is not enough, he wrote. americans have to culte relationships the ability of all peoples, of together in the same world ateace. to make our the world. find to be better than.

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 campaign? 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 outco now, for the stakes of the battle atlantic, the first key icant was. of course, military, operational most major odetermined by the amount of transportation available to, the allies at sea, and the ability of them to safelyfields across transportation was the key bottleneck in many the strategic decisionsacing the allied leaders? if weren't enough ships to safely bring men and their weapons to a given theater, the operation have to be canceled any other factor. and of course, was particularly true as the united states and great britain were separated by 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 that depended so heavily on transportation at sea was, of course, the planned invasion of france. the opening of the second front. uildup 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 and, prepare for the invasion of continental. th element a critical outcome upon which be determined by the battle of the atlantic, was great britain itself. the great german hope, particularly american entry into the war, had been that they could starve great into submission. after all, great britain was an it was not self-sufficient in food production. the churchill cabinet 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 factories running. now beginning in march 1941, even before american entry into the war, lend-lease proved a storthld frti, o the soviet union as well. by the end of the war, lend-lease would provide roughly a year's worth of food to the entire red army as well as serving to re mechanized its forces. over 400,000 tanks and cars thato go on the offensive. in the summer of 1944 to such remarkable effects. we'll talk about in a few weeks. merican 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 theeas, all othat american economic power could not be leveraged tords final victory. the stakes are thus very high. when we begin thinki the.

wepe?939? well ndsincliar id nt hi something that obviously did not come to pass. in addition, hitler had not been sure, as we've already discussed, whether or not great 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 had guaranteed british entry into the first world war. and ingerman would be by far the weakest of the three main branches of the german military. on the eve of war. despite utility of the submarine in the first world war, where been used to such devastating effect against allied shipping, the only 57 submarines in their entire navy at the of the war in part because of hitler and rader's decisions at the start of theughly 30 or fewer of these submarines be at sea at any one time merchant ships and dozens upon dozens of escort vessels in the expanse of the atlantic. now, karl dönitz was the

commander of the subordinate. he was an ardent nazi. hitler had actually 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 ofboth doenitz and rader prior ties discipline. they feared the naval mutinies had been so devastating in the in the final months of the first world war. neither during this nor rader would emphasize intelligence or logistics 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 s forces were capable of defeating the united states.backwards. so the germans were handicapped from the outset, at least, to a degree by its leadership on the

british. the royal navy had three different commander in chief of the western approacheshe battle of the atlantic. the mificant was the one pictured here admiral max would serve in this role from 1942 to 1945. r submariner himself. he had extensive experience as a submarine captain in the baltic in the first world war, and in fact he would command the british submarine until 1942. 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 force and army had made huge technologic strides in the interwar period. we've talked about the development of radio, the improvement of aircraft and armor design. the german navy had somewhat less success. the main german submarine at the start, the second world war was the

diesel engines, two propel it through the water. these engines also charged 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 pr see or calculate speed. i'm going to stick with miles per hour. and in my 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 for about 24 hours which technically made it a submersible instead of a true. but if it remained underwater for more than 24 hours the

could run out of oxygen. the type seven could go down to about 700 feet in underwater. but any lower than that and it being crushed by the pressures of the type seven could cover about 10,000 d speeds. so for those who are have a the of the united states eastern coast of the u.s. and back to germany because of limitations in terms of their size. these submarines could only carry about 14 torpedoes and on board at the best of times only five torpedo tubeslaunch those 14 four were in the frontnd one in the rear. these torpedoes themselves had a ri issues which handicapped their reliability, though were generally quite good. and it should be noted that the navy, who had so many torpedo issues. one captain demanded that that the fleet at pearl harbor test a torpedo by dropping on concrete outside their headquarters, hushed up, hoisted up on a winch and drop it down.

it didn't detonate, giving a sign that the americans too had had real serious issues with torpedo design. the germans were better than 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 range, more torpedoes and could go deeper save cost and to speed up construction, the that is, it was. one long steel cylinder. this was actually 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 a chance to escape or maneuver, do something. there had been improved ensign steel design metallurgy, so the german navy thought this was not going to be a major source of concern.

