149-795: The Mid-Atlantic gap is a geographical term applied to an undefended area of the Atlantic Ocean during the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War . The region was beyond the reach of land-based RAF Coastal Command antisubmarine (A/S) aircraft. This resulted in heavy merchant shipping losses to U-boats . It is frequently known as The Black Pit , as well as the Atlantic Gap, Air Gap, Greenland Gap, or just "the Gap". The gap
298-522: A strategic bombing campaign. It was accepted by Cabinet and Harris was directed to carry out the Area bombing directive . It became an important part of the total war waged against Germany. At the start of the bombing campaign, Harris said, quoting Hosea from the Old Testament, "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else, and nobody
447-637: 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
596-606: A copy of H2S was lost 2/3 February when a Stirling Pathfinder was shot down over the Netherlands, on only H2S's second operational use. Harris made similar objections to supplying the American -created 3 cm-wavelength H2X radar units to Coastal Command (which knew it as ASV.IV), again got higher priority, and again saw it fall into German hands, almost exactly a year later, in February 1944. As Coastal Command predicted,
745-573: A deal with him to "borrow" one squadron. After attacks on convoy ONS 166 , the number of VLRs in Newfoundland finally increased. "Canadians had been pressing hard for Liberators since autumn 1942, against British doubts that the RCAF could employ them effectively, while RCAF, for its part, opposed RAF taking over a job RCAF saw as its own. The commanding officer of 120 Squadron, Squadron Leader Bulloch, confirmed RCAF's ability, and in early March 1943,
894-419: 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
1043-998: 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),
1192-644: A high-ranking British figure. Though keen to take the position, Harris felt he could not leave the war at this key stage, an opinion shared by Churchill, who turned down the Southern Rhodesian request. Before the D-Day invasion in 1944, Harris was ordered to switch targets for the French railway network under the Transport Plan ; this was a switch he protested against because he felt it compromised
1341-640: A mutual friend, and they married in 1938. Their daughter Jacqueline Jill was born in 1939; Harris is said to have "adored" her. She later married the Hon. Nicholas Assheton, CVO , treasurer to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother from 1998 to her death in 2002, younger son of Ralph Assheton, 1st Baron Clitheroe . Harris died on 5 April 1984, at his home in Goring . He is buried in Burntwood Cemetery at Goring. In 1989, five years after Harris's death,
1490-462: A new directive to ensure continuation of a broad strategic bombing programme as well as adequate bomber support for General Eisenhower's ground operations. The mission of the strategic air forces remained "the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic systems and the direct support of Land and Naval forces". After D-Day (6 June 1944), with the resumption of
1639-803: A number of occasions he wrote to his superiors claiming the war would be over in a matter of months, first in August 1943 following the tremendous success of the Battle of Hamburg (codenamed Operation Gomorrah ), when he assured the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Charles Portal , that his force would be able "to produce in Germany by April 1st 1944 a state of devastation in which surrender is inevitable" and then again in January 1944. Winston Churchill continued to regard
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#17327725348741788-473: A one-off feature-length drama about Harris's tenure as AOC-in-C of Bomber Command was broadcast under the title Bomber Harris on BBC Television , with John Thaw in the title role. Despite protests from public personalities within Germany, with the mayor of Dresden visiting the British embassy to state his opposition, the Bomber Harris Trust, an RAF veterans' organisation formed to defend
1937-585: A position in first the cavalry, then the Royal Artillery , joined the Royal Flying Corps as a second lieutenant on probation on 6 November 1915. Harris learned to fly at Brooklands in late 1915 and, having been confirmed in his rank, then went on to serve with distinction on the home front and in France during 1917 as a flight commander and ultimately CO of No. 45 Squadron , flying
2086-589: A submarine was usually lost in sea return before it came in visual range, at around one mile (1.6 km), by which time it was already diving. In response, the Leigh light was developed. Though it had to overcome Air Ministry indifference, and only entered service in June 1941, it proved very successful. This, however, required a large aircraft, such as the Wellington or Liberator, to carry the generator needed to power
2235-492: A worry to Admiral Karl Dönitz , who was Befehlshaber der U-Boote . As a measure of how valuable they were, after patrols off Canada were added in 1942, only one ship was lost in convoy. Even in mid-1942, Coastal Command only had two squadrons of Liberators and Fortresses , and at the first sign of Coastal Command's success against U-boats, Harris sought to have their aircraft used in attacking German cities. After Convoy SC 118 , Professor Patrick M. S. Blackett , Director of
2384-461: 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 : 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
