1939
SEPTEMBER
1939
German
Codes
- The
British Code & Cipher School moved
to Bletchley Park,
England, the site of its magnificent
successes breaking
the German
Enigma codes through
the
'Ultra' programme .
The school built on the work of Polish
and later French
code-breakers. By April 1940 the first
low level
Luftwaffe codes were being deciphered.
Many months
followed before comparable progress was
made with Naval
codes.
NOVEMBER
1939
Battle
of the
Atlantic - RAF Coastal
Command continued to
patrol for U-boats on passage into the
Atlantic. Equal
priority was now given to attacks, but
the crews were not
trained and lacked effective
anti-submarine bombs.
Magnetic
Mines
- German seaplanes laid the first
magnetic mines off the East Coast and
dropped one
on tidal flats at Shoeburyness in the
Thames Estuary. It
was defused on the 23rd November and
recovered by Lt-Cdr
Ouvry (awarded the George
Cross), a vital step in the
battle against a weapon which was
causing heavy losses
and long shipping delays. In November
alone, 27 ships of
121,000 tons were sunk and for a time
the Thames Estuary
was virtually closed to shipping.
1940
MARCH
1940
Merchant
Shipping
War - Since September 1939,
430,000 tons of
shipping had been sent to the bottom by
mines around the
coasts of Britain - a loss rate only
second to U-boats.
Now the Royal Navy slowly countered
magnetic mines with
the introduction of ship-degaussing and
'LL' minesweeping gear. Although mines,
contact, magnetic and
later acoustic remained a threat
throughout the war, they
never again represented the danger of
the first few
months. Later in the year, fast, heavily
armed and
efficient diesel-engined German E-boats
commenced attacks in coastal waters.
(Enemy
or E-boat was the English term for
German motor torpedo
boats or S-boats - "Schnell" - not to be
confused with the heavily armed torpedo
boats or small
destroyers with their 'T' designation.)
APRIL
1940
German
Codes
- The Bletchley Park Ultra programme
was
now decoding some Luftwaffe
low-level Enigma codes, partly because
of poor German
security procedures. There was little
evidence the
hard-won information influenced the war
over the next two
violent months.
Air
War -
The first mines
were
laid
by RAF Bomber Command off the German and
Danish coasts. The Royal Navy also
continued and developed its minelaying
operations.
JUNE
1940
German
Codes
-
'Ultra' was
now
breaking the Luftwaffe Enigma codes with
some regularity,
and early in the month had its first
major breakthrough
when supporting evidence for the
Knickebein
navigation aid for
bombers was obtained. Army codes were
more secure because
of the greater use of land lines for
communications, and
the Naval ones were not penetrated until
mid-1941.
AUGUST
1940
British
Scientific
Developments - A British
scientific mission
carried to the United States details of
many important
developments. Amongst these was the
recently invented
cavity magnetron, vital for short
wavelength radar and the eventual defeat
of
conventional U-boats. Also for the
close-proximity
fuse which became so
important in the 1945 battles with
Japanese Kamikaze
aircraft. A view of another Type 271
radar "lantern", this time on heavy
cruiser HMS Norfolk (Navy Photos) between
the after funnel and the mainmast.
Battle
of
the Atlantic -
Long range Focke Wulf Kondor bombers
started patrols off the coast of
Ireland from a base near Bordeaux. As
well as spotting
for U-boats they attacked and sank many
ships, and
continued to be a major threat until the
introduction of
ship-borne aircraft in late 1941 started
to counteract
them.
Royal
Navy Codes
- These were changed and for the first
time RN operational
signals were
secure
from German interception and decoding.
It was another
three years before the convoy codes
were
made
safe from the Germans.
SEPTEMBER
1940
United
States
- After months of negotiations, a
"Ships-for-Bases" agreement was
announced on the 5th
for the transfer of 50 old but valuable
US destroyers to
the Royal Navy in exchange for British
bases in
Newfoundland, Bermuda, the West lndies
and British
Guiana. The first of the "flushdeckers"
arrived
in Britain towards the end of the month.
