The clarifications concerning this place and time are simply invaluable to me. In really just ninety minutes you’ve offered invaluable and cogent insights that hours and hours of reading and viewing never came close to. Thank you all. There have been a few great military movies and videos, I was surprised Das Boot wasn’t mentioned. And, you are so correct as I mature, separate from aging, how everything and everyone got to where they ended up going becomes more and more important to me. As much as I appreciate your presentations I thought this superlative in your excellent series. Thank you again
Just now I discovered this gem looking through your extensive archives Paul. I have always been in awe of what the allied nations were able to accomplish together during this critical WWII campaign. While many mistakes were made in combating the U Boat menace, ultimately they got it right by sharing their knowledge, experience, equipment and technologies to defeat the Kriegsmarine. Great job bringing such an outstanding panel together and leading the discussion with your particular insights and observations. WW2TV is fantastic!
Great Panel Discussion. I came back to watch this after the recent show with just Brian Walter:Turning Points in the Battle of the Atlantic:6-29-2021. This is certainly an under covered part of the war probably for many of the reasons that they discussed. What blew my mind was the size of the German navy and the amount of losses they sustained during WW2 and the point that this was the equivalent of a second front because of the men and material that it required. Fabulous as always.
Great discussion! The different perspectives made this one very interesting and appropriately wide-ranging for a topic as big as the Atlantic Campaign. One other interesting tidbit I'm surprised no one mentioned is that during WWII, the Merchant Marine suffered the highest combat death rate of any US service with 1 in 26 merchant mariners dying in the line of duty, largely of course in the North Atlantic. The vast majority of ships may very well have never suffered a Uboat attack, but the icy cold Atlantic waters and the need for convoys to keep moving instead of turning back to rescue survivors, so as not to make themselves an easy target, meant that survival rates from ships that were hit were terrifyingly low. Also, a shout out to another group of forgotten heroes in this struggle, the US Coast Guard. My great uncle served in a USCG PBY Catalina, hunting Uboats and performing watch and rescue off the East Coast during the height of the second "happy time" (not so happy for our merchant seamen), despite the fact the he didn't even know how to swim! All those guys had a lot of guts and are sadly overlooked for the more glamorous and straightforward aspects of the war, something I'm guilty of as much as any average WWII buff.
I totally missed this discussion but was delighted to play " catch up on it" and found it to be fair, balanced, enjoyable to listen to, and one that could be learned from so "thank you" to all for making it so, I know I will listen to it again. There are more points that I would agree on and was glad to see mentioned - in particular, the focus on the men who took part. From the engine room up in escort vessels and in the merchant men the Atlantic was a cold uncomfortable unrelenting experience often against an unseen enemy and always against a very neutral and unforgiving ocean. Yes the U Boat does seem to have become the focus of much writing - perhaps in recent years "Das Boot" has inspired some of this, certainly, there was a huge propaganda usage of the U Boat Commander look at the Hoffmann and Willrich Postcard output and the newsreel footage for cinema newsreels. (In itself part of a war effort). I would absolutely agree with some of the "myths" and how so little attention and consideration has been given to the Allied naval and airforce input. Mr. Walters makes the valid point that although early losses were severe the Atlantic was not a close-run thing and it was a battle in which the Axis never had victory insight - the window of opportunity was small, it was closing and Germany never possessed the men, naval craft ( surface or submarine) or aircraft to blockade or cut off the USA / Canada from GB. Marc Milner is also spot on do not ignore or underestimate Canada's contribution in terms of Naval or RCAF input - huge respect due to "The Canuks". (WIll finish later). Js
Why are U-boat aces well known, but escort captains less so? Blackbeard and Captain Kidd are famous, the captain who took out the former and the official who captured the latter much less so. Pirates have some sort of mystique, and that seems to have attached to the more successful U-boat captains.