2533-623: Is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. Whenever the bombing campaign of World War II is considered it must be appreciated that the war was an "integrated process". As an example, quoting Albert Speer from his book Inside The Third Reich , "ten thousand [88mm] anti-aircraft guns ... could well have been employed in Russia against tanks and other ground targets". The Soviet commanders clearly recognized Harris's efforts, as shown by
2682-694: The Admiralty 's Operations Research section, made several proposals, including diverting VLRs from Bomber Command to Coastal Command. "Despite the strength of Blackett's case, the Admiralty (not to mention the Air Ministry, Bomber Command, and the Americans) believed for some time yet that it could not afford to reduce the heavy air offensive in the Bay of Biscay or to abandon the bombing of German bases by
2831-474: The Air Crew Europe Star and France and Germany Star ) - and, in protest at this perceived establishment snub to his men, Harris refused a peerage in 1946; he was the sole commander-in-chief not to become a peer. Disappointed to have missed the opportunity to return to Southern Rhodesia as governor because of the war, Harris wrote to Huggins in June 1945 that he would like to be considered if
2980-518: The Army Staff College at Camberley , where he discovered that at the college the Army kept 200 horses for the officers' fox hunting . At a time when all services were very short of equipment, the Army high command—which was still dominated by cavalry officers—clearly had a different set of priorities from technocrats like Harris, who quipped that the army commanders would only be happy with
3129-535: The Avro Anson (which was obsolete by the start of the Second World War) and Vickers Vildebeest (which was obsolete); for a time, shortages of aircraft were so severe, "scarecrow patrols" using Tiger Moths were even employed. RAF Bomber Command routinely got higher priority for the best, longest-ranged aircraft. Only as Bomber Command transitioned to four-engined aircraft did Coastal Command receive
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#17327725348743278-608: The British South Africa Company administration to help put down the Maritz Rebellion in South Africa, but he found that only two positions were available: as a machine-gunner or as a bugler . Having learnt to bugle at Allhallows, he successfully applied to be a bugler and was sworn in on 20 October 1914. The 1st Rhodesia Regiment briefly garrisoned Bloemfontein , then served alongside
3427-913: 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 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
3576-700: The European theatre of the war. He joined the Royal Flying Corps , with which he remained until the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. Harris remained in the Air Force through the 1920s and 1930s, serving in India , Mesopotamia , Persia , Egypt , Palestine , and elsewhere. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Harris took command of No. 5 Group RAF in England, and in February 1942
3725-581: The Rotterdam Gerät to create a submersible version for U-boat defense, of the aviation-utilized FuG 350 Naxos radar detector for night fighters, the submersible version getting the FuMB 7 Naxos U designation. While fragile, Naxos worked. However, it entered service the same day as the 10 GHz-emissions H2X (which Naxos could not detect) became operational in Coastal Command. Naxos
3874-564: The Sopwith 1½ Strutter and Sopwith Camel . Before he returned to Britain to command No. 44 Squadron on Home Defence duties, Harris claimed five enemy aircraft destroyed and was awarded the Air Force Cross (AFC) on 2 November 1918. Intending to return to Rhodesia one day, Harris wore a " rhodesia " shoulder flash on his uniform. He finished the war a major . Harris remained in the newly formed Royal Air Force (RAF) following
4023-822: The South African Marine Corporation ( Safmarine ) from 1946 to 1953. In February 1953 Winston Churchill, now prime minister again, insisted that Harris accept a baronetcy and he became baronet. In the same year he returned to the UK, and lived his remaining years in the Ferry House in Goring-on-Thames , located directly adjacent to the River Thames . In 1974 Harris appeared in the acclaimed documentary series The World At War produced by Thames Television and shown on ITV . In
4172-826: The Vickers Virginia ), in May 1925. His commander in Iraq had been the future Chief of the Air Staff Sir John Salmond , who was also one of his commanders back in Britain. Together they developed "night training for night operations". He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 3 June 1927 and promoted to wing commander on 1 July 1927. From 1927 to 1929, Harris attended
4321-857: 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
4470-426: 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,
4619-558: The 12th episode entitled "Whirlwind: Bombing Germany (September 1939 – April 1944)", narrated by Laurence Olivier , Harris discusses at length the area-bombing strategy that he had developed while AOC-in-C of Bomber Command. Harris married Barbara Daisy Kyrle Money, daughter of Lieutenant Ernle William K. Money, and his wife Alexandra Gruinard Battye, in August 1916. The marriage produced three children: Anthony , Marigold and Rosemary . Harris divorced his first wife in 1935 and subsequently met Therese ('Jillie') Hearne, then twenty, through