Battle
of the Atlantic - The
German decoding B-Service
was
instrumental in directing U-boats
to convoys, where they held the
advantage as they
manoeuvred on the surface between the
merchantmen and
escorts. Radar
was
urgently
needed
so the escorts could detect the U-boats,
force
them to dive and lose their speed
advantage, before
hunting the submerged submarines with
ASDIC.
NOVEMBER
1940
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Important
steps were taken in the air war when
an RAF Sunderland equipped with 1.5m
wavelength
anti-surface vessel (ASV) radar located
a U-boat. This was the first
success of its kind with a system that
was mainly
effective by day; contact was lost
within two miles of
the target. It was the addition of the
Leigh light that
turned it into a powerful night-time
weapon as well. Now
Coastal Command was using depth charges
instead of ineffective A/S bombs.
1941
JANUARY
1941
Merchant
Shipping
War - Losses due to air
attack and
mines remained a major problem. Aircraft
and E-boats had
now added acoustic mines to the magnetic
and moored contact mines in
their armoury, but they never matched up
to the threat
the magnetic mines represented a year
earlier.
MARCH
1941
Battle
of
the Atlantic - On
6th March 1941, faced with the mortal
threat of the German U-boat and aircraft
offensive in the
Atlantic, Winston Churchill issued his
famous Battle of
the Atlantic directive. Catapult
armed merchantmen (CAM) were to be
fitted out,
merchant ships equipped with AA weapons
as a first
priority, and more Coastal Command
squadrons formed and
fitted with radar.
Port and dockyard congestion was to be
dealt with and the
defence of ports greatly improved.
Merchant
Shipping
War - Royal Navy motor
gun-boats (MGB's) were entering service
to
combat E-boat attacks on East Coast
convoys. Improved motor torpedo boats
(MTBs)
were also being built to
attack German coastal shipping. This
marked the first
step in the building up of Coastal
Forces.
Battle
of Cape Matapan
- As
ships of the
Mediterranean Fleet covered troop
movements to Greece, 'Ultra'
intelligence
was
received
reporting the sailing of an Italian
battlefleet with one
battleship, six heavy and two light
cruisers plus
destroyers to attack the convoy routes.
In the battle
that followed, Italian battleship
"Vittorio
Veneto"
was
damaged
and heavy cruisers "FIUME",
"ZARA","POLA" and destroyers "ALFIERI"
and "CARDUCCI" sunk for the loss of one
Royal
Navy
aircraft.
APRIL
1941
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Over the
next few months a number of long awaited
ship types and weapons started to be
introduced. These
contributed significantly to the
eventual defeat of the
U-boat: (1) The first Auxiliary Fighter
Catapult Ships flying the White
Ensign and
equipped with a single 'one-way'
Hurricane were ready in
April 1941. In May a Hurricane was
successfully launched
from a Red Ensign Catapult Armed
Merchantman (CAM). CAM-ships were
eventually
superseded in 1943 by Merchant Aircraft
Carriers (MACs) - merchantmen with full
flightdecks, but sailing under the Red
Ensign and also
carrying oil or grain. (2) The final
step in the
introduction of ship-borne aircraft into
the Battle of
the Atlantic came in June when the first
escort carrier
was
ready
for service. HMS Audacity,
converted from a German prize, had a
short life, but
proved the great value of these vessels.
(3) New
scientific developments also started to
play their part.
In May the first high definition, 10cm
radar (Type
271) was
installed in a corvette. Later
still, high
frequency, direction finding
(HF/DF or 'Huff-Duff')
was
introduced to supplement the work
of the shore stations.
MAY
1941
Capture
of "U.110" and the
German Enigma - South
of Iceland, "U.110" attacked
Liverpool-out convoy OB318. Blown to the
surface by depth
charges from corvette "Aubretia" on the
9th,
"U-110's" crew abandoned ship, but she
failed
to go down. A boarding party from
destroyer
"Bulldog", led by Sub-Lt Balme, managed
to get
aboard. In a matter of hours they
transferred to safety
"U-110's" entire Enigma package - coding
machine,
code books, rotor settings and charts.
The destroyer
"Broadway" stood by during this
hazardous
operation. Two days later "U-110" sank
on tow to Iceland, knowledge
of her capture having been withheld from
the crew. The
priceless Enigma material represented
one of the greatest
intelligence coup ever and a major naval
victory in its
own right.