Paul, Britain produced far more than 5 percent of its food. [3:20] They were not self-sufficient but it was over 40 percent. Here the Collingham book ('Taste of War') is a must-read. She says Britain during the war increased wheat production, for example, from 33 to 44 percent. Other crops varied but were far above 5 percent. Britain had a real advantage in that much of its farmland was devoted to high-value production--grazing livestock. Thus there was a great deal of land that could be converted to producing lower value products that created far more food calories, wheat, potatoes, etc. It made for a monotonous diet, but Britain never went hungry.
There are differing figures, I get mine from James Holland who said we exported up to 94% of our goods - including food in 1939. Of course things rose dramatically as the war progressed
@@WW2TV Goods and food are two different things, but even if you are talking about goods, 94 percent is a very high figure. I have a lot of respect for Holland but would like to see precisely what he was talking about.
@@WW2TV I have not researched this. I am just relying on Collingham's book. She gives a higher figure. And by the way, she says British food production increased during the war. Of course, relying on just one source is not a good idea, but I think she is a highly regarded source. Something that would be of interest in this video. She claims that British mismanagement of the ports and railways caused a real, problem perhaps equal to the U-boats. The problem was that the eastern and southern ports could not be used. And that the rail system was oriented north to south. And as the food arrived in the Western ports, this was a problem.
Good show with relevant, quality speakers. Would certainly like to see you delve into some of the angles mentioned in this one but where time prevented going into more detail. Specifically I would highlight Special Intelligence/Ultra and include the mirror success of the Germans breaking the Allied codes. Other points include the evolution of technology from start to end. Finally maybe some views on the impact that the U-boat types XXI and XXIII might have had. That strays into "what if..." but was a scenario that the Allied navies had to plan for.
Well thank you for tye comments. The idea with thus show was to create the interest. All the guests are happy to come back and talk in more detail on a future show
I would agree with what Paul says a very good discussion which covers a number of good points. Thinking of Type XXI and XXIII U Boats their development, potential and move towards service was well known, with much planning training and examination of countermeasures being made to meet them. Type XXI was beset by teething problems and would have presented a challenge but certainly they would have found that the Allies were well prepared to counter them.
Re the question of why the Battle of the Atlantic is less well known, I would not say there was just one significant reason, but Brian Walter pointed out what first came to my mind. By way of contrast, the PTO has a number of distinct events - battles and island campaigns - where the BotA is more amorphous, lasting years and (as another pointed out) having no specific location.
Catching up on some of these older videos. To touch on one of the points, no one really thinks of a "battle" as lasting years. We think in terms of days, maybe weeks. For example, no talks of the western front in WW 1 as a "battle". It's looked at in individual, short term offensives, i.e. Battle of the Somme, Battle of Verdun.
This is a very good discussion, but I think it misses one very important matter. I think your guests are correct that the Battle of the Atlantic was central to the Allied war effort. But in fact, you discuss it in isolation, ignoring the big kahuna--the Ostkrieg. In fact, the War in the West played a major part in the Red Army's victory which the Russians and too many Western authors ignore: 1. It prevented the Germans from importing oil. 2. It enabled the Allies to deliver Lend-Lease Aid. 3. It diverted German industry from providing the Ostheer.the industrial support it needed. It was one reason that the Ostheer was 80 percent unmotorized industry moving East on foot. with horse-drawn carts. (Here the Luftwaddee got even more industrial output, but the Kriegsmarine was important.) It does not take much industry to build a horsecart, it does to build ships.
I would argue that the lack of recognition of the Battle of the Atlantic, west of Ireland, is due to the fact that one name 'Battle of the Atlantic' covers 6 years. Past that what's widely known? Bismarck, Hood, PQ-17, Doenitz, Raeder, and Schanhorst or Tirpitz, thats about it. There is no Monty, no Ike, no Patton, no Harris, no Halsey; in short no named point of focus. Without family/personal involvement its hard to find an initial starting focus unless you're into logistics and just how exciting is logistics anyway
This is great, I've been listening whilst working on a Major Project for my University history class. I sure wish I could get ahold of Marc Milner to exchange e-mails!
Early convoy escorts only weapon was their presence on the water to keep the submarine underwater. Depth Charges were the only offense. Sonar came later.
