axis ally Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940. As an island country, the United Kingdom was highly dependent on imported goods. Britain required more than a million tons of imported material per week in order to survive and fight. In essence, the Battle of the Atlantic involved a tonnage war ; the Allied struggle to supply Britain, and

3040-483: The Italian intervention was not favourably regarded by Dönitz, who characterised Italians as "inadequately disciplined" and "unable to remain calm in the face of the enemy". They were unable to co-operate in wolf pack tactics or even reliably report contacts or weather conditions, and their area of operation was moved away from those of the Germans. Amongst the more successful Italian submarine commanders who operated in

3120-638: The U-boat threat was a prerequisite for pushing back the Axis in Western Europe. The outcome of the battle was a strategic victory for the Allies—the German tonnage war failed—but at great cost: 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were sunk in the Atlantic for the loss of 783 U-boats and 47 German surface warships, including 4 battleships ( Bismarck , Scharnhorst , Gneisenau , and Tirpitz ), 9 cruisers, 7 raiders, and 27 destroyers. This front ended up being highly significant for

3200-617: The U-boats by mid-1943, though losses due to U-boats continued until the war's end. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill later wrote "The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril. I was even more anxious about this battle than I had been about the glorious air fight called the ' Battle of Britain '." On 5 March 1941, the First Lord of the Admiralty , A. V. Alexander , asked Parliament for "many more ships and great numbers of men" to fight "the Battle of

3280-570: The U-boats were guaranteed to be found, the convoys. Each convoy consisted of between 30 and 70 mostly unarmed merchant ships. Some British naval officials, particularly the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill , sought a more 'offensive' strategy. The Royal Navy formed anti-submarine hunting groups based on aircraft carriers to patrol the shipping lanes in the Western Approaches and hunt for German U-boats. This strategy

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3360-415: The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the U.S. military's standard size for a ribbon bar is 1 + 3 ⁄ 8 inches (35 mm) wide, 3 ⁄ 8 inch (9.5 mm) tall, with a thickness of 0.8 mm. The service ribbon for a specific medal is usually identical to the suspension ribbon on the medal. For example, the suspension and service ribbon for the U.S. government's Purple Heart medal

3440-589: The UK was very unlikely and hence the fleet was designed for commerce raiding against the French rather than to try to challenge command of the sea. The commander of the German U-boats, Karl Dönitz, had his own opinions. In contrast with Hitler and Raeder, the chief of the German Navy, he judged that war with the UK was inevitable and that not a large surface fleet was needed, but that U-boats could defeat

3520-479: The United States, the different federal uniformed services have different standards for wearing ribbon bars on uniforms. Battle of the Atlantic 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups The Battle of the Atlantic , the longest continuous military campaign in World War II , ran from 1939 to

3600-635: The boats needed to return to harbour to refuel, re-arm, re-stock supplies, and refit. The harsh winter of 1939–40, which froze over many of the Baltic ports, seriously hampered the German offensive by trapping several new U-boats in the ice. Hitler's plans to invade Norway and Denmark in the spring of 1940 led to the withdrawal of the fleet's surface warships and most of the ocean-going U-boats for fleet operations in Operation Weserübung . The resulting Norwegian campaign revealed serious flaws in

3680-1994: The bottom rows. When medals are worn (typically on the left side of a shirt or jacket), ribbons with no corresponding medals are worn on the right side. The study, history and collection of ribbons, among other military decorations, is known as phaleristics (sometimes spelled faleristics by users of U.S. English). [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] In

3760-487: The convoy escorts then had to cope with groups of up to half a dozen U-boats attacking simultaneously. The most daring commanders, such as Kretschmer, penetrated the escort screen and attacked from within the columns of merchantmen. The escort vessels, which were too few in number and often lacking in endurance, had no answer to multiple submarines attacking on the surface at night, as their ASDIC worked well only against underwater targets. Early British marine radar, working in

3840-443: The day, an alert U-boat could dive before the aircraft attacked. Dönitz could not convince Raeder of his ideas, so each time the U-boat fleet was expanded, Raeder opted to build a mixture of coastal, medium and large submarines, even minelayers and U-cruisers. Even when in 1938 Hitler realised he would sooner or later have to oppose the UK and launched his Plan Z , only a minority of the planned 239 U-boats were medium U-boats. With