in fact, if we. german submarines in the second world war were more likely to be destroyed in combat than comparative ones in the first world war, in part because of sapproach, 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 cramped. it was fact michael jordan's private yacht as onen ons of his time sea, and it gives you some sense of what life board was like. s could last for months. men rotated bunks. so they got toll sometimes too well. long periods boredom were punctuated by moments of absolute terror. you weren't likely to get wounded in the submarine service. you were much more likely to drown, be killed when your submarine was. sinking into the depths. you can't even when you successfully sunk an you'd hear it's perhaps in the distance. but as soonedoes, usually you had a

dive. flee the countermeasures thatforces inside the submarine was often bitterly cold. a wash was saltwater when the ship was rning on the surface. sometimes it was extraordinary really hot because of the diesel modifications improved. some of the combat functionality of the submarines actually resulted in the submarines up with diesel fumes. th even even greater frequency. the snorkel was introduced everything could be and miserable on top of all the other stresses and. perhaps the most nnt of this experience was how important the captain was to lifemost merchant ships were sunk by just a handful of german captains. extremely captains. did the vastk for the germans the battle of the atlantic. however, passive captains tended live longer lives, but had relatively little impact on the course of events. your skipper played a big role in what your life would look like at sea, who were the men

commanding these german bmwell, this is silent. auto otto kretschmer, pictured here, probably the 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 inervice from the first world war. many of them became like movie larly in the early phases of the war particularly if they were successful in germany, appearing in newsreels getting all sorts of attention and rewards. but the incredible stresses of command led to a 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 almostck alive. that was what daily life was like for many of these these sailors.

kretsc phmer 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. w silent otto for his tendency to run silent and to avoid radio contact. he was generally respected, they feared, by his royal navy 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 c ships. he'd sunk at least distance towards safety and in 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 submarinrapidly. the crew somehow managed to reesta passed crushed depth around 700 feet, just long enough to blow their ballast tanks and skyrocket up to the surface. submarine disabled kretschmer

scuttled his while ordering his crew to get off and surrender. and he himself was actually captured very fortunately for him. 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 ear cold war, the reverse of job he'd had in the second world. it should be noted that there were other captains not as well r and chivalry. kretschmer might have been. 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 should note we talked about total war on, the eastern front. appear even in this battle of the atlantic was usually seen as as somewhat more decent, some way, shape orn't just the axis that did of these these things i've described.

the first german submarines sunk off the american after american entry, the war. the submarine surfaced. their crews tried to get off and they were machine gunned in the water by americanrswere furious at the heavy loss of life that they had inflicted on american shipping. now turn to a discussionv- of tactics. what does it look to fight? a battle in the middle. the atlantic. in 1917, when confronted by the u-boat menace, the hadanconvoys. and the basic idea was that you concentrate your you'd encircle merchant vessels with a ring of escorts that could protect them against submarines. convoys would set for their destination with these escort ships. well equipped and prepared for 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 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 enough ships to assemble, that a convoy could then proceed. they also had to be dispersed when they reached their destination because usually a bot accommodate the vast tonnage of a single cvoy. 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 vast atlantic. this looks like an enormous number of ships. but in the grand scale of the atlantic ocean, it's much harder actually, this small groupinge surface than say, ships dispersed over a wide as soon as the second world war began, the british began now, karl doenitz, looking back, the first world war had come up

with what he viewed as the antidote to this british tactic. this was the idea of the wolf pack. the idea was 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 asafe and radio back to germany to its headquarters which was either in france or germany. and then he would begin alerting other u-boats to converge on convoy at an opportune point. but then other german u-boats could descend and, they could disrupting the convoy, an overwhelming cy at the beginning of the war, the british had nowhere these these convoys as we'll see in a moment. some would transit the atlantic with only one or two really capable ships. so a wolf pack of five or six submarines could absolutely overwhelm and and devastate a convoy very rapidly.