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4768-664: The 29 February 1944 award of the Russian Order of Suvorov First Class to the air marshal. At the war's conclusion, Harris was given various decorations. He was awarded the Polish Order of Polonia Restituta First Class on 12 June 1945, advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 14 June 1945 and appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross of Brazil on 13 November 1945. He
4917-729: The 2nd Rhodesia Regiment, which was being raised to serve in East Africa , perceiving the "bush whacking" of the war's African theatre as less important than the "real war" in Europe. Harris sailed for England from Beira at the Company administration's expense in August, a member of a 300-man party of white Southern Rhodesian war volunteers. He arrived in October 1915, moved in with his parents in London and, after unsuccessfully attempting to find
5066-565: The Allied High Command was using high-level German sources to assess exactly how much Allied operations were impairing the German war effort. Harris tended to see the directives to bomb specific oil and munitions targets as a high level command "panacea" (his word) and a distraction from the real task of making the rubble bounce in every large German city. Harris was promoted to the substantive rank of air chief marshal on 16 August 1944. The historian Bernard Wasserstein notes that
5215-624: 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,
5364-598: 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 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
5513-503: The Arab understands is the heavy hand." During the 1920s Harris occasionally doubted his decision to remain with the RAF rather than going back to Rhodesia; he submitted his resignation in May 1922, but was persuaded to stay. After his return from Iraq to the UK in October 1924, and a staff training course, he was posted to command the first postwar heavy bomber squadron ( No. 58 , equipped with
5662-409: 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 a theatre covering millions of square miles of ocean. The situation changed constantly, with one side or
5811-405: 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
5960-559: The Atlantic, the British were forced to provide battleship escorts to as many convoys as possible. This twice saved convoys from slaughter by the German battleships. In February, the old battleship HMS Ramillies deterred an attack on HX 106 . A month later, SL 67 was saved by the presence of HMS Malaya . Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet , GCB , OBE , AFC (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as " Bomber " Harris by
6109-454: 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
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6258-547: 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,
6407-401: The Bay of Biscay, where they sank one U-boat before being redeployed to Morocco. Increasing availability of escort carriers reduced the hazard of the Gap. After a crisis in March which nearly had Churchill and the Admiralty abandon convoys altogether, the Mid-Atlantic Gap was finally closed in May 1943, when RCAF VLRs became operational in Newfoundland, by which time the Battle of the Atlantic
6556-420: 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,
6705-399: 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
6854-400: 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
7003-501: 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
7152-423: The First World War broke out in August 1914, Harris did not learn of it for nearly a month, being out in the bush at the time. Despite his previous reluctance to follow the path his father had had in mind for him in the army, and his desire to set up his own ranch in Rhodesia, Harris felt patriotically compelled to join the war effort . He quickly attempted to join the 1st Rhodesia Regiment , which had been raised by
7301-408: 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
7450-509: 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 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
7599-420: 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
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#17327725348747748-411: The Germans captured the damaged H2S, which would have been next to impossible from a Coastal Command aircraft downed at sea, rather than over land, and Telefunken produced the Rotterdam Gerät (Rotterdam Device, named for where it was captured). Coastal Command's first ASV.III-equipped patrol took place over the Bay of Biscay 1 March. ASV.III made its first U-boat contact on the night of 17 March, but
7897-461: The Germans. Winston Churchill backed him up. Marshal John Slessor , head of Coastal Command, countered Bomber Command also risked having it fall in enemy hands, and having the Germans produce a countermeasure against it, before Coastal Command ever got to use it. In the event, this was exactly what happened. The first ASV.III was fitted to a Coastal Command Wellington at Defford in December 1942, with twelve based at Chivenor by February 1943, while
8046-428: 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
8195-535: The Manchester was redesigned to become the very effective Avro Lancaster . Harris returned to Britain in September 1939 to take command of No. 5 Group . Appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 11 July 1940 he was made Deputy Chief of the Air Staff in November 1940 and promoted to the acting rank of air marshal on 1 June 1941. The Butt Report , circulated in August 1941, found that in 1940 and 1941 only one in three attacking aircraft got within five miles (eight kilometres) of their target. As part of