Regardinf the fascination with U-boats, there's one other significant factor: U-boats had the initiative, and it's far more interesting to the lay reader to read about offensive rather than defensive operations.
Easily agree that the Battle of the Atlantic was the most important theatre in ww2 . Im huge on the importance of the Eastern Front make no mistake about it , but the Atlantic was the supply route not just for Western allies but for Russia too . An example being Canada built 1420 Valentines all but 30 where shipped to the Soviets across the Atlantic .
Winding down I hear from these fellows the idea birth of the concept of saturated Combined Arms. It's going to take a everybody in every branch working together to defeat this very dangerous enemy.
I always thought that not just Battle of Atlantic but entire Allied Naval Struggle against German Navy and Italian Navy (Japanese are a seperate issue since they were dealt with by mostly USN at anther theater) in all of worlds oceans like Indian Ocean , Mediterranean Sea , Red Sea , Caribbean , South Atlantic , Arctic Sea , Norwegian Sea and North Sea etc were main determining factor of the war
why did it take the allies so long to produce the vlr liberator? Information on 120 squadron is hard to get even though terry bullock is a U-boat killing ace? I distinctly recall terry saying they had vlr liberators with a quad 20mm pack on the front instead .05 inch machine guns but this is never mentioned in variant descriptions of the vlr liberator. Did they have a large bladder tank to increase range instead of mid upper and rear turret?
I think one of the problems with the Battle Of The Atlantic is that there are no, and the words are hard to find but, let's say, waypoints, locations, areas of recognition for reference, so it all becomes unrecognisable to Joe Public. ......similar to the tonnages, meaningless as you guys mentioned.
The comment about the convoy battles being battles of a lot of things that DIDN'T happen (paraphrased) hit the nail on the head !!! Kids today would say "boring". One other comment immediately attracted my attention and that was that the Keiegsmarine was the larger naval force and had many more combat ships than everyone else had. It's one thing to have the most weaponry, but it's another to know how to use it in battle. I believe that the German loss can be summarized in two words: Adolph Hitler. His ineptitude was, to me, incomprehensible. We were fortunate that he was NOT assinated early in the war. This is just my opinion but I believe that it contains a thread of truth. Fire away !!! I have thick skin !!!
I think another big contributing factor to the Battle for the Atlantic being "un-sexy" is that there were no big battles. Sure, there's the Hood and the Bismarck. Everybody has heard about those. After that, you have PQ17, and already with that battle, only those who are interested in WW2 will have heard of it. Beyond those two, no single engagement was really crucial, in any sense, if taken on its own (instead of in the context of all other shipments too). So there's not one contained story to tell, like there is with the Battle of the Bulge, or on Guadalcanal. In other words, we want big impressive impactful stories - anecdotal events. But the Battle for the Atlantic was a statistical fight, where 99% of shipping made it through. And that makes it _neurologically_ unappealing for humans...
Why the battle of the Atlantic doesn't get so much attention?. The Corvette and vomit aren't entertaining enough. For those looking for the glory and romance; puking everywhere doesn't cut it.
The codebreakers and the capture of the german code boos annd some Enigma machines did permit the British to increase their progress n many domaines such as Hufduf, better sonar plus a ten centimeter radar wich can be installes in aircrafts and destroters and more.The Germans belived then their Enigma was unbreakable. With the Americans with their mass production in any hardware, buwere the Britisht, we must not forget the lead in detection technology were the British who the leaders.
Reference to the Patton quote , delusional thinking the Red Army would have smashed the western allies in 45 . The iron curtain wouldn't have been 'Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic' it would have been the English Channel .
Regarding the point that the US Navy never engaged in a surface action against the Kreigsmarine the Battle of La Ciotat is worth noting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_La_Ciotat?wprov=sfti1. Granted the ships were previously ships of the Italian and Egyptian navies but there were manned by Germans.
