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 tofirst 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 oin improvization affect its ultimateutand third, why did the allies ultimately win the battle of the atlantic and the axis lose? what key decisions ended up resulting in that outcome outcome? now, before we jump into the narrative, i want to just indicate for the stakes of the battle atlantic, the firstreason the battle of the atlantic was so significant was. c operational most major operations of the second world war would be determined by the amount of transportation available to, the allies at sea, and the ability of them to safely convey troops munitions and materiel to

different battlefields across globe. transportation was the key bottleneck in many the strategic decisions facing the allied leaders? if weren't enough ships to safely bring men and their weapons to a given theater, the operation have to be cceled regardless. any other factor. and ofunited states and great britain were separated by bodies of water from all of the battlefields. they would be contesting 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 openi of th this would require the buildup of enormous in great britain itself. in other words, if the could control the seas particularly atlantic, millions of ameand, prepare for the invasion of continental. the second critical element a critical outcome upon which battle of the atlantic which be

dee atlantic, was the survival of great britain itself. the grttparticularly american entry into the war, had been that they could starve great into submission. after all, great britain aisland. it was not self-sufficient in food production. the churchill cabinet calculated that great britain required ro tons of imports a year just to survive, just to feed its own people and keep its factories running. beeven before american entry into the war, lend-lease proved a particularly critical part of those british. remember roosevelt had declared that the united states would be the arsenal of democracy, that it would the world from, its factonomic surplus weapons, tanks all of the allied countries, and that this would be a contribution, the war. but american food industrial goods, weapons systems and even soldiers could not the war unless they could actually get

to the places they needed to go. and you get some sense from this map how global lend-lease would become. now, lend-lease always prioritized great britain from its end sectionmarch of 1941, but also grew critical to the well. by the end of the war, lend-leaworth of food to the entire red army as forces. over 400,000 tanks and cars that would allow the red army to go on the offensive. in the summer effects. we'll talk about in a few weeks. by 1945, total american aid shipments amount. $700 billion in contemporary dollars. roughly 10% of the entire u.s. war effort was directedes overseas. and again, without control of thell of that american economic power could not be leveraged towards final victory. the stakes are thus very high. when we begin thinking about the battle of the.

strategy when the war began in europe? in september 1939? well, the german navy was largely unprepared for the conflict. admiral rader, who was commanding the german navy and had commanded the german navy since, 1928, was in many ways an man in his strategic, tactical views. believ ships, surface cruisers and. he didn't ne fondness on airplanes or submarines things that would in fact prove decisive in the next conflict. instead, he envisioned vast german navy composed of fast cruisers and battleships. these would sneak into atlantic and blockade the u.k., all part of germany's ze plan. you can see all of the ships were werprogram, but few of these surface ships were actually built before the of war. rader had been told by hitler to bank on having until 1948 to build up german naval power 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 asxñ a result he had not priority his his navy he he hoped to avoid a ns race. the sort of thing that had guaranteed british entry into the first world war. and in part as a result, the german would be by far the weakest of the three main branches of the german military. on the eve of despite utilityf the submarine in the first world war, where it had been used to such devastating effect against allied shipping, germans only 57 submarines in their entire navy at the of the war in part because of hitler and rader's decisions at the star of the war. roughly 30 or fewer of these submone time facing hundreds of merchant ships and dozenupon dozens of escort vessels in the expanse of thec. now, karl dönitz was the commander of the german arm raider's subordinate. he was an ardent nazi. hitler had actually appointed

him as his successor in 1945 upon his o suicide. dönitz was also a micromanager. he tried to control entirbases europe by radio. and we'll talk about of the implications of that. both 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 reall 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 least, to a degree by its leadership on the british. the royal navy had three different admirals who would hold the key position of commander in chief of the western proach responsible for overseeing much of the battle of the atlantic.

the most significant was the one pictured here admiral max. he would serve in this role from 1942 to 1945. he a former submariner himself. he had extensive experience as a submarine captain in the baltic in the first world war, and in 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 of reasons. while the german air force and army had made huge technologic strides in the interwar period. we've talked about the development of8 radio, the improvement of aircraft and armor design. the german nless 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 eng propel it through the water. these engines also charged a wfo while underwater. now by the way, you'll see a 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 underwathese 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 than 24 hours the could run out ofgethe type seven could go down to about 700 feet in underwater. but any lower than that and it

being crushed by 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 limitions in terms of their size. these submarines could only carry abotorpedoes and on board at the best of times only five torpedo tubes from which to launch 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, tho by 42 they were generally quite good. and it should be noted te germans better than the american navy, who had so many torpedo issues. one captain demanded that that theleetpea torpedo by dropping on concrete outside their up, hoisted up on a winch and drop it down. it didn't detonate, giving a gn americans too had had real serious issues with