8344-533: The RAF and USAAF resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed a large number of civilians. Estimates vary but the city authorities at the time estimated no more than 25,000 victims, a figure which subsequent investigations, including one commissioned by the city council in 2010, support. Raids such as that on Pforzheim late in the war as Germany was falling have been criticised for causing high civilian casualties for little apparent military value. The culmination of Bomber Command's offensive occurred in March 1945 when
8493-415: The RAF contingent in that area with promotion to air vice-marshal on 1 July 1939. In this period Harris, and others, pressured senior staff for large strategic bombers, which could bomb German targets from England. This resulted in specifications from the Air Staff which led to the Avro Manchester , Handley Page Halifax and Short Stirling . Later, after severe shortcomings were displayed on operations,
8642-410: The RAF dropped the highest monthly weight of ordnance in the entire war. The last raid on Berlin took place on the night of 21/22 April, just before the Soviets entered the city centre. After that, most of the rest of the attacks made by the RAF were tactical missions. The last big strategic raid was the destruction of the oil refinery in Tønsberg in southern Norway by a large group of Lancasters on
8791-419: The RAF." "The number of VLR aircraft operating in the North Atlantic in February [1943] was only 18, and no substantial increase was made until after the crisis of March." Nor were night air patrols, recognized as necessary, initiated until the autumn of 1943. Bomber Command did not refuse entirely to offer assistance against U-boats. From 14 January 1943 through May, they flew seven thousand sorties against
8940-458: The SS Inanda to Beira in Mozambique, from where he travelled by rail to Umtali in Manicaland . Harris earned his living over the next few years mining, coach-driving and farming. He received a more permanent position in November 1913, when he was taken on by Crofton Townsend, a man from near Cork in Ireland who had moved to Rhodesia and founded Lowdale Farm near Mazoe in Mashonaland in 1903. Harris quickly gained his employer's trust, and
9089-448: The South African Marine Corporation. He was created a baronet in 1953. He died in England in 1984. Harris was born on 13 April 1892, at Cheltenham , Gloucestershire , where his parents were staying while his father George Steel Travers Harris, a government engineer in India, was on home leave. With his father in India most of the time, Harris grew up without a sense of solid roots and belonging; he spent much of his later childhood with
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#17327725348749238-496: The South African forces in South-West Africa during the first half of 1915. The campaign made a strong impression on Harris, particularly the long desert marches; three decades later, he wrote that "to this day I never walk a step if I can get any sort of vehicle to carry me". South-West Africa also provided Harris with his first experience of aerial bombing: the sole German aircraft in South-West Africa attempted to drop artillery shells on his unit, but failed to do any damage. When
9387-470: The South-West African Campaign ended in July 1915, the 1st Rhodesia Regiment was withdrawn to Cape Town , where it was disbanded; Harris was formally discharged on 31 July. He felt initially that he had done his part for the Empire, and went back to Rhodesia to resume work at Lowdale, but he and many of his former comrades soon reconsidered when it became clear that the war in Europe was going to last much longer than they had expected. They were reluctant to join
9536-405: 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 the introduction of ASDIC, the British Admiralty believed to have effectively neutralized
9685-415: The U-boat pens in Lorient , Brest , and St. Nazaire , at a cost of 266 aircraft and crews. They accomplished no damage to the pens nor the submarines within them. Coastal Command strength never reached 266 VLRs. Missions flown against German U-boat building yards had similarly disappointing results. Aircraft also had an important indirect role, by preventing even the formation of wolf packs . They limited
9834-443: 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
9983-406: 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 the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) after Germany's Axis ally Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940. As an island country,
10132-416: 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 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
10281-420: The United Kingdom's most devastating attacks against the German infrastructure and population, including the Bombing of Dresden . Harris's orders from the war cabinet to focus on area bombing over precision targeting remained controversial owing to the large number of civilian casualties and destruction the strategy caused in continental Europe . After the war Harris moved to South Africa, where he managed
10430-412: The actor Arthur Chudleigh, often visited the school and gave the boys free tickets to his shows. Harris received such a ticket in 1909, and went to see the play during his summer holidays . The lead character in the show was a Rhodesian farmer who returned to England to marry, but ultimately fell out with his pompous fiancée and married the more practical housemaid instead. The idea of a country where one
10579-422: 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 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