The clarifications concerning this place and time are simply invaluable to me. In really just ninety minutes you’ve offered invaluable and cogent insights that hours and hours of reading and viewing never came close to. Thank you all. There have been a few great military movies and videos, I was surprised Das Boot wasn’t mentioned. And, you are so correct as I mature, separate from aging, how everything and everyone got to where they ended up going becomes more and more important to me. As much as I appreciate your presentations I thought this superlative in your excellent series. Thank you again
Just now I discovered this gem looking through your extensive archives Paul. I have always been in awe of what the allied nations were able to accomplish together during this critical WWII campaign. While many mistakes were made in combating the U Boat menace, ultimately they got it right by sharing their knowledge, experience, equipment and technologies to defeat the Kriegsmarine. Great job bringing such an outstanding panel together and leading the discussion with your particular insights and observations. WW2TV is fantastic!
Great Panel Discussion. I came back to watch this after the recent show with just Brian Walter:Turning Points in the Battle of the Atlantic:6-29-2021. This is certainly an under covered part of the war probably for many of the reasons that they discussed. What blew my mind was the size of the German navy and the amount of losses they sustained during WW2 and the point that this was the equivalent of a second front because of the men and material that it required. Fabulous as always.
Great discussion! The different perspectives made this one very interesting and appropriately wide-ranging for a topic as big as the Atlantic Campaign.
One other interesting tidbit I'm surprised no one mentioned is that during WWII, the Merchant Marine suffered the highest combat death rate of any US service with 1 in 26 merchant mariners dying in the line of duty, largely of course in the North Atlantic.
The vast majority of ships may very well have never suffered a Uboat attack, but the icy cold Atlantic waters and the need for convoys to keep moving instead of turning back to rescue survivors, so as not to make themselves an easy target, meant that survival rates from ships that were hit were terrifyingly low.
Also, a shout out to another group of forgotten heroes in this struggle, the US Coast Guard. My great uncle served in a USCG PBY Catalina, hunting Uboats and performing watch and rescue off the East Coast during the height of the second "happy time" (not so happy for our merchant seamen), despite the fact the he didn't even know how to swim!
All those guys had a lot of guts and are sadly overlooked for the more glamorous and straightforward aspects of the war, something I'm guilty of as much as any average WWII buff.
I totally missed this discussion but was delighted to play " catch up on it" and found it to be fair, balanced, enjoyable to listen to, and one that could be learned from so "thank you" to all for making it so, I know I will listen to it again.
There are more points that I would agree on and was glad to see mentioned - in particular, the focus on the men who took part. From the engine room up in escort vessels and in the merchant men the Atlantic was a cold uncomfortable unrelenting experience often against an unseen enemy and always against a very neutral and unforgiving ocean.
Yes the U Boat does seem to have become the focus of much writing - perhaps in recent years "Das Boot" has inspired some of this, certainly, there was a huge propaganda usage of the U Boat Commander look at the Hoffmann and Willrich Postcard output and the newsreel footage for cinema newsreels. (In itself part of a war effort).
I would absolutely agree with some of the "myths" and how so little attention and consideration has been given to the Allied naval and airforce input. Mr. Walters makes the valid point that although early losses were severe the Atlantic was not a close-run thing and it was a battle in which the Axis never had victory insight - the window of opportunity was small, it was closing and Germany never possessed the men, naval craft ( surface or submarine) or aircraft to blockade or cut off the USA / Canada from GB.
Marc Milner is also spot on do not ignore or underestimate Canada's contribution in terms of Naval or RCAF input - huge respect due to "The Canuks".
(WIll finish later). Js
Why are U-boat aces well known, but escort captains less so? Blackbeard and Captain Kidd are famous, the captain who took out the former and the official who captured the latter much less so. Pirates have some sort of mystique, and that seems to have attached to the more successful U-boat captains.
Wow what a cast of knowledgeable people. Amazing episode.
Brilliant Paul. To you and to your trio of fab guest historians.
A very interesting source of topic for discussion.. 👍
Paul/Gents. Thanks for an enthralling discussion! Very interesting topic!
