all right? welcome back, students. today we're going to be discussing the battle of atlantic. got a couple of key questions will be attempting to analyze. first was the battle of the atlantic as of your authors has suggested the most important victory in the second world war. with that in mind, can we assess how much it reshaped the conflict on a global scale beyond just the atlantic? second what role did evolving technology have on this how did the cycle of technological innovation and improvization affect its

ultimate outcome? and third, why did the allies ultimately win the battle of the atlantic and the axis lose? what key decisions ended up resulting in that jump for the stakes of the battle of. the was. of course, military,perational mostof the second world war would be determined by the amount of transportation available to, the allies at sea, and the32 ability of them to safely convey troops mutions and across globe. many the strategic decisions leaders? if weren't enough ships to safely bringiven theater, the operation have to be canceled ctor. and of course, was particularly true as the unitedy bodies of water from all of the battlefields. they would be contesting access on ground, on the ground. now, the most important of these plans thatended so heavily on transportation at sea was, of course, the plannedasion of france. the opening of the second front.

of enormous in great britain itself. in other words, if the could control the seas particularly atlantic, millions of american could pour into great britain pare for the invasion of continental. the second critical element a critical outcome upon w which be determined by the battle of the atlantic, was the survival of great britain itself. the great german hope, war, had been that they could starve gat into submission. after all, great britain was an island. not self-sufficient in food production. the churchillet calculated that great britain required roughly 26 million tons of imports a year just to survive, just to feed its own people and keep its factoriesnow beginning in march 1941, the war, lend-lease proved a british. thanst tleld.ite soviet union aslend-lease

would provide roughly a year's worth of as well as serving to re mechanized its forces. over 400,000 tanks and cars that would allow the red army tgoon the offensive. in the summer of 1944 to such remarkable effects. we'll talk about in a few weeks. aid shipments overseas would amount. $700 billion in contemporary dollars. roughly 10% of the entire u.s. war effort was directed to sending supplies overseas. and again, without control of the seas, all of that american economic power could not be leveraged towards final victory. the stakes are thus very high. when we begin thinking about the batt the. gwell, the german r,d as in ofas un see weip t usomething that obviously did not come to pass. in addition, hitler had not been sure, as we've already discussed, whether or not gre britain would declare war at all. and as a result he had not

priority his his navy he he hoped to avoid a naval arms race. the sort of thing that british entry into the first world war. and in part as a result, thegerman would be by far the weakest of the three main military. on the eve of war. utility of the submarine in the first world war, where it had effect against allied shipping, the germans only 57 submarines in their entire navy at the of the war in part because ofitler and rader's decisions at the start of the war. roughly 30 or fewer of these submarines be at sea at any one timent ships and dozens upon dozens of escort vessels in atlantic. now, karl dönitz was the commander of the german arm ' subordinate. he was an ard appointed him as his successor in 1945 upon his own suicide. dönitz was also a micromanager. he tried to control entire battles in the atlantic from bases europe by radio. and we'll talk about of the

implications of that. both doenitz and rader prior ties discipline. th feared the mutinies had been so devastating in the inst neither during this nor rader wouldlogistics or really think that coherently in terms of strategy. for instance, rader had urged the führer to declare war on the united states. so that his submarines could sink more targets, not because he believed his forces were capable of defeating the united states. in other words, he had it backwards. so the germans were handicapped from the outset, at to a degree by its leadership on the h. the royal navy had three different admirals who wouldcommander in chief of the western approachesttle of the atlantic. the most significant was the one pictured here admiral max horton. he role from 1942 to 1945. self. he had extensive experience as a submarine captain in the baltic in the first world war, and in fact he would command the british he thus had a very good sense

of what rader and dennis were going to attempt to do with submarines and proved quite astute in coming up with counter strategies. for a variety of reasons. while the german air force and army had made huge technologic we've talked about the development of radio, the improvement of air design. the german navy had somewhat less success. the main german submarine at the start, the second world war was the type submarine pictured here. it basically a slim steel cylinder, about 170 feet long and 30 feet across. it had large diesel engines, two propel it through theharged a battery that was used for movement while underwater. now by the way, you'll see a lot of mentions of knots in your readings. this is a nautical measurement that's derived from the old practice of tying knots in a rope and dragging it behind a

