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WW II: The Second Battle of the Atlantic
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WW II: The Second Battle of the Atlantic |
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"Be hard. Think of the fact that the enemy in his bombing attack on German towns has no regard for women and children." Grand Admirl Karl Dönitz (1891-1980) Corollary to Special Order 142 (September 1942) Quoted in: 400 Years of Submarines (PBS) |
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"Germany was never prepared for a naval war against England ... A realistic policy would have given Germany a thousand U-boats at the beginning." Grand Admirl Karl Dönitz (1891-1980) Essay on the War at Sea United Nations: September 24, 1945 |
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"The only thing that ever really frightened me during the War was the U-boat peril."
Winston Churchill Their Finest Hour (1949) |
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"Roosevelt 'had said that he would wage war, but not declare it, and that he would become more and more provocative.'" Winston Churchill Reporting to his cabinet after the Atlantic Conference (August 19, 1941) Quoted by Warren Kimball, "Franklin D. Roosevelt and World War II" Presidential Studies Quarterly, March 1, 2004 |
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Lesson Objectives
• Understand the magnitude and significance of the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. • Understand the degree of British dependence on maritime lines of communication. • Describe U.S. participation in the Battle of the Atlantic prior to December 1941. • Describe and anlayze the strategy, tactics and technology used by both sides in the Battle of the Atlantic. • Understand the importance of code breaking in the Atlantic war. |
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Study Guides
• What was the objective of Germany in the Battle of the Atlantic? • What might have been the consequences if Germany had succeeded in attaining this objective? • What were the three phases of the Allied strategy for the Battle of the Atlantic? • What resource allocation issues did Germany and Great Britain face that impacted the Battle of the Atlantic? • What tactics did the Germans and British use in the Atlantic war? How did these tactics change with time? How did technology influence these tactics? • What were "The Happy Times"? • What role did the U.S. play in the Battle of the Atlantic prior to December 1941? • Describe the significance of signals intelligence in the Battle of the Atlantic. • What ultimately turned the tide for the Allies in the Atlantic? |
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Assignment
Readings: "America Prepares For War" Ralph Zuljan OnWar.com This is a specific chronology of events involving the United States prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. "Victory At Sea" David M. Kennedy The Atlantic Monthly, March 1999 • READ: pp. 68-72 ("Battle of the Atlantic" down to "Leyte Gulf ...") Chronology of Submarine War: 1939-1945 Brayton Harris 400 Years of Subs Public Broadcasting System Battle of the Atlantic The Mariners Museum, Newport News, VA
The Capture of U-505 Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) "Karl Dönitz: Interwar Years" Wikipedia
Tactics in the Battle of the Atlantic:
"The Battle of the Atlantic" (defensive tactics simulation) World Wars: World War Two BBC "Find the U-505" (offensive hunter-killer tactics simulation) Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) Supplemental Resources: Decoding Nazi Secrets Nova, PBS, 9 Nov 1999 • This site includes technical discussion of techniques of code breaking and the operation of the Enigma machine. The Battle of the Atlantic The Imperial War Museum
"Operation Drumbeat" Gudmundur Helgason U-boat.net "U.S. Merchant Shipping and the British Import Crisis" Richard M. Leighton Command Decisions, pp. 199-254 Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed Washington:Department of the Army, Center of Military History, 2000 The Defeat of the German U-boats: The Battle of the Atlantic David Syrett Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1994 (This is a NetLibrary e-book that requires registration for Georgia Tech users) Enigma: The Battle for the Code Hugh Sebag-Montefiore New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001 (This is a NetLibrary e-book that requires registration for Georgia Tech users) |
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