torpedthat, 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 the here. these were either to sinthat 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 had only a single hull. that is, it was. one long steel cylinder. this was actually difference than the firstldgerman had been designed with two cylinders in ordero robust and make it more likely that if something went wrong with one hull, the submariners have a chance to escape or maneuver, do improved ensign steel design metallurgy, so the german navy thought thisas not going to be a major source of concern. in fact, if we. german submarines in the second world war were more destroyed in combat than there comparative ones in the first

world war, in partthis single hull construction approach, which again save time and cost. now you got some sense from like on board thesetypes it was cramped. it was claustrophobic. as i recently learned from a fact michael jordan's private yacht length and has three times the displacement as one of these type seven submarines. and that yacht is supposed to accommodate only a family of six, whereas one of these type sevens accommodate 50 or more men on lengthy patrol. now you read an excerpt from captain vernon's memoirs of his time sea, and it gives you some sense of what life bo like. cruises could last for months. men rotated bunks. so they got to know other very well sometimes too well. long periods boredom were punctuated by moments of absoluteyou weren't likely to get wounded in the submari drown, be killed when your submarine was.

depths. you can't even when you successfully sunk an enemy. you'd hear it's perhaps in the distance. but as as you fired two torpedoes, usually you had a dive. flee the countermeas in variably brought on from allied forces inside the submarine was often bitterly cold. a wash was saltwater when the ship was running on the surface. sometimes it was extraordinary s. later, modifications improved. some of the comb functionality of the submarines actually resulted in the submarines up with diesel fumes. water poured in with even even greater frequency. the sn on a number of these designs. everything could be and miserable on top o all the other stresses 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 handful of german captains. extremely captains. did the vast vast of the work for the germans thelantic.

they tended to be short lived. however, passive captains tended live longer lives, but had relatively little imctn the course of events. your skipper played a big role in what your life would were the men commanding these german submarines. well, this is silent. auto otto kretschmer, pictured here, probably the most famous of the german submarine. most of these men were very young. 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 in germany, appearing in newsreels getting all sorts attention and rewards. but the trlecommand 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 hadming back.

imagine going to work and having almost a 5050 chance of coming back alive. that was what daily life was like for many of these these sailors. kretschmer pictured here was 28 years old when the 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 navy adversary as he, unlike a number other captains, he tended to follow the rules of war. in fact, some even callegentlemen 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 had passed crushed depthá around 700 feet, just long enough to blow their ballast tanks and skysubmarine disabled kretschmer scuttled his while ordering 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 e would end up commanding nato's naval forces against soviet during the early cold war, the reverse of job he'd had in the war. it should be noted that there were 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 inces were more radical and more willing to violate the rule note we talked about total warwere elements of it that appear even in this battle of theas somewhat more decent, way, shape

or form. it wasn't just the axis that did of t described. so, for instance, two of the first german submarines sunk off thecan after american entry, the war. the submarine surfaced. their crews tried to get off and they were machine gunned in the sailors who were furious at the heavy loss of life that they had inflicted on american shipping. rn to a discussion of tactics. what does it look to fight? e middle. the atlanti7, 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 cld protect them against submarines. convoys would set for their destinhese escort ships. well equipped and prepared for 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 enough ships to assemble, that a convoy could then proceed. they also had to be dispersed when they reached their destination single harbor could not accommodate the vast tonnage of 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 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 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 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 a safe and radio back to germany to its headquarters which was either ind begin alerting other u-boats to converge 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. he atlantic with only one or two really a wolf pack of five or six submarines could absolutely

overwhelm and devastate a convoy very this idea, this tactic of wolf pack requireental vulnerability required long distance coordination by radio, which meant that in theory messages could be intercepted or monitored by the allies and thus allies could be alerted about the location and plans of german at now let's turn to the actual narrative of operations. the naval campaign here, when the second world war began germans, surface cruisers, schrader's beloved surface ships hit british shipping lanes in the south and north atlantic. the graf space sunk nine ships and a fewcaught by the british and scuttled off the coast of argentina. and many other german surface ships had similarly careers at sea submarines. by contrast, their worth quite rapidly and proved much more effective at striking both british shipping and military

targets. the battle of the atlantic would thus proceed over the course of 1939 through 1943, across a vast geography, all way up from the arctic oceann 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 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 ate their efforts in the early opening of the war. while the german submarine fleet would enjoy some advantages. as i noted, had so few operat ships that wolf packs would not really formed. nquest of norway and france which added 20,000 miles of coastline from which german raiders could forayade it possible not only launch large numbers of submarines at thebut coordinate them from the relative proximity of the

made packs possible for the first time, sailing primarily from french ports. the germans would enjoy what they would call the first happy time. deluca has. july 1940 2nd april 1941. in this period, for every submarine lost at sea the 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 ip replace that juncture in the war. 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 warore american entry. and with the submarine threatening to starve the british i submission. but because the the german navy the kriegsmarine had few ships at the start of the war, they were uoff that vital north atlantic.