10728-828: The almost "perpetual fog of the Grand Banks also allowed pack operations to penetrate within a couple of hundred miles of Newfoundland, while aircraft patrolled harmlessly above", and made visual detection impossible. A means of detecting surfaced submarines at night, when they were at their most vulnerable, recharging batteries, and felt most safe, was a top priority for Coastal Command. ASV gave it to them. The previous AI.II (Mark 2 Airborne Interception) radar became ASV.II (Air to Surface Vessel Mark 2) fitted in Coastal Command aircraft. Coastal Command priority for it, however, ranked behind RAF Fighter Command 's night fighter units. ASV.II's 1½-metre wavelength (actually 1.7 m, 176 MHz), mid-VHF band emissions meant however, that
10877-462: The area bombing strategy with distaste and official public statements maintained that Bomber Command was attacking only specific industrial and economic targets, with any civilian casualties or property damage being unintentional but unavoidable. In October 1943, emboldened by his success in Hamburg and increasingly irritated with Churchill's hesitance to endorse his tactics wholeheartedly, Harris urged
11026-635: 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
11175-559: The bombing campaign only took a decisive turn in late 1944, when the allies switched to attacking railway-marshalling yards for the coal gateways of the Ruhr. His summation is rejected by Sebastian Cox , head of the Air Historical Branch (AHB). Cox notes that half of the oil was produced by Benzol plants located in the Ruhr. These areas were the primary target of Bomber Command in 1943 and the autumn of 1944. Cox concludes that
11324-442: The breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories. Many senior Allied air commanders still thought area bombing was less effective. In November 1943 Bomber Command began what became known as the Battle of Berlin that lasted until March 1944. Harris sought to duplicate
11473-457: The carrier Wellington suffered a malfunction of its Leigh Light and was unable to press home the attack. The first attack using the system occurred the next night. When ASV.III did enter service, German submariners, right up to Dönitz, began to mistakenly believe British aircraft were homing on emissions from the Metox receiver, which no longer gave warning. Meantime, German scientists were perfecting
11622-483: The castoffs, such as Vickers Wellingtons , which finally had adequate range for A/S patrol. Moreover, Coastal Command's motley assortment of Ansons, Whitleys , and Hampdens were unable to carry the standard 450-pound (200 kg) depth charge ; that needed Wellingtons or Sunderlands . (The other aircraft capable of carrying it, the Avro Lancaster , was Bomber Command's crown jewel.) Coastal Command's prize
11771-487: 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
11920-464: The destruction of so large and splendid a city at this late stage of the war was considered unnecessary even by a good many people who admit that our earlier attacks were as fully justified as any other operation of war. Here I will only say that the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself." Bomber Command's crews were denied a separate campaign medal - as they were already eligible for both
12069-655: The end of the First World War, choosing an air force career over a return to Rhodesia because he and his first wife Barbara had just had their first child, and he did not think Barbara would enjoy being a Rhodesian farmer's wife. In April 1920 Squadron Leader Harris was jointly appointed station commander of RAF Digby and commander of No. 3 Flying Training School RAF . He later served in different capacities in India , Mesopotamia and Persia . He said of his service in India that he first became involved in bombing during
12218-550: The family of a Kent rector, the Reverend C ;E Graham-Jones, whom he later recalled fondly. Harris was educated at Allhallows School in Devon , while his two elder brothers were educated at the more prestigious Sherborne and Eton , respectively; according to biographer Henry Probert, this was because Sherborne and Eton were expensive and "there was not much money left for number three". A former Allhallows student,
12367-443: 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
12516-591: 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
12665-682: 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
12814-508: The government to be honest with the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign, The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive ... should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany ... the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and
12963-419: The lack of navigational aids, resulting in scattered, inaccurate bombing. As production of better aircraft and electronic aids increased, Harris pressed for raids on a much larger scale, each to use 1,000 aeroplanes. In Operation Millennium Harris launched the first RAF "thousand bomber raid" against Cologne (Köln) on the night of 30/31 May 1942. This operation included the first use of a bomber stream , which
13112-709: The light, and most of Coastal Command's aircraft were incapable of it, nor were Bomber Command inclined to turn over anything better. Moreover, the Germans developed Metox , which picked up ASV's radar pulses before it was able to detect a submarine at all, rendering it useless. The appearance of H2S three gigahertz -frequency (10 cm) radar changed that, and the combination of H2S (as ASV.III) and Leigh light proved lethal to U-boats. Harris, however, denied Coastal Command any allocation of H2S systems, claiming Bomber Command needed it to find targets, in preference to Gee and Oboe , while arguing Coastal Command might lose it to