ship to to see or calculate speed. i'm going to stick with miles per hour. and in my remarks today to keep things a little bit simpler for you, the type seven's would let it run around 20 miles per hour on the surface, and about half of that underwater when relying on battery power. these diesel engines required oxygen. so when underwater, the submarine had to run on battery power and it was quite limited in so. it could remain submerged for about 24 hours which technically made it a submersible instead of a true. but if it remained underwater for more tha24 hoursa the could run out of oxygen. the type seven couldout 700 feet in underwater. but any lower than that and it being crushed by the pressures of the deep, the type seven could cover about 10,000 nautical miles at reduced speeds. so for those who are have a sense of geography that's around to the of the united states eastern coast of the u.s. and back to germany because of

limitations in terms of their . these submarines could only carry about 14 torpedoes best of times only five torpedo tubes from whichlaunch those 14 four were in the front and one in the rear.these torpedoes themselves had a variety of technical issues which handicapped their reliability, though by 42 they were generally quite good. and it should be noted that the germans bettnavy, who had so many torpedo issues. one captain demanded the fleet at pearl harbor test a torpedo by outside their headquarters, hushed up, hoisted up on 't detonate, giving a sign that the amecans too had had real serious issues with torpedo design. the germans were better than that, but still constantly trying to innovate it and make sure those torpedoes would detonate when hitting a given target. in addition to the torpedoes most subs also had a gun mounted on their decks. you can can see it in the here. these were either to sink enemy ships or to shoot down enemy aircraft. that attempt to sink them from the skies.

now, while the type seven had a better range, more torpedoes and could go deeper than world war one submarines to save cost and to speed up construction, the type seven was. one long steel cylinder. w difference than the first world war where german had been designed with two cylinders in order to essentially make the submarines more robust and make it more likely that if something went wrong with one hull, the submariners have acñ metallurgy, so the german navy thought this was not goinurce of concern. in fact, ifgerman submarines in the second world war were more likely to be destroyed in combat thancomparative ones in the first world war, in part because of this single hull construction approach, which again save time and money but at a cost. now you got some sense from the readings what life was like on board these submarines, the german fleet, particularly the types it was cramped. it wastrophobic.

as i recently learned from fact michael jordan's private yachtenodate type patro , and it gives you some sense of what life board was like. months. men rotated bunks. so they got to too well. long periods boredom were punctuated by moments of absolute terror. submarine service. you were much more likely to drown, be killed when your submarine was. sinking into the depths. yot even when you successfully sunk a'd hear it's perhaps in the distance. but as soon as you fired two torpedoes, usually you had a dive. flee the countermeasures that in variably brought on frllforces inside the submarine was wash was saltwater when the ship was running on the surface. sometimes it was extraordinary really hot because of the diesel engines. later, modifications improved. some of the combat functionality of the submarines actually resulted in the submarines up with diesel fumes. water poured in with even even

greater frequency. the snorkel was introduced on ang could be and miserable on top of allhe and. perhaps the most notable element of this experience was how important the captain was to life on. most merchant ships were sunk by just a handful of german cans. extremely captains. did the vastr the germans the battle of the atlantic. they tded to be short lived. however, passive captains tended relatively little impact on the course of eve role in what your life would look like at sea, who were the men commanding these german submarines. well, this is silent. most famous of the german submarine. most of these men were very young. almost all of them under 30. very few u-boat captains were still in service from the first world war. many of them became like movie

stars, particularly in the early phases of the war particularly if they were successful widely, appearing in newsreels getting all sorts of but the incredible stresses of cycle problems heavy drinking and a remarkably high suicide rate among those commanders who were not lost at sea. keep in mind, by the late stages of the war the on a given patrol, you only had about 60% chance of coming back. imagine going to work and having almost a 5050 chance of coming that was what daily life was like for many of these these sailors. kretschmer pictured here was 28 years old when the war began. in the first two years of the war before his capture he sank nearly 50 ships totaling 300,000 thousand tons of shipping. he was known as silent otto for his tendency to run silent and to avoid radio contact. he was generally respected, they feared, by his royal n=davy

