Attacking A British Convoy III: Atlantic Breakout

If there are 30 U-Boats off Norway, I would move them first.
They are our most successful commerce raiding tool and would tie down countless Allied ships on necessary escort duties.
Then i would send out my 2 Battleships. Unfortunately, I think both may have been out of action too long. I understand the Gneisenau was in a bad way in July of 42.

At the beginning of 1942, the Battle of the Atlantic was still over a year away from the decisive turn at which the Allies (in May 1943) finally gained the upper hand on the U-boats and Doenitz was forced to withdraw them until he could come up with new technologies (such as snorkels and the Elektroboot).  So in early 1942, I’d put my money on building up the U-boat forces – which in fact is what Grand Admiral Dönitz did when he succeeded Grand Admiral Raeder (who by the way was replaced in early 1943, not early 1942).

German surface raiders (both auxiliary cruisers and full-blown warships) were a confounded nuisance for the Allies, but their main effect wasn’t so much to sink tonnage as to force the Allies to deploy a lot of naval resources (warships assigned to close escort or distant cover duties) that could have been used elsewhere.  The presence of Tirpitz in Norway is a prime example: Britain had to maintain significant forces in Scapa Flow in case she came out.  This was basically a re-run of the same problem Britain had with the High Seas Fleet in WWI: the nearby presence of an enemy “fleet in being” which could by its mere existence tie down your own fleet without firing a shot or coming out of port.  So Raeder and Dönitz both did the right thing when they argued repeatedly with Hitler that it would have been stupid to dismantle the surface fleet to add its batteries to the Atlantic Wall (which is what Hitler wanted to do).  One of the two Grand Admirals (I forget which one) told Hitler that this would amount to giving the Royal Navy a huge and bloodless naval victory.  Hitler fired Raeder for taking this position, and was highly annoyed when his successor Dönitz said exactly the same thing.

the uboats in norway should not be moved IMO. They are important for convoying ussr, which is the only place germany could win, but then needed to block the convoys and take stalingrad and cauc, and even then it would be a longshot, however it was probably the only shot

Better to go after the ships in the Carribean, than -just- before they reach USSR.  Especially if you’re having success there.

@ABWorsham:

I read a dramatically funny U-boat story. U-156 was hunting in the Caribbean and attempted to shell the oil refineries on Aruba. The crew failed to remove the tampion from the gun and destroyed the end of the 105mm barrel. The U-boat a few weeks later ran out of torpedoes. The crew took a hacksaw and shortened the gun barrel and was able to sink the merchant ship MacGregor and the tanker Oregon.

I’m sure the famlies and crew of the Oregon found that hilarious. LOL…

@ABWorsham:

The Texas Gulf Coast in those days was one of the riches oil producing regions of the World. The United States did not have a suitable pipeline system for oil and fuel to reach the East Coast of the United States and depended on tankers. Had the German U-Boats been in greater numbers in the Gulf the war economy could have been slowed down greatly.

On this subject, this book may be of interest:

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=162

@Gargantua:

Better to go after the ships in the Carribean, than -just- before they reach USSR.  Especially if you’re having success there.

A ship that has almost reached Murmansk has a higher value than a ship that is still in the Caribbean, since the first ship has used a lot of fuel and resources to get so far.
It is easyer and cheaper to protect  a ship just outside the East Coast than to escort a ship up in the Norwegian Sea.

A German sub use less fuel and time, and work more effectiv in the Norwegian Sea, than a sub that have to travell half around the globe to the Caribbean before it can start working.

German subs was sunk because the britons broke the Enigma code, not because they were in this or that Seazone

@ABWorsham:

I greatly enjoyed the read, thanks for the tip.

Glad you liked it.  I’ve never read it myself; just the review I mentioned.

I picked u-boats and other. The other being wait until 1945 or 46 to even start the damn war. Germany couldve built a much better military force had they waited ans not have even invaded Poland.

Worsham: was that because Hitler distrusted the old navy?
The Luftwaffe was  a Nazi inovation, but the Navy would have had a longer held tradition and therefore, be less susceptible to infiltration and absorption by the Nazi Party.

@wittmann:

Worsham: was that because Hitler distrusted the old navy? The Luftwaffe was  a Nazi inovation, but the Navy would have had a longer held tradition and therefore, be less susceptible to infiltration and absorption by the Nazi Party.

I don’t know for sure whether, in terms of percentages, the German Navy had fewer Nazi-minded officers than the German Army did, though it’s my impression that this was indeed the case.  There was certainly a mix of both types of officers, for which I can think of a couple of examples.  On the one hand, the old-Navy / new-Nazi split is nicely illustrated by a photograph that was taken after the Battle of the River Plate, when the German crew members who’d been killed in the action were buried in Uruguay.  The photo shows the German ambassador to Uruguay giving a Nazi salute at the funeral while angrily looking sideways at Captain Langsdorf, who’s giving the traditional naval salute. And I’m sure Hitler’s trust of the Kriegsmarine wasn’t improved by the fact that Admiral Canaris, the head of Abwehr (Geman military intelligence) from 1935 to 1944, had long been under suspicion of being an anti-Hitler conspirator (which he was, and for which he was ultimately executed).

On the other hand, I recall reading that, in Allied camps holding German POWs, there were often hardcore Nazis (including naval officers) among the POWs who acted as “enforcers” towards their less ideologically-inclined fellow prisoners.  I think that Burkhard von Müllenheim-Rechberg (a senior surviving officers from the Bismarck, who wrote a book on the subject) ran into some of these enforcer types while being held as a POW.  If I recall correctly, the POW camp in Bowmanville, Ontario (where U-boat ace Otto Kretschmer was interned) had a fair share of Nazi ideologues among its inmates.

Another reason for Hiter’s distrust, however, is that he had little understanding of warfare at sea.  He apparently enjoyed sketching battleships on the backs of envelopes, but that’s about as far as his interest in naval matters went.  He’d been a corporal in the German Army in WWI, and his military thinking thereafter continued to be in terms of land warfare.  Hitler distrusted the Army establishment and resented its Prussian elitism, but at least he felt in his element when it came to war on land; in the case of the Navy, he had the same distrust, but with the added factor that he was out of his depth when naval matters were discussed.  He even admitted it on one occasion when he proclaimed that “At sea, I am a coward.”

Thank you as usual for your detailed thoughts, Marc.
Some of what I think on the subject has come from reading, but I vividly remember the anti Nazi sentiment felt by Das Boot crew. I knew about Langsdorf and would have thought the Bismarck’s crew might have been indoctrinated more as their ship was a modern Nazi weapon and propaganda tool(love it!).
I think(not a WW1 historian) the Imperial Navy mutinied in 1918, so Hitler probably had that in his mind.
I do love what some of you on this forum dredge up, keeping me forever thoughtful and. interested.