"U-110's"
capture was far and away the most
successful of the
attempts to capture Enigma codes. In
the March 1941 raid
on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands,
spare coding rotors were found. Then
two days before
the "U-110" triumph, a cruiser force
had tried
to capture the weather trawler
"Munchen" off
Iceland. At the end of the coming June
a similar
operation was mounted against the
"Lauenberg".
In both cases useful papers
were
taken
but the real breakthrough only came
with
"U-110". Included with the material
captured
were all rotor settings until the end
of June 1941. A
number of codes were used with Enigma.
The U-boat one was
'Hydra', also used by all ships in
European waters. From
the end of June, Bletchley Park was
able to decipher
'Hydra' right through until the end of
the war.
Unfortunately the U-boats moved off
this version to the
new 'Triton' in February 1942. The big
ship 'Neptun' and
Mediterranean 'Sud' and 'Medusa' codes
were also soon
broken.
JUNE
1941
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Following
the capture of the “U-100” Enigma
material, the Royal Navy tracked
down the supply ships already in
position to support the
"Bismarck" as well as other raiders and
U-boats.
JULY
1941
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Air
cover from
Ireland, Iceland and Newfoundland
was improving, but RAF Coastal Command
lacked the long-range aircraft to cover
the mid-Atlantic gap. It
was in this area, some 800 miles long
the U-boats were
now concentrating. Between January and
June 1941, North
Atlantic merchant shipping losses had
averaged 300,000
tons per month. From July to December
1941 they were
considerably down at an average level of
104,000 tons.
The reasons were varied - evasive convoy
routing and more
effective aircraft deployment from the
'Ultra’ work, introduction of radars and
high frequency direction finding
(HF/DF), the availability of more
escorts, and continuous escort.
Operational
research or
"OR" (Operations research in the US)
using the
simplest of mathematical techniques made
great
contributions to the analysis of more
effective convoy
sizes, escort numbers, U-boat search
techniques,
depth
charge
patterns and settings etc.
SEPTEMBER
1941
Battle
of the Atlantic -
Escort
carrier
Audacity
(right - CyberHeritage. No
enlargement) sailed with
UK/Gibraltar convoy
OG74. Her American-built Martlet
fighters shot down the first Kondor to
fall
victim to an escort carrier, but U-boats
still managed to
sink five merchantmen. With major new
U-boat construction
programmes, the
increased number of submarines available
to Adm Doenitz
(approaching 200 with 30 operational)
allowed him to
establish patrol lines in the Atlantic.
NOVEMBER
1941
Battle
of
the Atlantic - RAF aircraft
of Coastal
Command were now flying regular patrols
in the Bay of
Biscay equipped with effective airborne
depth
charges and the long wavelength
ASV radar. The first
success was on the 30th by a Whitley of
No 502 Squadron. "U-206" on passage to
the Mediterranean
was detected and sunk
DECEMBER
1941
Underwater
Warfare
- Three
Italian human torpedoes launched
from submarine “Scire” (Cdr Borghese)
penetrated Alexandria harbour. Their
charges badly
damaged battleships
Queen
Elizabeth
with Adm
Cunningham on board and
Valiant.
They both
settled to the bottom and the
Mediterranean Fleet battle
squadron ceased to exist. As
the Imperial Japanese Navy went to war,
they introduced the Allies to
a secret and powerful weapon in the 24in
Long lance torpedo, with its far heavier
warhead and
range than any other Navy's.
1942
JANUARY
1942
Battle
of the Atlantic - On
the weapons
front, the
forward-firing
Hedgehog
(right, on frigate HMS Parret - Paul
& Maurice Whiteing. No
enlargement) with its 24
A/S mortar bombs started to enter RN
service. Its first
success did not come until late in the
1942.
FEBRUARY
1942
Battle
of
the Atlantic - The
Royal Navy suffered a major setback when
U-boats in the Atlantic changed from the
Enigma 'Hydra' code to 'Triton'. This
was
not broken until December 1942 - a ten
month delay. But
all was not lost as 'Hydra' was still
used in European
waters. This, together with signals
traffic analysis and the vast amount of
experience
built up to date, meant that remarkably
accurate pictures
could be drawn of U-boat operations and
intentions.