13261-596: The most effective. Harris was very encouraging of innovation but he resisted the creation of the Pathfinder Force and the development of precision strikes which had proven so effective in the Dambusters' raid . Harris was awarded the American Legion of Merit on 30 January 1945. The most controversial raid of the war took place in the late evening of 13 February 1945. The bombing of Dresden by
13410-481: The night of 25/26 April. In his postwar memoirs Harris wrote, "In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method". His wartime views were expressed in an internal secret memo to the Air Ministry after the Dresden raid in February 1945 I ... assume that the view under consideration is something like this: no doubt in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so
13559-664: The number in Newfoundland belatedly increased (though it was not enough to constitute 10 Squadron , RCAF, before 10 May), while 120 Squadron's strength doubled. This still only put all of thirty-eight VLRs over the Mid-Atlantic Gap. The arrival of 25th Antisubmarine Wing , USAAF, with its medium-range B-24s (equipped with H2S, probably built by Canadians), made it possible to free up Coastal Command VLRs without it. The growth in numbers of escort carriers meant "a dramatic increase of USAAF Fortresses and medium-range Liberators" could be based in Newfoundland. 25h Wing flew over
13708-496: 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
13857-411: The office were ever open again, and that he would be interested in other Southern Rhodesian government appointments relating to aviation or perhaps entering politics there. "If I have deserved anything of my country—Rhodesia—it would delight me to have opportunity to serve her further," he wrote. Huggins replied that he was sympathetic, but that none of these ideas was practical: Harris would be too old by
14006-489: The official history of British strategic bombing says, in what Wasserstein describes as 'an unusually sharp personal observation', that "Harris made a habit of seeing only one side of a question and then of exaggerating it. He had a tendency to confuse advice with interference, criticism with sabotage and evidence with propaganda". Alfred C. Mierzejewski argues that area bombing and attacks against fuel plants were ineffective against Germany's coal- and rail-based economy and that
14155-500: 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 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
14304-601: 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
14453-616: 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
14602-521: The performance on 29 October, for Convoy HX 212 , driving off five, and seven on 6 November around Convoy SC 107 . "...[T]he apparent inadequacy Newfoundland-based air support was highlighted by the early interception of SC 107 and the resultant bitter and costly battle." This led RAF to belatedly move a number of Coastal Command squadrons. The nine Liberator GR.Is operating over the Atlantic, members of 120 Squadron based in Iceland, were nevertheless
14751-641: The places U-boats could attack in safety, and (by reducing the ability of shadowing U-boats to find and track convoys) made shipping harder to find, thereby reducing losses. This also helped the convoy escorts, by enabling them to deal with one U-boat at a time. Despite a willingness of Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) aircraft to fly in (perennially bad) conditions off the Grand Banks Coastal Command would never have attempted, U-boats could trail convoys beginning very soon after departure from Halifax . Without air-to-surface-vessel (ASV) radar ,
14900-634: The press and often within the RAF as " Butch " Harris , was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) RAF Bomber Command during the height of the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in the Second World War . Born in Gloucestershire , Harris emigrated to Rhodesia in 1910, aged 17. He joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment at the outbreak of the First World War and saw action in South Africa and South West Africa . In 1915, Harris returned to England to fight in
15049-549: The pressure being applied to German industry and using Bomber Command for a purpose it was not designed or suited for. By September the Allied forces were well inland; at the Quebec Conference it was agreed that the Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air Force ( Portal ), and the Commanding General, U.S. Army Air Forces ( Arnold ), should exercise control of all strategic bomber forces in Europe. Harris received
15198-400: The problem. The same year he visited Southern Rhodesia in a professional capacity to help the Southern Rhodesian government set up its own air force. On 2 July 1937 Harris was promoted to air commodore and in 1938 he was put in command of No. 4 (Bomber) Group. After a purchasing mission to the United States he was posted to Palestine and Trans-Jordan , where he became Officer Commanding
15347-697: 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
15496-576: The reputation of their former commander, erected a statue of him outside the RAF Church of St Clement Danes , London, in 1992. It was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother , who looked surprised when she was jeered at by protesters, one of whom shouted, "Harris was a war criminal." No member of the cabinet attended the unveiling. An inscription on the statue reads: "The Nation owes them all an immense debt." Many ex-Bomber Command aircrew were present, including Leonard Cheshire who attended against