adversary as he, unlike a number of other captains, he tended to follow the rules of war. in fact, some even called him gentlemen an auto as he had a reputation for pulling crews of ships. he'd sunk at least distance towards safety and in a instances, dropping off blankets and even whiskey from his submarine to the unfortunate men of ships that he had sunk in early march 41, he attacked a convoy but was disabled by depth charges. his submarine began sinking rapidly. the crew somehow managed to reestablish control after the submarine passed crushed depth around 700 feet, just long enough toand skyrocket up to the surface. his while ordering his crew to get off and surrender. and he himself was actually captured very fortunately for him. for him and would spend the rest of the war in a p.o.w. in canada and. ad and one of the funny sort of ironies of history he would end up commanding nato's naval forces against soviet submarine during the early cold war, the reverse of job he'd had in the

second world war. it shod be other captains not as well versed in the laws of war and chivalry. kretschmer might have been. captains like heinz eck, who would surface after sinking ships in, gun survivors in water. the biggest tendency tended to be captains trained after the war had begun, who in many instances were more radical and more willing to violate the rules of war. and i shouldwar on, the eastern front. there were elements of it that appear even in this battle of the atlantic was usually seen as ewhat more decent, some way, shape or form. as axis that did of these these things i've described. so, for instance, two of the first german submarines sunk off the american after american war. the submarine surfaced. their crews tried to get off and they were machine gunned in the water by american sailors who were furious at the avloss of life that they had inflicted on american shipping.

now turn to a discussion of what does it look to fight? a battle in the atlantic. in 1917, when confronted by the u-boat menace, the had organized convoys. and the basic idea was that you concentrate your you'd encircle your your defenseless merchant vessels with a ring of escorts that could protect them against submarines. would set for their destination with these escort ships. anti-submarine. the concentration of forces for a relatively few vessels to protect a large number of ships simultaneously protecting that vast of goods and supplies from across atlantic. now, there were logistical to doing it. why? which is why the british empire had waited so long to use a convoy system in the first world war. ships had to wait in port sometimes for days upon, days for enouhi assemble, that a convoy could then proceed. they also had to be dispersed when they reached their destination because usually a

single harbor could not f a single convoy. the survival rate, however, was much higher than in the case of so-called independence that just took off by themselves and tried to run the gamut of germans on their own. in part, this was of the difficulty of finding a convoy in the vaster of ships. but in the grand scale of the atlantic ocean, it's much harder actually, this small grouping on the surface than say, ships dispersed over a wide area. now, as soon as the second world war began, the british began moving to reinstitute the system. now, karl doenitz, looking back, the first world war had come up with what he viewed as the antidote to this british tactic.th idea of the wolf that the german submarines would be, well equipped with communications equipment if. one german submarine happened to find a convoy proceeding across the atlantic it would maintain a

safe and radio back to germany h was either in france or germany. and then he would on convoy at an opportune point. but then other german u-boats could descend and, they could attack in mass disrupting the convoy, an overwhelming convoy escorts. and keep in mind at the beginning of the war, the british had nowhere near vessels to protect these these convoys as we'll see in a moment. some would transit the with only one or two really capable ships. so a wolf pack of submarines could absolutely overwhelm and and rapidly. now, this idea, is tac pack require or did have one fundamental vulnerability required long distance coordination by radio, which meant that in theory messages could be intercepted or monitored by the allies andted about the location and plans of german at sea. now let's turn to the actual

narrative of operations. the naval campaign war bgermans, surface cruisers, schrader's beloved surfacees insouth graf weeks before being caught by the british and oast ony oth contrast, their worth quite british shipping and military targets. the battle of the atlantic would thus proceed over the course 1939 through 1943, across a vast geography, all way up from the arctic ocean down to the south key section of the battle would take place in what was known as the mid-atlantic gap. you can see area highlighted in red in the middle. this was the area where at the start of the war, land based could not patrol where submarines could not be pursued, followed or identified from the air. it was here that they would have their greatest successes and concentrate theirearly opening of the war. while the german submarine fleet would noted, had so few operational ships that wolf