the british were up adaptations and new defensive technologies 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 as well as the perspective of aough the experiences, one convoy, to give you a sense what this was actually like in. so otto kretschmer, then commanding you 99 would take part in on fiercest naval battles of 1940, when german wolfpack attacked october of940, 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. theyand ain, 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 veryation slow convoy. and as you might 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. o meant it would take three long weeks toe safety of british ports. and that was t 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 vessel, hms scarborough, to police and protect twas small white corvette of about same size but slower than submarines it was supposed to protect against. now the ship captains, this convoy were a mixed bunch. there were commanders fr from norway canada america, great britain,

greece, others. they sometimes orders and sometimes not. they were an 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 itly 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 dispersed. the s.s. travis began to lag behind soon spotted by the u. u 124, it was sunk another straggler. the 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. do you? 48 struck thatwith 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 n38 then surfaced fired a torpedoanother freighter. the following night, u-boats at i unison. they've been following news of the convoy from tcaptains. 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 middle of the convoy. some of these captains would sail into the midst of the convoy surface, fired torpedoes in either directions and mostly attacked at night, which added terror of course for the lives of the crewmen board. but it also aided the u-boats as ships against the horizon, whether by moonlight or starlight. the submarines would quietly

surface be convoy, preventing any warships fr from coming to the aid of damaged vessels. oner, silent auto surfaced in the middle the convoy and fired torpedoes in both rapisinking two ships, including the kri kirk w sank almost immediately drowning. all 36 of its crew. kretschmer, recorded in his naval log, quote, 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 thsink 16 ships in that most of the crew who were submerged would drown. 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 r7terror that these merchant marine crews would experience, even though they were not abandoned ship. certain that they would be sunk as they trailed behind the rest of the convoy on the night of 0october. those remaining ships close enough shore to receive air support and assistance were finally under at least partial protection from great britain. and at t finally began to break off their attacksarrive accompanied by the one warship. two others would later arrive in port heavily. in the just five days at the cost of no casualties, the u-boats had sunk. 20 ships killed 140 sas destroyed 80,000 tons of critical war goods intended for great britain. food and raw materials. i'm going to show you very gives some sense of what these attacks looked like from the classic film dashboard.

and found ons of. something different, the ships it sealed off. give us. items including a 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 i just. time. when up this all died those. wharf here off here nice.john this

is. you. submarine immediately had a dive re seeing the results of its action as a result of the destroyer attack. so how do you fight a menace like this one that can surface without firedodirections, then disappear? the britishegan in particular to try to find 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 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 atechnological arms race where each side 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 in 1940. in response, the british beg use of the hedgehog which was an anti-submarine that would allow its defending vessels to shoot a great deal of distance, a depth charge, rather than simply them over the side. this of course, made u-boats much vulnerable from greater distance. in response, the germans began ier range acoustic torpedoes one that could hone in on th sound of a ship's engine. this, in turn, ledholes, which were essentially pipes that would bang against eachsome away extended out in order to confuse and cause these torpedoes to detonate prematurely. theylso introduced anti-submarine airborne torpedoe rom a great distance and destroy a submarinefelctair. in this challenge in particular success of aerial

innovations at submarines placed aeal of strain on the german. the smallns were extremely vulnerable to attack. they had limited 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 in response. the germans began to pour into developing a submarine that was not actually a submersible like the type seven and other designs that were then inervice that is needing to surface and run on surface at various times because of its engines. bed to build a proper submarine that be able to underwater. the electoral votes these were produced in numbers, but only four would actually enter only two would be produced or actually 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 with which were

confronted. now, the other critical issue in the battle of thintelligence how do you find a convoy in the atlantic? or how do you 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 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. also relatively rapidly after american 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 thgerm themselves used a very complicated code making mach transmit and decrypt the enigmaacright. it used a very complex three rotor system which can letter in over 100,000 ways which they 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 th sources, intelligence began to crack germes the summer of 1 o began to be able to read the codes was the fact that so many of them phrase heil hitler, which gave them a common referencedecryption information from the complete ex-british code making system or code system was codenamed ultra and. it was one of the most closely guarded secrets in the united kingdom. the british were extraordinarily careful 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. thedonuts repeatedly ordered investigations to see if the enigma machine might have been compromised. a four rotor enigma machine was supposed to be even more complicated, was=yd february 1942, though it was so