now, this idea, this tactic of wolf pack require or did have one fundamental vulnerability required long distance coordination by radio, which theory messages could be intercepted or monitore thus allies could be alerted about the location and plans of german at sea. now let's turn to the actual narrative of ognthe seanschrader's beloved surfaceish sh weeks before being caught by the british anduttled bmarin contrast, their worth quite effectg both british shipping and military atlantic would thus proceed over the course of 1939 through 1943, across a vast geography, all way up from the arctic ocean down to the south atlantic. the 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 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 their efforts in the early opening of the war. while the german submarine fleet would enjoy some advantages. as i noted, had so few operational that wolf packs would not really formed. france which added 20,000 miles of coastline from which german raiders could foray made it possible not only launch large numbers of submarines at the time, but coordinate them from theoximity of the coast. this possible for the first time, sailing primarily from french ports. the germans would enjoy what they would call the first happy time. eight. july 1940 2nd april 1941. in this period, for every submarine lost at sea the germans would sink roughly 23 allied ships in total during the

first full year of their campaign 1940. the germans would sink more than 3.2 million tons of allied shipping, far more than the allies could replace that juncture in the war. in fact, in churchill's memoirs, he said this the only moment where he was truly frightened, truly afraid. thatat britain might lose the war before american entry. and with the submarine threatening to starve the british isles intouse the the german navy the kriegsmarine had few ships at the start of the war, they were unable to completely cut off that vitalth atlantic. the british were able thus work up adapt new defensive technologies to the various german tacti i addition, british would partially c period and kill or capture three of german best submarine commanders in rapid succession. now, the readings give you some sense of what life was like on a convoy as well as the perspective of a submariner. but i want to walk throughexperiences, one convoy, to give you a 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, when 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. in in its convoy formation. they 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 convoy. and as you might imagine convoys had to travel at the speed of the slowe more or less. this meant that this convoy only moveght miles per hour. that was actually slower which meant that these ships were in a great of danger if they were spotted by forces. this also meant it would take

three long weeks to transit the north atlantic until it reached the safety of british ports. and that was the weather accommodated which in the north atlantic in october and november was often not the case. the convoy was under the command. a retired former admiral, but he had only one dedicated escort ssel, hms scarborough, to police and protect this convoy was small white corvette of about same size but slower than the against. now the ship captains, this convoy were a mixed bunch. there were commanders from norway, captains from no canada america, great britain, they sometimes orders and sometimesan independent bunch. 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 aearly 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. travis began to lag u. u 124, it was sunk another straggler. the ss was picked off the following and drawing from z metaphor of the wolf the wolves essentially picking off the the herd. on octoberh,port, the wolves began to circle smelling blood in the water. do you? 48 struck that evening, sinking two boats with torpedoes. the scarborough pursued 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. they've been following news of the convoy from their fellow captains. the entire attack was coordinated all the way from by admiral doenitz, eager to micro-manage what he believed was going to be a victory. the u-boats struck singly and in pairs, picking off at the edge and in the captains would sail into the midst of the convoy sur directions and disappear. they mostly attacked at night, which added terror of course for the lives of the crewmen board. but it also aided the u-boats as they could rely on ships against the horizon, whether by moonlight or starlight. the submarines would quietly 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 middle the convoy and fired torpedoes in both rapidly ng the kri kirk which was later loaded with steel and almost immediately drowning. all 36 of its cw. kretschmer, recorded in his

naval log, quote, i fired three torpedoes spread among the convoy, three sunk. i 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 that most of the crew who were submerged would drown. but the submarines were still not done. all five u-boats stuck to the convfast it could. the next another ship was 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. certain that they would be sunk as they trailed behind the rest of the convoy on the night of october. those remaining ships close enough shore to receive air

support and assistance were finally under at least partialprotection from great britain. and at that point, the u-boats finally began to break off their attacks 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 five days at the cost of no casualties, the u-boats had sunk. 20 ships killed 140 sailors and destroyed 80,000 tons of critical war goods intended for great britain. 160 pounds million of equipment, food and i'm going to show you very briefly here a clip that gives some sense of what these attacks looked like from classic film dashboard. and found on the now detritus of. something different, the ships it sealed off. givea

lines on. slight noise longer than60. hogan they they got winds and smashed oil up this oh i'm so tired from this it oh i just. one time. when up this all died those. wharf here off here nice. john this is. you.