15645-426: The response Harris was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command in February 1942. He was advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 11 June 1942. In 1942, Professor Frederick Lindemann , having been appointed the British government's leading scientific adviser by his friend, Prime Minister Winston Churchill , presented a seminal paper to Cabinet advocating the area bombing of German cities in
15794-534: 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 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
15943-402: 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 the protection of the cruiser rules. The Treaty of Versailles forbade the Germans to operate U-boats and reduced
16092-500: 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,
16241-419: 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
16390-486: The strategic bomber campaign over Germany, Harris remained wedded to area bombardment. The historian Frederick Taylor argues that, because Harris lacked the necessary security clearance to know about Ultra , he had been given some information gleaned from Enigma but not informed of the source. According to Taylor, this directly affected Harris's attitude concerning the effectiveness of the post-D-Day 1944 directives (orders) to target oil installations, as Harris did not know
16539-404: 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
16688-482: 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;
16837-469: 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 the day, an alert U-boat could dive before the aircraft attacked. Dönitz could not convince Raeder of his ideas, so each time
16986-518: The tank if someone developed one that "ate hay and thereafter made noises like a horse". He also had a low opinion of the Navy ; he commented that there were three things which should never be allowed on a well-run yacht, "a wheelbarrow, an umbrella and a naval officer". Bernard Montgomery was one of the few army officers he met while at the college whom he liked, possibly because they shared certain underlying personality characteristics. His next command
17135-475: The targets were highly vulnerable to area attacks and suffered accordingly. The American official history notes that Harris was ordered to cease attacks on oil in November 1944, as the combined bombing had been so effective that none of the synthetic plants were operating effectively. The American history also includes information from Albert Speer , in which he points out that Bomber Command's night attacks were
17284-550: 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
17433-461: The time a new Governor was needed; it might take years for Harris to enter Southern Rhodesian politics as he would first need to meet residency requirements, then cultivate support in a constituency; and Huggins felt he could not make promises about aviation posts with a general election coming up the following year. Harris finally dropped his dream of a return to Rhodesia, deeming it unworkable, and in 1948 moved instead to South Africa, where he managed
17582-409: 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 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
17731-483: 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
17880-522: 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
18029-572: The usual annual North West Frontier tribesmen trouble. His squadron was equipped with poorly-maintained Bristol F.2 Fighter aircraft. In Mesopotamia (Iraq) he commanded a Vickers Vernon transport squadron. Harris later wrote of his time there that "We cut a hole in the nose and rigged up our own bomb racks and I turned those machines into the heaviest and best bombers in the command." The squadron, No.45 , carried out raids, including night raids, against both Turkish invading forces and local Arab rebel groups. Harris once remarked that "the only thing
18178-490: The victory at Hamburg but Berlin proved to be a far more difficult target. Although severe general damage was inflicted, the city was much better prepared than Hamburg and no firestorms were ignited. Anti-aircraft defences were also extremely effective and bomber losses were high; the British lost 1,047 bombers, with a further 1,682 damaged, culminating in the disastrous raid on Nuremberg on 30 March 1944, when 94 bombers were shot down and 71 damaged, out of 795 aircraft. Harris
18327-484: 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 the Atlantic", which he compared to the Battle of France , fought the previous summer. The first meeting of
18476-434: 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
18625-469: Was a tactical innovation designed to overwhelm the German night-fighters of the Kammhuber Line . Harris was promoted to temporary air marshal on 1 December 1942 and acting air chief marshal on 18 March 1943. Harris was just one of an influential group of high-ranking Allied air commanders who continued to believe that massive and sustained area bombing alone would force Germany to surrender. On
18774-482: 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,
18923-718: Was also awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the United States on 14 June 1946 and promoted to Marshal of the Royal Air Force on 1 January 1946. Within the postwar British government there was some disquiet about the level of destruction that had been created by the area-bombing of German cities towards the end of the war. Harris retired on 15 September 1946 and wrote his story of Bomber Command's achievements in Bomber Offensive . In this book he wrote, concerning Dresden, "I know that