complex that many radio erman navy were too lazy to use the fourth rotor, which thankfully gave extra time for british intelligence to begin working on crackinghe invention of colossus an early enable the huge number of calculations necessary to permanently crack the four rotor enigma code as a result by, the time enigma was fully cracthe were able to pinpoint the whereabouts of every german submarine and in parr their milk cows. these were submarines that would go out to supplies and refill german submarines at sea. they did not have to come all the way back to the coast. france sinking them essentially it impossible for the germans to conduct a long war at sea, particullygainst america's east coast ports. the attack at sea seven, as i noted, was part happy time for the german. this period would1940, then resume again in december 1941. why december 1941? well with the us entry into the

war, germany suddenly had an almost unlimited number targets at sea, at technical been off limits beforehand, and the amfty reasons, refused to adapt the convoy system a blackout cities that would have prevented ships from being 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 wi fall, germany finally produced enough submarines to maintain rge packs at sea for extended periods in novemberany sank enough that if it had continued that pace,ritain would have in fact run out of food and 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.

uld be lost in the battle. the atlantic in total, most of them in that critical period between 1940 and 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 germans had manufactured had been lost, 70% loss rate. as 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 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-boats at sea and you can see only for a period in 1941 did losses germany inflicted significantly 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 rapidly the germans began to lose a war of attrition. they would culmi black. 1943 with new technical edges at their disposal, and in particular introduction of a lot of aircraft systems valves or a very long range bombers armed with new torpedoes and radar. the air gap would be closed and german submarines 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 becamrmans even to leave their bases france without facing aerial attack doenitz essentially began to privately admit that his had been defeated by this juncture. i want to turn to a few takeaways now in our final. first, a question we have to ask and one i'm not going to answer it. it'll for your discussions on friday is this key question of

whether germany could ever won the battle of the atlantic. two star of great britain. germany the germans concluded they would need to sink 700,000 tons of shipping a 50 and 100 average sized convoy vessels. they only achieved that once. only one month of the entire war. juncture, war was already going against the germans. almost every front, as we we've 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 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 a innovation

that i presented is also a very important one that we see in explaining alliedtory 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 to 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 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 ces were lost with them. but in many instances, those protecting the convoys, even if ld survive to fight again. as a result, the allies would veteran sailors as the war in the atlantic went on.

best, most capable commanders at the same time of the 40,000 germans who served the submarine arm, 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 outcomdes were able to crack each other's codes, but it was only the british and the consistently read their opponents traffic at critical moments in the battles certainly by the spring ofd finally we have to acknowledge economic capacity it doesn't explain everything by itself. all of these other factors were of course, too, but the united states and, great britain produced almost 40 million tons of shipping during the war, and the germans only sunk 20 million tons. in otherd powers were larger at the war's end than at the beginning. this has led some people to assume a sort of economic determinist claim that the germans could never have actually won against great britain alone. perhaps they might have the entry of the war into the uni into

the war of the united states made german or difficult particularly after the survival of t the course of 1942, in the face of theman. i conclude there we have about 5 minutes for q&a. just note that on our next class we'll be discussing mobilizing for total war on monday monday. we hso microphones around. if anyone has any questions questions. so if the germans were able complete like a functional surface, how would that have changed the war but also like due to increasing aircraft carrier primacy. do you think it would been effective throughout the war. yes,w, the z plan, incredibly ambitious. it would have required germanordinate construction of aircraft and tanks and everythi unlikely have happened. hitler 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 be the states was capable of producing so carriers and surface vessels 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 pfowould be if they had concentrated on building submarines and it had enough at stlict 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 o the others to stop the german german 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

greece and norway. all of those merchant marin's oceans became essentially allied property after after the fall of those countries. germans merchant marine is germany's nt most of what was there was was the baltic 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 pla 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 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 seaworthyns were incompetent and they really were just using up resources. so the germans really try to limit their role to observation and reporting things. radio, though they would sink number of vessels in the

mediterranean or north atlantic. they played a very much an auxiliaryn part because germans confined them to that role role. you mentioned that the british concealed cracked the german code. was there any significant consequences to that? yes. so there were a number of instances where key information essentially could noed upon for fear of of revealing that that the allies had cracked the. so give you one example. the british were so concerned that a lot of this key intelligence might be leaked that in one instance, an american very enthusiastic americ captain, captured a german submarine in on the high seas, and he towed it in the harbor in in essentially declaring to the world, look what 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 captured intact with its enigma machine and they might essentially change their their or change their entire communication systems. so they basically told the americans to, you know, get your guy under control of 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 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 technolog plans. or in some instances the germans were even loading up submwhen they got very short on rubber in japanese ports, sailing all the way back to to germany. so there is some exchange but coordinated planning between the two. really no

operational planning though. again, technology skill exchanges and some some kind of help each other in the war at sea by exchanging information. but quite limited in terms of all right. i think that about does it for us. i will you all on monday have a great weekend.