Bitter Ocean by David Fairbank White

Author:David Fairbank White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

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THE U- BOATS THRUST OUT FROM LA PALLICE, B ORDEAUX, sortieing in tubular, black groups, running to the hunting grounds, 1,500 miles away. The boats had a surface speed of 17 knots and an endurance range of 6,500 nautical miles, so it took them three to four days to reach the combat areas. Low, gray, so dark as to appear black, with raked bows, blunted at the lip of the nose, they ranged through the waters, pirates, looking for the convoys. The boats were small, 220 feet, not much bigger than the little corvettes at 205 feet; they coursed through the seas, tough wolves, stubby, 761 tons of driven, overcharged Nazi attack power, armed with twelve G7e torpedoes, one 88mm deck gun, and one 20mm antiaircraft gun. An 88mm deck gun is as big as a Volkswagen, terribly complex, and looks like a dark device conceived by Moloch, so great and menacing is it. By December of 1942, there were 382 of them in commission, 100 at sea at any one time, forty on the Atlantic. The actual figure for total U-boats committed to the North Atlantic was far higher, but, again, requirements of maintenance and transit to and from combat areas drew from the fleet at sea, now representing more offensive power than BdU had ever wielded before.

In winter, the Germans moved out. Finished at last with Paukenschlag, his campaign in the Americas, Dönitz threw everything he had into the Air Gap, that isolated zone between Iceland and Greenland beyond the reach of Allied air cover. In the deep freeze of this winter, the Germans now mounted their most intensive thrust. An increasing percentage of convoys crossing to England fell into the German ambushes. In the thirty-five weeks of the cold season, thirty-one convoys were attacked. British imports fell to 34 million tons—one third less than the 1939 levels. As the winter held its breath, the entire, enormous convoy system groaned, sagged, creaked—and threatened to give way.

Shipping now suddenly became the formula on which the entire war was posited. In the year 1942, a staggering total of 1,006 ships aggregating 5,471,222 tons had been lost, the worst figures for the entire war. British shipyards had a bulging backlog of 2.5 million tons of repair work. It became plausible to wonder whether the entire convoy system itself, feeding the war effort in Europe, could hold up. And if the convoys no longer came through, what strategy could the Allies turn to to bring their supplies across the Atlantic and support the citadel of Europe? What would happen to war planning?

Admiral Dönitz had calculated he needed to sink 700,000 tons of Allied shipping per month to cripple the Allies’ convoy chain. Actually, the figure was lower; the Admiralty had put the number at 600,000 tons per month. But the margin of safety was growing far too thin. Through all 1942, the Germans averaged sinkings of 456,000 tons a month—alarmingly close to the limit. For five months out of the year, sinkings exceeded 500,000 tons.

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