submarine immediately had a dive before seeing the results of its .raction as a result of the destroyer attack. so how do youat can surface without fire torpedoes in all directions, then disappear? the british began in particular to try to find a solution through newe british would begin, by modifying airradar to try to detect surface contacts at night as well. something that was obviously hard to do simply observing with your eyes. this led just radar but sonar and all of the other technologies legal innovations that were introduced to try combat the u-boat arm to a l arms race where each side attempted to develop new technologies that would give them offensive or defensive equipment. so, fointroduction radar led the germans to respond a radar sound proofing the holes of their ships. in 1940. in response, the british began the mass use of the hedgehog which was an anti-submarine that

would allow its defending vessels to great deal of distance, a depth charge, rather than simply them over thside. this of course, made u-boats much vulnerable from greaterdistance. 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 engine. this, in turn, led the british to introduce foxholes, which were essentially pipes that 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 airborne torpedoes. that aircraft could drop from a a submarine effectively from the air. in this challenge in particular the growth and success of ae innovations at submarines placed a greeaof german. the small type seveemely vulnerable to attack. they had limited range aeaning 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 was not actually 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 otes these were produced in numbers, but only four would actually enter service. only twoould be produced or actually deployed by the end of the war. germans had fallen behind in this cycleva by the end of the war had not found a solution to all of the allied innovations with which were confronted. now, the other critical issue in the battle of the atlantic was intelligence how do you find a convoy in the vast expanse of the atlantic?

or how do you track down a wolfpack that could be anywhere iting on one of the major routes to ambassador edge the beginning of the war. their navalveral of the major navy codes. in 1939. and from 1939 to 1942, the germans had a pretty good sense of where many were at any given time. american codes were also relatively rapidly after american entry into the war. but by may 1943, most of the allied code systems had changed andasingly the germans were unable to read their traffic. now the germans themselves used a very complicated code making machine to transmit and decrypt the enigma machine here on the right. it used a very complex three rotor system which can encode letter in over 100,000 ways which they thought it unreadable uncrackable but the paul had capturedquipment related to the enigma machine early in the which they brought following polishbritain and the british using

this technology and other to crack german codes in summer of 1941, one way in which they began to be codes was the fact that so many of them began with the two word phrase heil hitler, which gave them a common reference point that would enable their decryption information from the increasingly complete ex-british code making system or code cracking system was codenamed ultrand. it was one of the most closely guarded secrets in the united kingdom. reful to conceal. they had cracked the codes in many instances, not using information that might have saved in order to avoid showing the germans that in fact, their their codes had been cracked. the german donuts repeatedly ordered investigations to see if the enigma mac compromised. a four rotor enigma machine was supposed to be even more complicated, was introduced february 1942, though it complex that many radio operators in the german navy were which thankfully gave extra time for british intelligence to begin working on cracking it. only the invention of colossus

an early computer would in fact enable the huge number of calculationspermanently crack the four rotor enigma by, the time enigma was fully cracked. the were able to pinpoint the whereabouts of every german submarine and in particular their milk cows. these were submarines that would go out to sea fuel and food and supplies and refill german submarines at sea. they did not have to come allway back to the coast. france sinking them essentially it impossible for the germans to conduct a long war at sea, particularly against america's east coast ports. the attack at sea seven, as i noted, was part of the first happy time for the german. this period would end in late 1940, then resume again in december 1941. why december 1941? well with the us entry into the war,nly had an almost unlimited number targets at sea, ships that been off limits beforehand, and the americans, for a variety of

reasons,nvoy system at. first, they refused to blackout cities that would have prevented ships from being silhouetted against major ports. all of this meant that a huge number 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 thatoduced enough submarines to maintain large packs at sea for extended periods in november 1942, for the first time in the war, germany sank enough that if it had continued that pace, britain would have in fact run out of food and supplies between 1940 and 1943. total nearly 3000 allied ships would be sunk,tonnage well over 12 million tons. over 3600 ships. merchant and military together would be lost in the battle. the atlantic in total, most 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 the war 783 submarines out of 1200 or so that the germans had manufactured had been lost, 70% lossas 1943 dawned, the number of ships sunk continue to remain high, but more and more u-boats were sunk per convoy. and you get some sense of this from chart here. so theolid line are tons of shipping lost to u-boats. the dotted added and the theats at sea and you can see only for a period in 1941 did german the losses germany inflicted significantly or even consistently outnumber the amount of new construction with the entry of the united states. the enormous manufacturer capacity of american shipyards put to work for the allies and pidly the germans began to lose a war of attrition. they would culminate in black. 1943 with new technical edges atparticular