packs would not really formed. but conquest of norway and france which added 20,000 miles of coastline from which german raiders could foray made it possible notch large numbers of submarines at the time, but coordinate them from the relative oximity of the coast. this made pack possible for the first time, sailing primarily from french ports. the germans would enjoy what they would call the first happy time. deluca has eight. july 1940 2nd april 1941. in this peror every submarine lost at sea the germans would sink ships in total during campaign 1940. the germans would sink morens of allied shipping, far more than the allies could in fact, in churchill's memoirs, he said this was the only moment where he was truly frightened, truly afraid. that great britain might lose the war before american entry. and with the submarine

threatening to starve the british isles into submission. but because the the german navy the kriegsmarine had few ships war, they were unable to completely cut off that vital north the british were able thus work up adaptations andlogies to the various german tactics and in addition, british would partially crack naval codes in this period and kill or capture three of germany's best submarine commanders in rapid succession. now, the readings give you some sense of what life was like on a convoy submariner. but i want to walk through the sense what this was actually like in. so otto kretschmer, then commanding you 99 would take part in one of the fiercest naval battles of 1940, german wolfpack attacked ss in october of 1940, as he seven stood for slow convoy. it set out from canada from

canada at four the united kingdom on october fifth. it had 35 ships in in its convoy formation. they were carrying lumber, coal and grain, mostly from indiana ohio and minnesota. steel. iron and oil as well. were part of the. now several of the ships in this convoy were very slow. hence the designation slow imagine convoys had to travel at the speed of the slower ship more or less. this meant that this convoy only move about seven or eight miles per hour. that was actually slower than. the top speed of a submarine which meant that these ships were in a great of danger if they were spotted by forces. this also meant it would take ng transit the north atlantic until it reached the was the weather accommodated which in the north laten not the case. the convoy was uer the command. a retired former admiral, but hed escort vessel, hms scarborough, to police and protect this convoy

was small white corvette of about same size but slower than the submarines it was supposed to p against. now the ship captains, this convoy were a mixed bunch. there were commanders from norway, captains from norway nada america, great britain, greece, others. they sometimes orders and sometimes not. they were an indunch. these are not military officers in command of these transport vessels. and many of them, if you read some of the the memoirs, radio traffic from the war, you can see that they resented being babysat as they viewed it by the royal navy, especially at this early stage of the war. on october 8th, three days out of port, a fierce storm hit this, which slow them down even further. the ships in the became dispersed. the s.s. travis began to lag behind soon spotted by the u. u 124, it was ss was picked off the following and drawing from

doenitz metaphor of the wolf the wolves essentially picking off the stragglers, the back of the herd. on october 17th, 12 days out of port, the wolves began to circle smelling blood in the water. 48 struck that evening, sinking two boats withued and chased u 48 until it dived and disappear. but the attack drew off the making. entire rest of the convoy now vulnerable. the u. 38 then surfaced fired a torpedo damaged and slowed down another freighter. the following night, u-boats attacked in unison. t' the convoy from their fellow captains. the entire att from by admiral doenitz, eager to micrwas going to be a victory. the u-boats struck singly and in pairs, picking off at the edge and in the middle of the convoy. some of these captains would sail into the midst of the convoy surface, fired torpedoes in either directions and disappear.