Bruneval
Raid
- Commandos carried out a raid on
Bruneval in northern
France to capture German radar
equipment. They were lifted off by Royal
Navy coastal
forces.
APRIL
1942
Battle
of
the Atlantic -
"U-252" attacked
UK/Gibraltar convoy OG82 southwest of
Ireland and was sunk by sloop "Stork"
and
corvette "Vetch" of the 36th EG (Cdr
Walker) on
the 4th. This was one of the first
successful attacks
using
10cm Type 271 radar.
From now on the new radar and HF/DF
played an increasing
part in the sinking of U-boats.
MAY
1942
Battle
of
the Atlantic - U-boat
strength approached 300 with over 100
operational. A fairly complete convoy
system was being
introduced off the US east coast from
Florida north, but
the submarines were now concentrating in
the Caribbean
and Gulf of Mexico. They could now spend
more time on
station assisted by 'Milchcow' supply
boats. The result was that Allied losses
continued at a high rate, especially
among tankers.
JUNE
1942
Battle
of
the Atlantic - In the first
six months of
1942, submarines
worldwide had sunk 585 ships of over
3,000,000 tons,
mostly in the Atlantic. At the same time
the 108 new U-boats entering service far
outweighed
the 13 sunk in the Atlantic in this
period.
Battle
of
Midway -
On the 3rd, Dutch Harbor, close to
Alaska, was attacked
from two Japanese light carriers. But
the main battle was
far to the south off Midway between the
carrier aircraft
of both sides. On the 4th/5th in the
close run battle,
all four Japanese carriers - "AKAGI",
"HIRYU", "KAGA" and "SORYU" went down.
"YORKTOWN"
was
badly damaged and finished off by a
Japanese submarine on the 7th. The
Japanese forces
retreated, Midway spared, and the Allies
had their first
major strategic victory of World War 2.
The American
Navy's successful dispositions were
helped by the
breaking of the Japanese naval codes
AUGUST
1942
Battle
of
the Atlantic - For some
time now aircraft of RAF Coastal Command
had used the Leigh light searchlight in
conjunction with ASV radar to illuminate
and attack U-boats at night on the
surface. The Germans
now introduced the Metox detector which
enabled U-boats to pick up the 1.5m
wavelength transmissions of the existing
ASV sets in time
for them to submerge. They thus moved
one step ahead of
the Allies in the scientific war. The
RAF's important Bay
of Biscay patrols lost effectiveness
accordingly.
OCTOBER
1942
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Losses
continued high in the North Atlantic,
many in the air-gaps on the
transatlantic routes which
aircraft could not reach from
Newfoundland, Iceland or
Northern Ireland. Apart from escort
carriers, more very long range
(VLR) aircraft
were
needed
by RAF Coastal Command. Only No 120
squadron was equipped
with the VLR
B-24 Liberators. In
October there
were nearly 200
operational U-boats out of a total of
365. German losses
were increasing as the effectiveness of
Allied air and
sea escorts and patrols improved, but
nowhere near enough
to offset new U-boat construction.
DECEMBER
1942
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Through
massive construction programmes on both
sides of the Atlantic, the Allies could
deploy 450 escort vessels of all types
against the U-boats,
a large number but still not enough to
curb the menace
and go over to the offensive. In
December the Royal Navy
and its Allies regained an old advantage
when after a
10-month gap, the "Ultra" programme
broke the U-boat 'Triton' code
used for Atlantic operations.
1943
JANUARY
1943
Air
War - RAF Bomber Command by
night and
increasingly the USAAF by day mounted a
growing attack on
Germany and occupied Europe. As agreed
at the Casablanca
Conference, U-boat bases and their
production centres would be major
targets in 1943. Yet
in the first six months, not one U-boat
was destroyed in
air-raids and the construction
programmes were hardly
affected. Throughout the war not one
U-boat was lost in
the incredibly strong, reinforced
concrete shelters built by the Germans
at their main
bases.