introduction of a lot of aircraft systems valves or very long range bombers armed with new torpedoes and radar. the aiwould be closed and german submarines devastated in a single month that, single month of may, the germany would lose 43 u-boats and sink only 58 ships, one in four of all other u-boats at sea would be damaged in this month. it became for the germans even to leave theirrance without facing aerial attack doenitztially began to privately admit that his forces had been defeated by this i want to turn to a few takeaways now in our final. first, a question we have tosk and one i'm not going to answer it. it'll for your discussions on friswhether germany could ever won the battle of the atwo star of great britain. germany needed. the germans concluded they would m need to sink 700,000 tons of shipping a month between0 5 sized convoy vessels. they only achieved that onc only one month of the entire war. november 1942. and at that juncture, war was

already going against the germans. almost every front, as we we'seen now, i want to provide some arguments about why the 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 the british at the start of the war, in part because of choices made by the he interwar period, particularly by admiral rader. in addition, the strategy at the of the war did not necessarily carry it out. and it took some time for germany to adjust. this technological innovation that i presented is also a one a very important one that we see in explaining allied victory darwn 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 adapta change. and some historians have drawn a parallel here. the germans were slower to adapt

in part because they had fewer resources to do so, but also because their system not encourage the innovation that might have led to the innovations that might have enabled them to win the battle of the atlantic. another key element was the fact of attrition. germans submariners went after defenseless or lightly armed merchant vessels, but they in turn were hunted by aircraft and by enemy warships. 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 rv fight again. as a result, the allies would accumulate experience and veteran sailors as the war in the atlantic went on. well, the germans would in fact lose their best, most capable commanders at the same timeho served the submarine arm, there were end. 28,000 of them had been 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 we able to consistently read their opponents traffic at critical moments in the the spring of 1943. and acknowledge economic capacity it doesn't explain everything by itself. all of these other factors were of course, too, but the united states almost 40 million tons of shipping during the war, and the germans only sunk 20 million tons. in other words merchant marines of the allied powers were larger at the war's end than at the beginning. this has lome me a sort of economic determinist claim that the germans could never have actually won against great britain alone. pe have the entry of the war into the united of entry into the war of the united states made german victory increasingly difficult particularly after the survival of the british empire over course of 1942, in the face of thei conclude theredi for total war ony monday. we have somehas any questions

questions. so if the germans werecomplete like a functional surface, how would that have changed the due to increasing aircraft carrier primacy. do you think it would been effective throughout the war. yes, you know, the zedibly ambitious. it would have required germany to subordinate aircraft and tanks and everything else to the navy, which istler just never prioritized the navy in the same way he did the air force or the army. if germany managed to finish the sea plan, there were aircraft carriers as part of that program. but by 1948, if either the had begun by that juncture or whatever the circumstances would betes was capable of producing so many aircraft carriers and surface you know, even if germany had a surface comparable to japan's it's difficult to see that leading to any sort of german victory. i think more likely like likelier path for german victory would be if they had concentrated on building submarines and it had enough at

the start of the war to 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 stop the german german from transiting? yes. so a large of gether 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 briwindfall of transport vessels thanks to the fall of fran all of those merchant marine vessels that were on the world's oceans became essentially allied property after after the fall of those countries. germans merchant marine is germany's merchant marines quite small and m there was was the baltic trying to get steel frointo, northern germany. there were some essentially bl that trying to get to japan and elsewhere, but these were quite few in.

