A news story about some of the secret behind-the-scenes work (signals intelligence and radio navigation) done by the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (the Wrens) during WWII.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/d-day-code-breakers-women-1.5159789
WWII–-75th ANNIVERSARY DISCUSSION--#30---JANUARY 1942
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The Second Happy Time, also known among German submarine commanders as the American shooting season,[1] was the informal name for a phase in the Battle of the Atlantic during which Axis submarines attacked merchant shipping and Allied naval vessels along the east coast of North America. The first “Happy Time” was in 1940–41 in the North Atlantic and North Sea.
The Second Happy Time lasted from January 1942 to about August of that year and involved several German naval operations including Operation Paukenschlag (or Operation Drumbeat) and Operation Neuland. German submariners named it the happy time or the golden time as defense measures were weak and disorganized,[2]:p292 and the U-boats were able to inflict massive damage with little risk. During this period, Axis submarines sank 609 ships totaling 3.1 million tons and the loss of thousands of lives, mainly those of merchant mariners, against a loss of only 22 U-boats. Although less than losses during the 1917 campaign of the First World War,[3] it was roughly one quarter of all shipping sunk by U-boats during the entire Second World War.
Historian Michael Gannon called it “America’s Second Pearl Harbor” and placed the blame for the nation’s failure to respond quickly to the attacks on the inaction of Admiral Ernest J. King, commander-in-chief of the U.S. fleet. Others however have pointed out that the belated institution of a convoy system was at least in substantial part due to a severe shortage of suitable escort vessels, without which convoys were seen as actually more vulnerable than lone ships.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Happy_Time
I thought that we would return to the Battle of the Atlantic.
We know how the USA reacted and changed its tactics for convoys during this time.
I’m just wondering…would any of you guys had done anything differently that you feel might have done a better job against Germany’s U-Boats? -
Part of the problem that the US Navy ran into when it went to war was that – like many military forces before or since – it had to learn some things for itself before it believed them. The British had over two years of experience fighting the Battle of the Atlantic at that point, but the Americans didn’t feel that they needed any advice from them on the matter. It didn’t help that Admiral Ernest J. King was an Anglophobe, in addition to having a generally abrasive personality. (His wife reputedly once said: “Ernie is the most even-tempered man I’ve ever met. He’s always in a foul mood.”) As a result, the Americans made mistakes in their early ASW methods of operations which could have been avoided. In fairness, the US Army had similar learning-curve problems in North Africa, notably at Kasserine Pass if I remember correctly.
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