MARCH
1943
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Throughout
the war a large proportion of the losses
due to U-boats were among independently
routed
merchantmen and stragglers from convoys,
but in March
1943 the Germans came close to
overwhelming well escorted
convoys. Again the German B-Service
was
responsible for providing Doenitz'
packs with accurate convoy details and
routeing. These
losses took place at another turning
point in the secret
war around the Enigma codes. Early in
the month the U-boats changed
from three-rotor to the far more complex
four-rotor
'Triton' code. Yet by month's end this
had been broken by
the men and women of Bletchley Park and
their electromechanical
computers. The Allies'
tremendous advantage was restored. This
came at the same
time as a number of other developments
which together
brought about a complete reversal in the
war against the
U-boats. The first five Royal Navy
support groups with
modern radars, anti-submarine
weapons
and HF/DF
were
released for operation in the North
Atlantic. Two were built around Home
Fleet destroyers,
two around Western Approaches escorts
and one with escort carrier
Biter
(right - Navy Photos). The
mid-Atlantic air gap was about to be
finally closed.
Another major breakthrough was again in
the air war.
Aircraft were being fitted with the 10cm
wavelength
radar which was
undetectable by U-boat Metox receivers.
The new radar and the Leigh light made a
powerful weapon against
surfaced submarines, especially as they
tried to break
out through the Bay of Biscay air
patrols. More VLR aircraft
were
also joining Coastal Command to
extend further the Allies grip on the
convoy routes
throughout their length.
Anti-Shipping
Warfare - Attacks by German
aircraft on Tripoli
harbour sank two supply ships and
damaged escort
destroyer "DERWENT" so badly she was not
fully repaired. This
was the first German success using
circling torpedoes.
APRIL
1943
'The
Man Who Never
Was'- Submarine "Seraph"
released the
body of a supposed Royal Marine officer
into the sea off
Spain. His false identity and papers
helped persuade the Germans that
the next Allied blows would fall on
Sardinia and Greece
as well as Sicily.
Japanese
Navy
- Adm Yamamoto, Commander of the
Japanese Combined Fleet
was killed when his aircraft was
ambushed and shot down
over Bougainville in the northern
Solomons. His travel
plans were known in advance through
decoded intercepts.
Since 1940 the American code-breakers
had been able to read the Japanese
'Purple'
diplomatic and command ciphers.
MAY
1943
The
Dambusters'
Raid - On the night of the
16th/17th, Wg Cdr Guy
Gibson led No 617 Squadron in the famous
raid on the Ruhr
dams. Two dams were breached by Barnes
Wallis'
bouncing bombs, but
the damage to German industry was not
great.
Royal
Navy in the
Pacific - After re-equipping
with American
aircraft and
working-up out of Pearl Harbor, fleet
carrier
Victorious
joined the Third Fleet under Adm
Halsey seven months after a first USN
request was made.
JUNE
1943
Bay
of Biscay
Patrols - Aircraft of Coastal
Command continued
covering U-boat exit routes from western
France and were
joined by surface escort groups covered
by cruisers. At
the same time U-boats were fitted with
heavy AA armament to enable them to
fight their way
out on the surface in groups. U-boat
sinkings went down
as Allied aircraft losses mounted, but
four U-boats were
destroyed including "U-418" to a
rocket-firing RAF Beaufighter.
Battle
of
the Atlantic - The
Royal Navy had finally changed the
British convoy
codes and made them
secure against the work of the German
B-Service. In
contrast, the British 'Ultra' work was
fully integrated
into the Admiralty U-boat Tracking Room,
and an almost
complete picture of German Navy and
U-boat operations was
available. As Allied air and sea forces
grew in strength
and effectiveness, especially through
the use of 10cm
radar and 'Ultra', Adm Doenitz sought
other ways to
regain the initiative. This he was never
able to do,
although right through until the last
day of the war, the
Allies could not relax their efforts,
and continually
introduced new detection systems,
weapons and tactics.
Against
numerous,
well-trained and effectively used
escorts, the day of the
conventional submarine was drawing to a
close. The
Germans placed much faith in the Walther
hydrogen
peroxide boat now
under development, which with its long
underwater
endurance and high speed, could prove a
formidable foe.