3920-539: The east boundary of Alaska, thence south and southeast along the Alaska boundary to the Pacific Ocean, thence south along the 130th meridian to its intersection with the 30th parallel north latitude, thence southeast to the intersection of the Equator and the 100th meridian west longitude, thence south to the South Pole. The medal, made of bronze, is 1 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (32 mm) inches wide. The obverse

4000-611: The edges are stripes of 1 ⁄ 16 inch (1.6 mm) inch in white, black, scarlet and white. The blue color represents the Americas; the central blue, white and red stripes, taken from the American Defense Service Medal ribbon, represents the continuance of American defense after Pearl Harbor. The white and black stripes represent the German part of the conflict on the Atlantic Coast, while

4080-443: The final stages of a depth charge attack. The basic set could detect range and bearing, but target depth could only be estimated from the range at which contact was lost. An escort swept its ASDIC beam in an arc from one side of its course to the other, stopping the transducer every few degrees to send out a signal. On detection of a submarine, the escort would close in at moderate speed and increase its speed to attack. The intention

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4160-527: The first three months of war. The British and French formed a series of hunting groups including three  battlecruisers , three aircraft carriers, and 15 cruisers to seek the raider and her sister Deutschland , which was operating in the North Atlantic. These hunting groups had no success until Admiral Graf Spee was caught off the mouth of the River Plate between Argentina and Uruguay by an inferior British force. After suffering damage in

4240-627: The fleet available to the British—were under repair and unavailable, which had the same effect in slowing down cross-Atlantic supplies. Nor were the U-boats the only threat. Following some early experience in support of the war at sea during Operation Weserübung, the Luftwaffe began to take a toll of merchant ships. Martin Harlinghausen and his recently established command— Fliegerführer Atlantik —contributed small numbers of aircraft to

4320-763: The inside edge. These ribbons can be individually secured and then lined up, or they can be all mounted on to a single fastener. After the Second World War, it was common for all ribbons to be mounted on a single metal bar and worn in a manner similar to a brooch. Other methods of wearing have included physically sewing each service ribbon onto the uniform garments. "Orders of wearing" define which ribbons may be worn on which types of uniform in which positions under which circumstances. For example, miniature medals on dinner dress, full medals on parade dress, ribbons on dress shirts, but no decorations on combat dress and working clothing. Some countries (such as Cuba ) maintain

4400-562: The introduction of ASDIC, the British Admiralty believed to have effectively neutralized the submarine threat. Hence the number of destroyers and convoy escorts was reduced and the anti-submarine branch was seen as third rate. Although destroyers were also equipped with ASDIC, it was expected that these ships would be used in fleet actions rather than anti-submarine warfare, so they were not extensively trained in their use. Trials with ASDIC were usually conducted in ideal conditions and

4480-556: The number of U-boats on patrol in the Atlantic began to increase, the number of escorts available for the convoys was greatly reduced. The only consolation for the British was that the large merchant fleets of occupied countries like Norway and the Netherlands came under British control. After the German occupation of Denmark and Norway, Britain occupied Iceland and the Faroe Islands , establishing bases there and preventing

4560-601: The other merchantmen to escape. The British now suspended North Atlantic convoys, and the Home Fleet put to sea to try to intercept Admiral Scheer . The search failed and Admiral Scheer disappeared into the South Atlantic. She reappeared in the Indian Ocean the following month. Other German surface raiders now began to make their presence felt. On Christmas Day 1940, the cruiser Admiral Hipper attacked

4640-621: The other navies of the world combined. Similarly the role of aircraft had been neglected; the Royal Air Force had organised a Coastal Command to support the Royal Navy, but it possessed insufficient aircraft, had no long range aircraft nor were aircraft crew trained in anti-submarine warfare. The only weapon against submarines was inadequate bombs. Finally, it was not forgotten that in World War I, mines had sunk more U-boats than any other weapon. Plans were drafted for mine fields in