they mostly attackedadded terror of course for the lives of the crewmen board. u-boats as they could rely on ships against the horizon, whether by moonlight or starlight. surface between ships moving quickly in and out of the convoy, preventing any warships from from coming to the aid of damaged vessels. on october, silent auto surfaced in the middlthe both rapidly sinking tw kri kirk which was later loaded with steel and sank immediately drowning. all 36 of its crew. kretschmer, recorded in his log, quote, i fired three torpedoes spread among the made off at full speed to the southwest and again made contact with the convoy. torpedoes from our other boats were constantly heard exploding. the british destroyers did not know how to help and occupy themselves by constantly firing star shells, which a very little effect in the bright moonlight. i now proceed to start my against the convoy from astern in just hours the wolfpack would

sink 16 ships in stormy icy waters so cold tdrown. but the submarines were still not done. all five u-boats stuck to the convoy able to travel nearly as fast it could. the next another ship was damaged and began to fall behind and giving you a sense of the terror that these merchant marine crews would experience, even though they were not attacked immediately, they abandoned ship. they would be sunk as they trailed behind the rest of theoctober. those remaining ships close enough shore to receive air support and assistance were finally under at least partial protection from great britain. and at that point, the u-boats finally began to break off on the eight ships would arrive accompanied by the one warship. two others would later arrive in port heavily. in the case ss7 in just no casualties, the u-boats had sunk. 20 ships killed 140 sailors and destroyed 80,000 tons of

critical war goods intended for great 160 pounds million of equipment, food and ring to show you very briefly here a clip that gives looked like from the classic film dashboard. and found on the now detritus of. something different, the ships f. give us. vast item lines on. slight noise longer than iron. 60. hogan they they got winds and smashed oil up this oh i'm so tired from this it oh ione time. when up this all died those.

wharf here off here nice. john thisyou. before seeing the results of its onthe destroyer attack. so how do you fight a menace like this one that can surface without fire torpedoes in all directions, then disappear? the british began in particular to try a solution through new technologies. the british would begin, by modifying aircraft at installing radar to try to detect surface contacts from a great deal of distance and perhaps at night as well. something that was obviously hard to do by air by simply

observing with your eyes. this led not just radar but sonar and all of the other technologies legal innovations that were introduced to try combat the u-boat arm to a technological arms race where attempted to develop new technologies that would give them the edge, either in terms of offensive or defensive equipment. so, for instance, the introduction radar led the germans to respond a radar detector as well as sound proofing the holes of their ships. in 1940. in response, the british began the mass use of the hedgehog whicine that would allow its defending vessels to shoot aarge, rather than simply them over the side. this of course, made u-boats much vulnerable from greater . in response, the germans began to introduce more reliable longer range acoustic torpedoes one that could hone in on the sound of a ship's this, in turn, led the british to introduce foxholes, which were would bang against each other the rear of a ship, but from some away extended out in order to confuse and cause these torpedoes to detonate

prematurely. they also introduced anti-submarine airborne torpedoes. that aircraft could drop from a great distance and destroy a submarine effectively from the air. in this challenge in particular the growth and success of aerial innovations at submarines placed a great deal of strain on the german. the small type sevens were extremely vulnerable they had limited range and were single hulled again, meaning that they could only survive limited battle. and as the aerial gap over the north atlantic began to close the prospects of successful wolfpack hunting convoys began to in response. the germans began to pour resources into developing a submarine that a submersible like the type seven and other designs that were then in service that is needing to surface and run on surface at various times because of its engines. they began and tried to build a proper submarine that be able to operate almost entirely ral votes these were produced in numbers, but only

four would actually enter service. only two would be deployed by the end of the war. in other words, the germans had fallen behind in this cycle innovation response and by the end of the war had not found a solution to all of the allied innovations withhich were confronted. now, tthe battle of the atlantic was intelligce h vast expanse of the atlantic? track down a wolfpack that could be anywhere waiting on one of the major routes to ambassador shipping, the germans had an edge the beginning of the war. their naval intelligence had in fact broken several of the codes. in 1939. and germans had a pretty good sense of where mtime. american codes wereamerican entry into the war. but by may 1943, most of the allied code systems had changed and increasingly the germans were unable to read their traffic. now the germans themselves used a very complicated code making

