Armed Guards were the U.S. Navy sailors assigned to the gun crews aboard the Merchant vessels. It became a practice when guns were placed on these ships, which was considered illegal by the laws of war between the wars.
One doesn't have "a beer" with Admiral Karl. For him, it's ersatz coffee and (drum roll please) Doenitz. I'll let myself out through the scuttling hatch.
Dr. Symonds is one of my favorite historians, but he should have mentioned that the escorts that defeated the U-boats were primarily British and Canadian.
As to the idea that Stalin "was not entirely wrong" about the Allies delivering insufficient supplies to the NAZIs and the War in the West was insufficient, it needs to be mentioned that for much of the first 2 years of the War, Stalin was a Hitler ally (1939-41). In addition, the reason that the Allies had a limited ability to open a Western Front was that Stalin had helped Hitler destroy the French Army (1940). As a NAZI ally, the Soviet Union delivered vast quantities of oil and other strategic materials to the NAZU war machine.
@@phillydelphia8760 Absolutely correct. The NAZIs and Soviets were allies (1939-41). The German offenses in 1940 were heavily dependent on Soviet oil, copper, and other material.
I wish I had listened to this talk before watching Greyhound. I am 31 years old and have been a long time - avid consumer of WWII knowledge. Great presentation!
It was not only the US building Escorts as well. This talk is, obviously directed at a US audience so I understand the bias towards the US. Thus this is not a criticism. Only broadening the outlook somewhat. On to the Escorts, Britain and Canada built considerable numbers of dedicated Escort vessels. perhaps the most famous, at least in the UK is the Flower Class Corvette. This was actually a pre war design, based on the hull of a Whaling ship. The idea was that it being based on a commercial hull meant it could be built in smaller commercial yards that built fishing trawlers and the like, so freeing up the larger yards for larger ships, like Destroyers, destroyer escorts, Frigates and the like. Between them the UK and Canada built 294 Flower Class. If anything they were even MORE uncomfortable to serve on than the US Destroyer Escorts. They had a tendency to roll and pitch alarmingly, though their seakeeping was actually very good. One popular joke at the time had a Flower Class rolling on a patch of dew (they had very shallow draughts, part of the reason they rolled so heavily). The Flowers were designed to stay with the convoys, they were slow, even for Escort ships. For more proactive ASW ships the British relied on their frigates, ships like the River Class, of which 151 were built, and the later war Loch Class (28 built but 50 were cancelled near the end of the war in Europe). These were not the only British or Canadian designed purpose built escort ships, the Flowers and Rivers were built in the largest numbers, but other Corvette and Frigate Classes, as well as Sloops, were built in smaller numbers. So while not to the extent of the US, and while their Escorts tended to be somewhat smaller than the US Destroyer Escorts, the British and Canadians still built significant numbers of them, numbering in the hundreds of completed hulls. Also, hedgehog *was* a British invention, so we get to name it :). Ironically enough its initial design did not come out of the Navy, but out of SOE. It took some serious development though, if I remember right getting the pattern to splash right was one of the biggest challenges behind the system. Hedgehog was of course replaced by Squid, which was a superior delivery system in most respects, and had the further advantage of being simpler!!!
United States Navy armed guard was not any form of police force. All merchant ships carried various-sized guns for self-defense during the the war. These guns were manned by navel Crews known as the armed guard.
I recommend the movie " The Cruel Sea ". A depiction of life on a Flower-class Corvette. It is a tour de force on the battle of the Atlantic. I agree it should be described as a campaign not a battle.
My father was a veteran of the Battle of The Atlantic- he served on HMCS Moosejaw, HMCS Saskatoon and HMCS Huntsville. Huntsville got a shared kill of a U-Boat in the Irish Sea- dad was one of the men detailed to pick up evidence. Flotsam and body parts, mostly. There were important reasons as to why the Allied prevailed but the most important one was that the British knew that they were in the fight of their lives. The Germans were in the fight of their lives but failed to realise it at the high command. Dad told me a story about how his ship chased a U-Boat but the German outran them on the surface, which the crew found particularly frustrating.
It was a group effort. Unspoken, many escorts and landing craft were crewed by US Coast Guard sailors. Additionally, Merchant Marine sailors put their lives on the line every time they boarded an outbound ship. In my view, the war at sea was a determined effort to make marine insurance so expensive that trade would collapse. If Lloyd's, for instance, felt compelled to raise its rates beyond which that the carriers felt they could afford . . . the whole of the continent would have become an aggressive balance to the British Empire System so long in place. Napoleon's dream made reality.
About 50 years ago the BBC showed a series called the Battle of the Atlantic on television. Possibly even longer ago. There was no mention of any decoding devices that I remember.
Yes vert good thanks but allow to disagree on specifically on the contribution of the town class destroyers as they were a very welcome contribution a few of them sank a U-boat as well.
No. I do not want to study your forehead, nor see your face - especially the glaring reflection of lights from your glasses. Show illustrations or photos pertinent to the text. Please.