4720-529: The protection of the cruiser rules. The Treaty of Versailles forbade the Germans to operate U-boats and reduced the German surface fleet to a few obsolete ships. When three of these obsolete ships had to be replaced, the Germans opted to construct the Deutschland-class of panzerschiffe (armoured ships) or "pocket battleships" as they were nicknamed by foreign navies. These ships were designed for commerce raiding on distant seas, to operate as

4800-578: The rapid conquest of the Low Countries and France in May and June, and the Italian entry into the war on the Axis side in June transformed the war at sea in general and the Atlantic campaign in particular in three main ways: The completion of Hitler's campaign in Western Europe meant U-boats withdrawn from the Atlantic for the Norwegian campaign now returned to the war on trade. So at the very time

4880-743: The red and white stripes are for the Japanese colors and refer to that part of the conflict on the Pacific Coast. 3/16 inch service stars were authorized to service members who participated in combat with Axis forces within the American Theater. This primarily applied to those service members whose units participated in anti- U-boat patrols ( Anti-submarine warfare ) in the Atlantic . Participation in these escort, antisubmarine, armed guard, and special operations entitle recipients to one campaign star for each participation: A bronze service star

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4960-500: The situation improved gradually over time, and up to August 1943 the 32 Italian submarines that operated there sank 109 ships of 593,864 tons, for 17 subs lost in return, giving them a subs-lost-to-tonnage sunk ratio similar to Germany's in the same period, and higher overall. The Italians were also successful with their use of " human torpedo " chariots, disabling several British ships in Gibraltar. Despite these successes,

5040-419: The slow convoy SC 7 , with an escort of two sloops and two corvettes, was overwhelmed, losing 59% of its ships. The battle for HX 79 in the following days was in many ways worse for the escorts than for SC 7. The loss of a quarter of the convoy without any loss to the U-boats, despite a very strong escort (two destroyers, four corvettes, three trawlers, and a minesweeper) demonstrated the effectiveness of

5120-429: The subsequent action, she took shelter in neutral Montevideo harbour and was scuttled on 17 December 1939. After this initial burst of activity, the Atlantic campaign quietened down. Admiral Karl Dönitz , commander of the U-boat fleet, had planned a maximum submarine effort for the first month of the war, with almost all the available U-boats out on patrol in September. That level of deployment could not be sustained;

5200-479: The threat of war became more clear it was realised that Britain could not rely on the London Naval Treaty that outlawed unrestricted submarine warfare. The organisational infrastructure for convoys had been maintained since World War I, with a thorough and systematic upgrade in the second half of the 1930s, but not enough escorts were available for convoy escorting, and a crash program for building Tree-class trawlers , Flower-class corvettes and Hunt-class destroyers

5280-417: The troop convoy WS 5A, but was driven off by the escorting cruisers. Admiral Hipper had more success two months later, on 12 February 1941, when she found the unescorted convoy SLS 64 of 19 ships and sank seven of them. In January 1941, the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau put to sea from Germany to raid the shipping lanes in Operation Berlin . With so many German raiders at large in

5360-461: The ultimate commerce destroyers. For the first half of 1940, there were no German surface raiders in the Atlantic because the German Fleet had been concentrated for the invasion of Norway. The sole pocket battleship raider, Admiral Graf Spee , had been stopped at the Battle of the River Plate by an inferior and outgunned British squadron. From the summer of 1940 a small but steady stream of warships and armed merchant raiders set sail from Germany for

5440-434: Was a converted civilian airliner—a stop-gap solution for Fliegerführer Atlantik . Due to ongoing friction between the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine , the primary source of convoy sightings was the U-boats themselves. Since a submarine's bridge was very close to the water, their range of visual detection was quite limited. The best source proved to be the codebreakers of B-Dienst who had succeeded in deciphering

5520-430: Was already reduced by the degaussing of Allied ships, Dönitz decided to use new contact pistols, which were copied from British torpedoes found in the captured British submarine HMS  Seal . The depth setting mechanism was improved but only in January 1942 were the last complications with that mechanism discovered and fixed, making the torpedo a more reliable weapon. The German occupation of Norway in April 1940,

