Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Wars and ConflictsΒ  permalink

Blockade WW2

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by vesturiiis (U13688567) on Sunday, 4th April 2010

  Many stories of WW2
  
  refer to Great Britain coming within weeks of collapsing due to the U Boat effort. How true is this and were systems in place that at least the people would not be starved out, is the country self sustaining and would the military effort develop gradually even though convoys suffered horrendous losses???

  Link to this forum: Blockade WW2

  Report message1

• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 4th April 2010

  vesturiiis
  
  The UK was not self-sustaining by 1939 (for instance, 90% of butter came from Denmark)and could not be made so, so the UK was always vulnerable to blockade.
  
  The "weeks from starvation" stories over-dramatise the situation. Central planners worked on the basis that to ensure a smooth distribution of goods, there needed to be at least four weeks reserves in the country at any one time. There were occasions that this level of reserves was approached, but that did not actually mean four weeks to starvation.
  
  However, shipping was not just used for food imports, but for munitions and raw materials to produce weaponry. Until the USA actually entered the war, the British government was acutely aware that to ensure continued support from the Roosevelt Administration, Britain had to be seen to be maintaining military operations.
  
  If losses of shipping had meant concentrating on food supplies and cutting back military production, US support would have dwindled (the isolationist tendency would have been strengthened in its argument that Britain was defeated). Without US material, the war could not have been continued and Britain would have been forced to seek terms.
  
  Once the USA was in the war, there was no longer a risk of this. But had the U-Boat campaign in 1942 been even more successful than it was, it could have delayed the military build-up for the invasion of Europe, and even allowed the "Japan First" lobby (a.k.a. the USN) to prevail, thus chnaging the strategic conduct of the war.
  
  LW

  Link to this forum: Blockade WW2

  Report message2

• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Sunday, 4th April 2010

  The problem Britain also faced in the winter of 1940-1, especially under the "cash-and-carry" provisions of the Neutrality Act, was bankruptcy and simply being unable to afford the imports not only of armaments but also of raw materials such as oil, rubber, steel and timber needed to carry on the war effort as well as food to keep the population alive.
  
  This resulted in a "fire sale" of British overseas assets and investments, particularly in the US (which contributed to the recurrent balance-of-payments crises the British economy suffered for over 30 years after the end of the war) and the transport of the whole of the UK's gold reserve from South Africa to the US in December 1940 as collateral for US credits.
  
  This problem was resolved by the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in the US in March 1941 thus removing the possibility of accountancy achieving the goal of bringing Britain to the conference table with Hitler where the Luftwaffe had failed.

  Link to this forum: Blockade WW2

  Report message3

• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 4th April 2010

  Allan
  
  Lease-Lend was not directly a response to the Atlantic battle. However, it grew out of the "Destroyers for Bases" deal; the proposal that 50 old USN destroyers be transferred to the RN in return for basing rights on British possessions the Carribean.
  
  The RN rapidly realised that these ships could not be quickly introduced into service, and indeed were not very suitable (they "rolled on blotting paper" - were even worse seakeepers than the Flower-class corvettes). But symbolically, the transfer of such major weapon systems was a clear indication of US preference for the British-led Allies.
  
  The other result of Lease-Lend was that, with such a major investment, the Roosevelt Administration was able to authorise the US Navy to escort convoys to the mid-Ocean point, as you have mentioned on another thread. This inevitably led the USN into conflict with the Kreigsmarine's U-boats. I believe the first USN ship sunk in WWII went down in the Atlantic in July 1941.
  
  The USN's anti-submarine effort was a major operation in the second half of 1941 and a major headache for Doenitz. The irony is that Admiral King withdrew all his escorts after the attack on Pearl Harbor, leaving a mere five US Coast Guard cutters (the equivalent of RN sloops) in the Atlantic.
  
  LW

  Link to this forum: Blockade WW2

  Report message4

• Message 5

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Sunday, 4th April 2010

  The fears of WWII were strongly influenced by the experience in WWI. In April 1917 Britain faced a major supply crisis due to the (re)introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans. Shipping losses ran up to 25% of all ships inbound to Britain, and indeed the country came to within a few weeks of running out of food. (The crisis was overcome by the introduction of convoys.)
  
  The experience continued to haunt naval planners in 1939-1943, although in reality the situation was never as bad as in 1917. The situation was worrying, especially in early 1943. But although the alarm levels were reached, these had been deliberately set relatively high. What British planners regarded as an dangerously low fuel stock, for example, still amounted to a lot more fuel than the Germans had ever held in their own stocks.
  
  Doenitz recognized the Battle of the Atlantic for what it was, a tonnage battle: The question was whether German submarines managed to sink a larger shipping tonnage than Allied shipyards could build. Only in a few months did they succeed to do this. Germany had started the war with a small submarine fleet, and its initial expansion was slow, because Hitler had gambled on a short war and because a lot of the resources available for naval construction was directed towards surface ships. German submarine production did get a big boost in late 1942, but then the increase in numbers was offset by improvements in Allied tactics and technology.
  
  

  Link to this forum: Blockade WW2

  Report message5

• Message 6

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Sunday, 4th April 2010

  MM
  
  Agreed. One of the contributing factors to winning the tonnage war was the development of the prefabricated Liberty ship, which concept was designed by the Admiralty, in the knowledge that British shipyards could not produce them, but US shipyards (and as it turned out not just shipyards) probably could.
  
  The escort carriers were another aspect of this.
  
  Cheers
  
  LW

  Link to this forum: Blockade WW2

  Report message6

Back to top