Washington, D.C. • September 11, 1941 Starting on September 1, 1941, 2 years into the Battle of the Atlantic, U.S. warships began escorting convoys of eastbound merchantmen from the North American coast. Convoys departed from Newfoundland, Canada, and ended in the mid-Atlantic at the Danish dependency of Iceland, the halfway point to ports in the British…
Brenner Pass, Austria • March 18, 1940 On this date in 1940 on the Austro-Italian border, German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian strongman Benito Mussolini met for their fifth face-to-face meeting. Hitler had requested the summit in order to force Il Duce (Italian, “the leader”) to take sides within the framework of the so-called Pact of…
Berlin, Germany • December 13, 1941 On this date in 1941, just 2 days after Germany and the U.S. had declared war on each other, U‑boat Adm. Karl Doenitz initiated the Kriegsmarine’s wolf pack campaign against ill-prepared merchant shipping along the Canadian and U.S. eastern and Gulf seaboards. (Wolf packs consisted of a group of…
“The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril,” wrote Winston Churchill in his monumental history of World War II. His fear was shared by many. The North Atlantic was arguably the true front of the war for Europe, and the stakes there were terrifyingly high. Had Germany succeeded in cutting off the supply of American ships, England might not have held out. In a cable to Churchill in May 1941, Franklin Roosevelt put it plainly, “I believe the outcome of this struggle is going to be decided in the Atlantic and unless Hitler can win there he cannot win anywhere in the world in the end.”
Hitler knew what was at stake. The shipping lanes of the Atlantic became the main target of the Kriegsmarine operations early in the war. Between 1940 and 1945 the death rate there was higher than in any other theater of the entire war, for both sides. The enemy was always and constantly there and waiting, lying just over the horizon or lurking beneath the waves. The conflict consisted of not one battle but hundreds, ranging from hours to days in duration, and forcing both sides into constant innovation and white-knuckled, nightmarish second-guessing, trying desperately to gain the advantage of every encounter. Some of this took place in treacherous seas with mountainous swells, in water so cold that survival in it could be counted in mere minutes.
Jonathan Dimbleby’s The Battle of the Atlantic offers a detailed and immersive account of this massive and decisive campaign, placing it within the context of the war as a whole. Dimbleby delves into the politics on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the role of Bletchley Park and the complex and dynamic relationship between America and England. He uses contemporary diaries and letters from leaders and sailors to chilling effect, evoking the lives and experiences of those who fought. This is the definitive account of the longest battle of World War II.
Washington, D.C. • October 17, 1941 Starting on September 1, 1941, two years into the Battle of the Atlantic, U.S. warships began escorting convoys of Britain-bound merchantmen from the North American coast. Convoys departed from Newfoundland off the coast of Canada and ended in the mid-Atlantic at Iceland, a Danish possession whose defense the U.S….
London, England · December 26, 1943 The Scharnhorst was a German capital ship, variously described as a battleship and battlecruiser of the German Kriegsmarine. Launched in 1936 and completed in 1939—her nine‑gun, triple turrets the pride of the Kriegsmarine—the 31,500‑ton ship was sister ship to the Gneisenau. During much of the early part of the…
Washington, D.C. · December 20, 1940 On this date in 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William Knudsen to head a 4‑member board (Office of Production Management, or OPM) to plan for national defense and coordinate aid to Great Britain following Germany’s total blockade of that island nation in mid-August (Battle of the Atlantic). A Danish…
Berlin, Germany · December 13, 1941 On this date in 1941, two days after Germany and the U.S. had declared war on each other, U‑boat Adm. Karl Doenitz initiated the Kriegsmarine’s wolf pack campaign against ill-prepared merchant shipping along the Canadian and U.S. eastern seaboards. (Wolf packs consisted of a group of U‑boats systematically attacking…
Berlin, Germany · November 29, 1939 On this date in 1939, nearly 3 months after the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) overran neighboring Poland, launching World War War II in Europe, German dictator Adolf Hitler issued Fuehrer Directive Number 9, the first of 2 directives on measures his country would have to take to render the…
Washington, D.C. · October 17, 1941 Starting on September 1, 1941, two years into the Battle of the Atlantic, U.S. warships began escorting convoys of Britain-bound merchantmen from the North American coast. Convoys departed from Newfoundland off the coast of Canada and ended in the mid-Atlantic at Iceland. Four days after initiating the escort service,…