It did not get beyond the experimental
stage by war's
end. An interim step on the road towards
the 'true'
submarine started at the end of 1943
with the design and
building of Type XXI ocean
and
XXIII coastal boats. Using the
streamlined hull of the
Walther and high capacity batteries,
their underwater
speed would make them faster than most
escorts.
Fortunately for the Allies they did not
enter service in
numbers until too late in 1945. For now
the Germans had
to rely on the U-boats currently in
service and building.
Total numbers stayed at around the 400
mark for the
remainder of the war, in spite of a 40
boat per month
construction programme,
and various steps were taken to improve
their offensive
and defensive capability. Apart from
extra AA armament, the Gnat acoustic
torpedo was
introduced specifically to combat
the convoy escorts. Its first test came
in September
1943. Before then in July, the
schnorkel, a Dutch development that
allowed
batteries to be recharged at periscope
depth, started
trials. It did not enter general service
until mid-1944,
but then went quite some way to
nullifying the radar of
the air escorts and patrols. Even now
the German Navy was
unaware the Allies were using short
wavelength radar, but
when they did, early in 1944, an
effective German detector
was
shortly
introduced.
JULY
1943
Invasion
of Sicily
- Many
of the troops coming from North Africa
and Malta made the
voyage in
landing ships
and
craft.
As they approached Sicily
in stormy
weather, Allied airborne landings took
place. Sadly, many
of the British gliders
crashed into the sea, partly because of
the weather.
However, on the 10th the troops went
ashore under an
umbrella of aircraft. The new amphibious
DUKWS
(or "Ducks") developed
by the Americans played an important
part in getting the
men and supplies across the beaches
AUGUST
1943
Air
War -
Bay of Biscay
air patrols sank five
U-boats in August and continued to
co-operate with
surface ships. On the 27th, German Do217
aircraft
launched some of the first Hs293
rocket-boosted, glider bombs against
ships of the 1st Escort
Group. To the south of Cape Finisterre,
sloop "EGRET"
was
hit and blew up, and Canadian
destroyer "Athabaskan" damaged.
Aerospace
War
- On the night of the 17th
the RAF inflicted
damage on the German rocket research
establishment at Peenemunde on the
Baltic coast.
SEPTEMBER
1943
Battle
of the Atlantic -
German U-boat wolf-packs returned to the
North Atlantic
armed with Gnat
acoustic torpedoes
to home on and
disable the escorts so they could reach
the merchantmen.
In attacks on UK-out convoys ONS18 and
ON202 the escorts
suffered badly in the Gnat
attacks. In the actions that follow,
destroyer "Escapade"
was
badly damaged by a premature
explosion of her Hedgehog anti-submarine
mortar, but "U-338" was
sunk
by a VLR aircraft of RAF No
120 Squadron using the Allies' 'Fido'
acoustic
torpedo. Fortunately
the Allies had anticipated the
introduction of acoustic
torpedoes and soon put into service
'Foxer' noisemakers, towed astern to
attract the Gnat
away from the vessel. The U-boats did
not repeat their
successes.
Underwater
Warfare - Battleship
"Tirpitz" (right, in a Norwegian
fiord in 1943 - Maritime Quest)
posed such a
threat to Russian convoys and held down
so much of Home
Fleet's strength that almost any
measures to immobilise
her were justified. One attempt was made
in October 1942
when a small Norwegian fishing vessel
"Arthur",
penetrated to within a few miles of the
battleship in Trondheimfiord with
Chariot
human
torpedoes slung underneath. Just
short of the target
they broke away and all the efforts were
in vain. Now it
was the turn of midget
submarines - the X-craft each with
two 2-ton saddle
charges. "Tirpitz"
was
damaged
and out of action for six
months
Italian
Surrender -
As units of the Italian fleet sailed for
Malta,
battleship "ROMA"
was
sunk by a FX1400
radio-controlled bomb
(unpropelled, unlike the Hs293
rocket-boosted,
glider-bomb).
NOVEMBER
1943
Burma
- Under Adm Mountbatten,
Supreme Allied Commander South East
Asia,
Gen Slim's 14th Army prepared for a
major offensive into
northern Burma from the area of Kohima
and lmphal in
India. Throughout the rest of the war,
Adm Mountbatten's
plans to prosecute the campaign even
more vigorously in
South East Asia were continually
frustrated by his lack
of amphibious
capability.