machine to transmit and decrypt thigma machine here on the right. complex three rotor system which can encode letter in thought it unreadable uncrackable but the paul had captured equipment related to the enigma machine early in the which they brought following polish defeat to great britain and the british using this technology and other sources, intelligence began to crack german codes in the summer of 1941, one way in which they began to be a rs the fact that so many of them began with the two word phrase heilommon reference point that would enable their decryption information from the increasinglycracking system was codenamed ultra and. it o was in the united kingdom. the british were extraordinarily care conceal. they had cracked the codes in many instances, not using informatsaved in order to avoid showing the germans that i had been cracked. the german donuts repeatedly

ordered investigations to see if the enigma machine might have been a four rotor enigma machine was supposed to be even more complicated, was introduced february 1942, though it was so complex that many radio operators in the german navy were too lazy to use the fourth roto which thankfully gave extra time for british intelligence to begin working on cracking it. only the an early computer would in fact uge number of calculations necessary to permanently crack the four rotor enigma code as a result by, the time enigma was fully cracked. the were able to pinpoint the whereabouts of every german submarine and in particular their milk these were submarines that would go out to sea fuel and food and submarines at sea. they did not have to come all the way back to the essentially it impossible for the germans to particularly against america's east coast ports. the attack at sea seven, as i

noted, was part of the first happy time for thewould end in late 1940, then resume again in december 1941. why december ?1941 with the us entry into the war, germany suddenly had an almost unlimited number targets at sea, ships that technical been off limits beforehand, and the americans, for a variety of reasons, refused to adapt the at. first, they refused to blackout cities that would have prevented ships from being silhouetted against major ports. althnumber ships were sunk unnecessarily in the first 6 to 8 months of american entry. the war in 1942. to give you some sense of this the germans would destroy nearly 7.5 million tons of shipping with losses peaking that fall, germany finallh submarines to maintain large packs at sea forperiods in november 1942, for the first time in the war, germany sank pace, britain would have in fact run out of food supplies between 1940 and 1943. in total nearly 3000 allied

ships would be sunk, with gross tonnage well over 12 million tons. over 3600 ships. merchant and military together would be lost in the battle.n of them in that critical period between 1940 and 1943, 72,000 sailors would be killed as result, there was a 17% death rate in the british merchant marine, the highest actually of any service. but proportionately, u-boat losses would grow even higher over time. by the end of the war 783 submarines out of 1200 or so that the gad manufactur h een lost, 70% loss ras 1943 dawned, the number of ships sunk continue to remain high, but more and more u-boats were sunk per convoy. and you from chart here. so the solid line are tons of shipping lost to u-boats. the dotted line new construction added and the the blue line here indicates the number of u-at sea and

you can see only for a german the losses germany inflicted significantly or even consistently outnumbthe entry of the united states. the enormous manufacturer capacity of american shipyards put to work for the allies and rapidly the germans began to lose a war of attrition. they would culminate in black. 1943 with new technical edges at their disposal, and in particular introduction of a lot of aircraft systems valves or a very long bombers armed with new torpedoes and radar. the air gap would be closed and german submarines devastated in a single month may, the germany would lose 43 u-boats ships, one in four of all other u-boats at s would be damaged in this month. it became for the germans even to leave their bases fra without facing aerial attack doenitz privately admit that his forces had been defeated by this to turn to a few takeaways now in our

first, a question we have to ask and one i'it'll for your discussions on friday is this key question of whether germany the battle of the atlantic. f great britain. germany needed. the germans concluded they would need to shipping a month between 50 and 100 average sized convoy vessels. they only achieved that once. war. november 1942. and at that juncture, war was already going against the germans. almost every front, as we we've seen now, i want to provide some arguments about allies won the axis lost here. one of the key factors was obviously strategy and leadership the germans lacked the number of they needed to overwhelm thet the start of the war, in part because of choices made by the german navy in the interwar period, particularly by admiral rader. in addition, the strategy at the of the war did not necessarily align with the means that germany had to carry it out. and it took some time for germany to adjust.