19072-464: Was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it
19221-664: Was appointed head of Bomber Command. He retained that position for the rest of the war. In the same year, the British Cabinet agreed to the "area bombing" of German cities . Harris was given the task of implementing Churchill 's policy and supported the development of tactics and technology to perform the task more effectively. Harris assisted British Chief of the Air Staff Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Portal in carrying out
19370-443: 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
19519-419: 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
19668-435: 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
19817-415: Was eventually closed in May 1943, as growing numbers of VLR Liberators (Very Long Range models) and escort carriers became available, and as basing problems were addressed. The Royal Air Force (RAF)'s Coastal Command, when it was created in 1936, was given responsibility for antisubmarine warfare (A/S or ASW) patrol. It was equipped only with small numbers of short-ranged aircraft, the most common being
19966-466: Was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind." Harris comments that he first made this comparison while standing with Portal watching the London Blitz in 1940. At first the effects were limited because of the small numbers of aircraft used and
20115-463: 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
20264-450: Was judged on ability rather than class was very inspiring to the adventurous Harris, who promptly told his father (who had just retired and returned to England) that he intended to emigrate to Southern Rhodesia instead of going back to Allhallows for the new term. Harris's father was disappointed, having had in mind a military or civil service career for his son, but reluctantly agreed. In early 1910, Harris senior paid his son's passage on
20413-482: Was largely won. 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 the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II . At its core
20562-465: Was made farm manager at Lowdale when Townsend went to visit England for a year in early 1914. Having acquired the skills necessary to ranch successfully in Rhodesia, Harris decided that he would start his own farm in the country as soon as Townsend returned. According to Probert, Harris by now regarded himself "primarily as a Rhodesian", a self-identification he retained for the rest of his life. When
20711-712: Was of a flying-boat squadron, where he continued to develop night flying techniques. He was promoted to group captain on 30 June 1933. From 1934 to 1937 he was the Deputy Director of Plans in the Air Ministry. He was posted to the Middle East Command in Egypt, as a senior Air Staff Officer. In 1936 Harris commented on the Palestinian Arab revolt that "one 250 lb. or 500 lb. bomb in each village that speaks out of turn" would satisfactorily solve
20860-580: Was promoted to the substantive rank of air marshal on 1 January 1944 and awarded the Russian Order of Suvorov , First Class on 29 February 1944. After the Southern Rhodesian Prime Minister, Sir Godfrey Huggins , visited Harris in May 1944, Southern Rhodesia asked the UK government to appoint Harris as Governor at the end of the year, Huggins being keen to install a self-identifying Rhodesian in that office rather than
21009-511: 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
21158-563: Was replaced by FuMB 36 Tunis in May 1944, and was supplemented by Stumpf , what today would be called radar absorbent material , under the codename Schornsteinfeger ("Chimneysweep"). Just before the TRIDENT Conference , Admiral Ernest J. King got control of A/S aircraft from the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), arranging a trade of B-24s for comparable types. This enabled Slessor to make
21307-474: 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
21456-761: 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 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
21605-726: Was the Consolidated Aircraft Liberator GR.I , commonly called the VLR Liberator or just VLR. The Liberator B.I proved too vulnerable for bombing missions over Europe, but had excellent range and payload, ideal for A/S patrol. Top priority for these was the U.S. Navy for reconnaissance operations in the Pacific , where their long range were equally valuable, but where they generally carried out missions of lower priority than Coastal Command's. VLRs were of particular importance in times when Bletchley Park
21754-498: 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
21903-403: 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,
22052-416: 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
22201-662: Was unable to read Kriegsmarine Enigma ( Ultra ). When Convoy ON 127 was attacked by the U-boat U-584 on 11 September 1942, there was exactly one VLR of the RAF's 120 Squadron overhead. Fifteen U-boats converged on Convoy ON 131 , only to meet aircraft, and Coastal Command sank two, while in protecting Convoy ON 136 , 120 Squadron's VLRs sank U-597 on 12 October 1942. Even then, VLRs proved invaluable in co-operation with shipborne "Huff Duff" . Defending Convoy SC 104 , VLRs guided by HF/DF drove off three shadowing U-boats in one day, 16 October. They bettered
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