1944
JANUARY
1944
Battle
of
the Atlantic - Over the next
five months U-boat losses were
so heavy that by May 1944, North
Atlantic operations had
virtually ceased. At the same time the
Allies were not so
successful against them as they passed
through the Bay of
Biscay from French bases and the
Northern Transit Area
from Norway. Now equipped with 10cm
radar
detectors the U-boats
only lost five of their number in the
Bay.
Air
War -
RAF and USAAF operations against Germany
and occupied
Europe increased in intensity. Much of
the RAF's efforts
were still directed at Berlin by night,
but both air
forces were now attacking the V-1
buzz-bomb launch sites in northern
France. The recently
introduced long-range P-57 Mustang
fighter allowed the Americans to
continue
daylight bombing, but losses remained
heavy.
FEBRUARY
1944
Anti-Submarine
Warfare - In the Strait of
Gibraltar, USN
Catalina's equipped with the new
magnetic anomaly
detector (MAD) located
"U-761" trying to break in to the
Mediterranean. Destroyers "Anthony" and
"Wishart" of the Gibraltar patrol sank
her.
MARCH
1944
Battle
of
the Atlantic -'Tsetse'
Mosquitos of RAF
Coastal Command armed with new 6-pounder
guns had their first success. On Bay of
Biscay patrol one of them sank "U-976".
MAY
1944
Battle
of
the Atlantic - The
US escort carrier "Block Island"
group was again on patrol in the
Atlantic off the
Canaries and being directed to U-boats
by the work of 'Ultra' and the Admiralty
Tracking
Room. On the 6th her
aircraft and accompanying destroyer
escorts sank "U-66".
Aerospace
War
- A V-2
rocket crashed near
Warsaw and resistance groups managed to
arrange for the
parts to be successfully airlifted to
Britain.
JUNE
1944
Normandy
Invasion - The
Naval Task Force included 4,126
major and minor landing ships and craft
for
initial assault and ferry purposes, all
designed and
constructed over the previous three
years. Other special
projects included:
British
'Mulberry' harbour
project of two
artificial harbours and five
'Gooseberry' breakwaters
with 400 'Mulberry' units totalling 1.5
million tons and
including up to 6,000-ton 'Phoenix'
concrete breakwaters;
160 tugs for towing; 59 old merchantmen
and warships to
be sunk as blockships for the
'Gooseberries'. Also
specially equipped
British vessels for laying PLUTO
- Pipeline Under The Ocean - across the
Channel from the Isle
of Wight to carry petroleum fuel.
Partly
because of
elaborate deception plans, partly
because of poor weather, both
strategic and tactical surprise was
achieved. In spite of
the vast number of warships off the
Normandy beaches and
escorting the follow-up convoys, losses
were
comparatively few, although mines,
especially of the pressure-operated
variety were
troublesome.
Aerospace
War
- On the 13th the first V-1 flying bomb
landed on London at the start of a
three-month campaign against southeast
England. Amongst
the weapons shortly used against them
was Britain's first jet
fighter, the Gloster
Meteor. By then Germany's Me262 jet
fighter-bomber
had
been in action against Allied
bombers.
Merchant
Shipping
War - Until the closing days
of the war, the schnorkel U-boats
operating in UK waters were
especially worrying. When submerged as
invariably they
were, detection from the air was
difficult even with 10cm wavelength
radar, and location
usually had to wait until after they had
attacked.
Battle
of
the Philippine Sea - The Japanese
had prepared for the Marianas
landings, and from the direction of the
Philippines
despatched a strong naval force that
included the two 18.1in-gunned
battleships "Musashi"
and "Yamato".
JULY
1944
Normandy
Invasion
Beaches - Attacks on the
beachhead shipping by
E-boats and small battle units such as
the newly
introduced "Neger" and "Marder" human
torpedoes had limited successes, but
mines
still caused the most damage.
Anti-Submarine
Warfare - "U-333"
was
destroyed to the west of the Scilly
Islands by sloop "Starling" and frigate
"Loch Killin" of the 2nd EG using the
new
Squid.