did italian navy play any role significant role in the battle of the atlantic? yes. so the italians wanted to contribute in a serious way. they had a large submarine fleet of their 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 mariners. he believed their ships were not seaworthy either. captains were incompetentre just using up resources. so the germans really try to limit their role to observation and reporting radio, though they would sink number of vessels in these the mediterranean or north atlantic. they played a very much an auxiliary role compared 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 instanceshere key information

essentially could not be acted upon for fear of of revealing that that the allies had cracked example. the british were so concerned that a lot of this key intelligence might be leaked that in one instance, an american very enthusiastic american cap a german submarine in on the high seas, and harbor in in essentially i did. you know, this is amazing. and the british were horrified because, of course, if there was any german observer present, they would know that a submarine had been might essentially change their their or change their entire communication systems. so they basically told the americans to, you know, guy under control of punish this poor captain who'd done such a brave, maybe witho realizing that he was in danger of compromising part. 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 asia, yes. so there are some german and japanese vessels operating in the indian ocean and there are there is a very limited exchange between german and japanese forces where german submarines or japanese submarines actually transmitting back and forth, carrying technology plans. or in some instances the germans were even loading up submarines with rubber when they got japanese ports, sailing all the way back some exchange but very little÷' coordinated planning between the two. really no coo anning though. again, technology skill exchanges and some some kind of help each r sea by exchanging information. bucoordination. all right. i think that about does it for us. i will you all on monday have a great weekend.

madam president, 100 years ago is week a legend was born. 100 years ago the champions of religious freedom refused to back down in the face of intolerance and hate. 100 years ago today, madam president, the university of notre dame earned the irish. on may 17 1924 thousands of members of the indiana chapter of the ku klux klan gathered in south bend indiana, rally, a rally called by their leader t.c. stevenson. the target that day for their despicable and misguided message of true americani catholic institution of the

university of notre dame. the young men who attended the university in the holy cross priest who taught at it: in thehat preceded that day the kkk watched despair as coach newt rock ni barn stormed across the country winning praise for their fighting spirit in the university. madam president, we can't forget that at the time catholics were a major target for the kkk in themidwest. and notre dame's success off and on the field an affront to the false message of superiority. the gathered outside the golden dome for a parades, speeches and dances and no small amount of overtly violent intimidation. you see, they weren't used to anyone standing up to them. they weren't expecting anyone to

stand up to them. and little did they know that the irish catholic student body across the street had being intimidated. little did they know that the stud animated that the university president, father matthew walsh, a world war i veteran had been trying in vain to tell his students to stay safe and shelter in the school. little did the kkk know that on that day the intended aspersion that the student body co-opted as their preferred nickname the fighting irish,ut to reach a national as the story goes no doubt colored with some apocryphal additions the years the klan arriving in south bend and hundreds of students marched outthem. at first the students almost playfully offered to assist the klansmen in finding lonling and lodging and food sometimes leading them down alleys other times back out of

town. when one kkk leader became wise to the ruse and pointed a pistol at a student who had intended to pull down the unsacred cross of lights hung in a downtown third floor wiwell as they say, all hell broke loose. klansmen that chose to fight quickly met their m scrambled out of town. students grabbed produce, potatoes from a local vegetable stand and hurled them at the cross, taking out all but the uppermost bulb. at that very momentá9 legendary four horseman quarterback harry threw potato 40 feet in the air bulb successfully darkening the last unholy later the rest of the klansmen were run out of town tails between their legs. a subsequent exchange the next day led to another route by

running the record to two and against the klansmen that weekend. in describing the takedown of the most vaunted kkk chapter in the country several newspapers seized on the fighting irish moniker that had previously only been applied to the football team. if you're interested in more details about that tefafu weekend, notre dame alum todd tucker wrote a book entitled notre dame vs. the the one that took place in south bend in historical inflection points. in early 1924 intolerance and hatred were on the rise in the country not just in indiana, but from coast to coast. for many it was easier to give in to the fear of an uncertain future than to work to build a better community. but indiana and tsoon to turn a corner in the timing -- ande been more poetic.

rockney, stoldrey and the would pull off a perfect season in route to the 1924 national championship. and the indiana chapter, the kkk would quickly fizzle after the rape and m conviction of its leader d.c. next year. as for the university itself and itsnt body it would be three more years b reluctantly give in to the wave that started that may day in 1924 and officialize the nickname the fighting irish. no mistake, madam president, it was 100 years ago this week in