this technologicalion that i presented is also a one a very important one that we see in explaining allied victory darwin in his origins of the species, has made an argument that it wasn't the strongest of the species that would survive nor the most intelligent, but instead the ones most adaptable to change. and some historians have drawn a parallel here. the germans werer pb adapt in part because they had fewer resources to do so, but also because theirnot encourage the innovation that might have led to the innovations thatabled them to win the battle of the atlantic. anothe fact of attrition. germans submariners went after defenseless or lightly armed merchant vessels, but they in turn were hunted by aircraft and by enemy warips. those warships were very rarely sunk. what that meant was that german submarines, when they were cenk uygur their crews and their experiences were lost with them. but in many instances, those protecting the convoys, even if their ships were sunk, would survive to fight the allies would accumulate experience and

veteran the atlantic went on. well, the germans would in fact lose their the same time of the 40,000 germans who served the submarine arm, there were only 12,000 survivors at the war's end. 28,000 of them had been lost lost. intelligence and, as i've noted here, the role of ultra played a huge role in the ultimate outcome, both sides were able to crack each other's codes, but it was only the british and the americans who were able to consistently read their opponents traffic at critical moments in the battles certainly by the spring of 1943. and finally we haveo owledge economic capacity it doesn't explain everything by itself.e of course, too, but the united states and, great britain almost 40 million tons of shipping during the war, and the germans only sunk 20 million tons. in other words merchant marines of the alliedend than at the beginning. this has led some people to assume a that the germans could never have actually won against great britain alone. perhaps they might have the

entry of the war into the united of entry into the war of the united states made german victory increasingly dficult particularly after the survival of the british empire over the german. i conclude there ar on mony monday. we have some microphones around. questions so if the germans were able complete like a functionalsurface, how would that have changed the war but also like due to increasing aircraft carrier primacy. do you think it would been effective ugut the war. yes, you know, the z plan, in. it would have required germany to subordinate cnd tanks and everything else to the navy, which is unl prioritized the navy in the same way he did the air germany managed to finish the sea plan, there were aircraf program. but by 1948, if either had begun by that juncture or

whatever the circumstances would be the states was caof producing so many aircraft carriers and surface if germany had a surface comparable to japan's it's difficult to any sort of german victory. i think more likely like likelier path for german victory would be if they had submarines and it had enough at the start of the war to inflict grievous damage in those first six months or 12 months of the war. was there any any, ever, any attempt to stop or german shipping lines or the others to stop the germanerman from transiting? yes. so a large of german ships were either captured or neutral port or an allied ports at, the start of the war. and those were captured and interned to the allies. in fact, the british reaped a windfall of transport vessels thanks to the fall of france merchant marine vessels that were on the world's

oceans became essentiaproperty after after the fall of those countries. ge is germany's merchant marines quite small and most of what was there wastic trying to get steel from swedish mines into, northern germany. there were some essentially blockade runners that trying to get to japan and elsewhere, but these were quite few in. did italian navy play any role significant atlantic? yes. so the italians wanted to contribute in a serious way. they had a large submarine fleet of their own. this was actually much of it was transferred to essentially two ports along the coast of france alongside the germans. but doenitz very little respect for the italian mariners. he believed their ships were not seaworthy either. captains were incompetent and up resources. so the germans really try to observation and reporting things. radio, though they w sink number of vessels in these the mediterranean or north atlantic. they played a very much an auxiliary role compared to the germans, in part because germans

confined them to that role role. you mentioned that the british concealed that cracked the german code. was there any significant consequences to that? yes. so there were a number of instances where ktion essentially could not be acted upon for fear of of revthat that the allies had cracked the. soyo the british were so concerned that a lot of this key intelligence might be leaked that in one instance, an american very enthusiastic american captain, captured a german submari in on the high seas, and he towed it in the harb in in essentially declaring to the world, look what i did. kc you know, this is amazing. and the british were horrified because, of course, if observer present, they would know that a submarine had been captured intact with its igacmight essentially change their

their or change their entire communication systems. so they basically told the americans to, you know, get your guy underf punish this poor captain who'd done such a brave, maybe without realizing that he was in danger of compromising part. the allied war effort. so i know that germany like worked around the atlantic did did germany ever work with japan in regards to like destroying shipping in like other areas like around africa, in there are some german and japanese vessels operating iaitay

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