This marked the first success with the
ahead-throwing A/S
weapon that
fired
three large
mortar bombs.
AUGUST
1944
German
Coastal
Forces Attacks - Coastal
forces and small battle
units continued to attack shipping off
the invasion
beaches, sinking and damaging a number
of vessels in
return for heavy casualties. On the 3rd,
'Hunt' class
escort destroyer "QUORN" on patrol off
the British sector was sunk,
probably by a Linsen explosive motor
boat. On the 9th, old cruiser
Frobisher,
acting as a depot ship for the
British 'Mulberry', was badly damaged by
a Dackel long range
torpedo fired by
E-boats.
SEPTEMBER
1944
Atomic
Bomb
- Far across North America in the
southwest, the massive atomic bomb
programme approached
its climax at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Although
intelligence reports suggested Germany
had made little
progress with nuclear research, the
by-now mainly
American work continued and a B-29
Flying Superfortress bomber unit was
formed to train for the
dropping of this awesome and untried
weapon.
Aerospace
War
- It was only when Canadian First Army
overran the V-1 buzz-bomb sites that
London and the
southeast of England saw the last one
land. By then
nearly 10,000 launchings of the
sub-sonic pilotless
"cruise missile" had inflicted 25,000
dead and
wounded civilian casualties. Then on the
8th the first
supersonic V-2 rocket hit London in a
deadly campaign that lasted
for over six months, and against which
there was no
defence.
NOVEMBER
1944
Destruction
of the
"Tirpitz" - The damaged
"TIRPITZ"
was
finally
destroyed as she lay at
anchor off Tromso, Norway. Lancasters of
Nos 9 and 617
(Dambuster) Squadrons, RAF Bomber
Command using 12,000lb
"block-buster" bombs put paid to the
ship that had tied down the
Home Fleet for so long. After several
hits and near
misses by these over 5 ton bombs, she
turned turtle
trapping nearly 1,000 men inside.
1945
JANUARY
1945
Merchant
Shipping
War - E-boats and small
battle units operating
out of Holland were now joined by
Seehunde midget
submarines. The new
craft enjoyed some success, but mines
remained the
biggest problem for the Allies at sea.
FEBRUARY
1945
Anti-Shipping
Warfare - Attacks by German
explosive
motorboats were
made
on shipping in Split harbour,
Yugoslavia, hitting a flak
landing craft and damaging cruiser
Delhi
laying alongside.
MARCH
1945
Aerospace
War
- As the V-weapon attack on Antwerp
continued, the last V-2 landed
on London on the 27th, by which time
1,000 rockets had
killed and wounded nearly 10,000 people
in southeast
England.
British
Pacific
Fleet - The British Pacific
Fleet was now ready
to join Adm Spruance's Fifth Fleet. It's
main weapon was
of course not the battleships, but the
Seafires and American-made Avengers,
Hellcats
(right, taking off from HMS
Indomitable - Paul
& Maurice Whiteing)
and
Corsairs of the carriers' strike
squadrons.
They started their attacks that day.
APRIL
1945
U-boat
Campaign - "U-1169"
went down off the southeast coast
of Ireland in a deep-laid minefield in
St George's Channel.
End
of the German
Surface Fleet - When Germany
surrendered, only
three cruisers survived. Of these "Prinz
Eugen"
was used in A-bomb trials in the Pacific
and "Leipzig"
scuttled in the North Sea in 1946 loaded
with poison gas
munitions.
Okinawa,
Ryukyu
Islands
- Japanese launched the first
of 10 'kikusui'
(floating chrysanthemum) mass kamikaze
attacks which carried on until June. US
losses in men and ships sunk and damaged
were severe. On
the 6th, British carrier
Illustrious
was
hit.
Damage was slight and she
continued in service.
JULY
1945
Atomic
Bomb -
Late on the 29th after delivering atomic
bomb
components to Tinian,
US cruiser "INDIANAPOLIS"
was
sunk
by a Japanese submarine in the
Philippine Sea.
AUGUST
1945
6th -
B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay", flying
from
Tinian dropped the first atomic bomb on
Hiroshima.
The equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT
killed 80,000
people.
9th
- The second A-bomb was
detonated over Nagasaki and over 40,000
people died.