5600-443: Was better protected in one convoy than in two. A large convoy was as difficult to locate as a small one. Moreover, reduced frequency also reduced the chances of detection, as fewer large convoys could carry the same amount of cargo, while large convoys take longer to assemble. Therefore, a few large convoys with apparently few escorts were safer than many small convoys with a higher ratio of escorts to merchantmen. Instead of attacking

5680-419: Was declared in September 1939, including most of the available U-boats and the "pocket battleships" Deutschland and Admiral Graf Spee which had sortied into the Atlantic in August. These ships immediately attacked British and French shipping. U-30 sank the ocean liner SS  Athenia within hours of the declaration of war—in breach of her orders not to sink passenger ships. The U-boat fleet, which

5760-435: Was deeply flawed because a U-boat, with its tiny silhouette, was always likely to spot the surface warships and submerge long before it was sighted. The carrier aircraft were little help; although they could spot submarines on the surface, at this stage of the war they had no adequate weapons to attack them, and any submarine found by an aircraft was long gone by the time surface warships arrived. The hunting group strategy proved

5840-522: Was designed by Thomas Hudson Jones . It shows a Navy cruiser underway with a B-24 Liberator bomber flying overhead. In the foreground is a sinking enemy submarine, and in the background is the skyline of a city. At the top of the medal are the words AMERICAN CAMPAIGN . The reverse of the medal, designed by Adolph Alexander Weinman , is the same design as used on the reverse of both the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and

5920-463: Was initiated. Merchant ships that were either too fast or too slow for convoys, were to be equipped with a self-defence gun against surfaced submarine attacks, thus forcing an attacking U-boat to spend its precious torpedoes. This, however, removed these ships from the protection of the cruiser rules under the prize law . Nevertheless, despite this lack of readiness, in 1939 the Royal Navy probably had as many ASDIC equipped warships in service as all

6000-900: Was issued as a service ribbon only during the Second World War, and was not issued as a full-sized medal until 1947. The first recipient of the American Campaign Medal was General of the Army George C. Marshall, Jr. In January 2020, the United States Air Force retroactively authorized the American Campaign streamer to fly from the flag of the Civil Air Patrol located at CAP National Headquarters, Maxwell Air Force Base , Alabama . The streamer recognizes CAP's involvement in coastal patrol operations between May and August 1943 while attached to Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command. The requirements for

6080-511: Was referred to by U-boat crews as "the Happy Time" (" Die Glückliche Zeit "). Churchill would later write: "...the only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril". The biggest challenge for the U-boats was to find the convoys in the vastness of the ocean. The Germans had a handful of very long-range Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft based at Bordeaux and Stavanger , which were used for reconnaissance. The Condor

6160-529: Was surpassed a month later when Günther Prien in U-47 penetrated the British base at Scapa Flow and sank the old battleship HMS  Royal Oak at anchor, immediately becoming a hero in Germany. In the South Atlantic, British forces were stretched by the cruise of Admiral Graf Spee , which sank nine merchant ships of 50,000  gross register tons  (GRT) in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean during

6240-498: Was to be many months before these ships contributed to the campaign. The early U-boat operations from the French bases were spectacularly successful. This was the heyday of the great U-boat aces like Günther Prien of U-47 , Otto Kretschmer ( U-99 ), Joachim Schepke ( U-100 ), Engelbert Endrass ( U-46 ), Victor Oehrn ( U-37 ) and Heinrich Bleichrodt ( U-48 ). U-boat crews became heroes in Germany. From June until October 1940, over 270 Allied ships were sunk; this period

6320-403: Was to dominate so much of the Battle of the Atlantic, was small at the beginning of the war; many of the 57 available U-boats were the small and short-range Type IIs , useful primarily for minelaying and operations in British coastal waters. Much of the early German anti-shipping activity involved minelaying by destroyers , aircraft and U-boats off British ports. With the outbreak of war,

6400-416: Was to pass over the submarine, rolling depth charges from chutes at the stern, while throwers fired further charges to either side, laying a pattern of depth charges. To effectively disable a submarine, a depth charge had to explode within about 20 ft (6.1 m). Since early ASDIC equipment was poor at determining depth, it was usual to vary the depth settings on part of the pattern. When in spring 1939

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