Bob
To have met milner and woodage at 'we have ways' fest was an absolute pleasure
thank you very much
Paul, Britain produced far more than 5 percent of its food. [3:20] They were not self-sufficient but it was over 40 percent. Here the Collingham book ('Taste of War') is a must-read. She says Britain during the war increased wheat production, for example, from 33 to 44 percent. Other crops varied but were far above 5 percent. Britain had a real advantage in that much of its farmland was devoted to high-value production--grazing livestock. Thus there was a great deal of land that could be converted to producing lower value products that created far more food calories, wheat, potatoes, etc. It made for a monotonous diet, but Britain never went hungry.
There are differing figures, I get mine from James Holland who said we exported up to 94% of our goods - including food in 1939. Of course things rose dramatically as the war progressed
@@WW2TV Goods and food are two different things, but even if you are talking about goods, 94 percent is a very high figure. I have a lot of respect for Holland but would like to see precisely what he was talking about.
@@dennisweidner288 i judt checked some data i have. Opinions vary but between 80% and 90% of food was importex in 1939 so i was a bit out
@@WW2TV I have not researched this. I am just relying on Collingham's book. She gives a higher figure. And by the way, she says British food production increased during the war. Of course, relying on just one source is not a good idea, but I think she is a highly regarded source. Something that would be of interest in this video. She claims that British mismanagement of the ports and railways caused a real, problem perhaps equal to the U-boats. The problem was that the eastern and southern ports could not be used. And that the rail system was oriented north to south. And as the food arrived in the Western ports, this was a problem.
Good show with relevant, quality speakers. Would certainly like to see you delve into some of the angles mentioned in this one but where time prevented going into more detail. Specifically I would highlight Special Intelligence/Ultra and include the mirror success of the Germans breaking the Allied codes. Other points include the evolution of technology from start to end. Finally maybe some views on the impact that the U-boat types XXI and XXIII might have had. That strays into "what if..." but was a scenario that the Allied navies had to plan for.
Well thank you for tye comments. The idea with thus show was to create the interest. All the guests are happy to come back and talk in more detail on a future show
I would agree with what Paul says a very good discussion which covers a number of good points. Thinking of Type XXI and XXIII U Boats their development, potential and move towards service was well known, with much planning training and examination of countermeasures being made to meet them. Type XXI was beset by teething problems and would have presented a challenge but certainly they would have found that the Allies were well prepared to counter them.
Re the question of why the Battle of the Atlantic is less well known, I would not say there was just one significant reason, but Brian Walter pointed out what first came to my mind. By way of contrast, the PTO has a number of distinct events - battles and island campaigns - where the BotA is more amorphous, lasting years and (as another pointed out) having no specific location.
Agreed, the Atlantic battle was long and with no big single-events the public could identify with
Catching up on some of these older videos. To touch on one of the points, no one really thinks of a "battle" as lasting years. We think in terms of days, maybe weeks. For example, no talks of the western front in WW 1 as a "battle". It's looked at in individual, short term offensives, i.e. Battle of the Somme, Battle of Verdun.
This is a very good discussion, but I think it misses one very important matter. I think your guests are correct that the Battle of the Atlantic was central to the Allied war effort. But in fact, you discuss it in isolation, ignoring the big kahuna--the Ostkrieg. In fact, the War in the West played a major part in the Red Army's victory which the Russians and too many Western authors ignore:
1. It prevented the Germans from importing oil.
2. It enabled the Allies to deliver Lend-Lease Aid.
3. It diverted German industry from providing the Ostheer.the industrial support it needed. It was one reason that the Ostheer was 80 percent unmotorized industry moving East on foot. with horse-drawn carts. (Here the Luftwaddee got even more industrial output, but the Kriegsmarine was important.) It does not take much industry to build a horsecart, it does to build ships.
I would argue that the lack of recognition of the Battle of the Atlantic, west of Ireland, is due to the fact that one name 'Battle of the Atlantic' covers 6 years. Past that what's widely known? Bismarck, Hood, PQ-17, Doenitz, Raeder, and Schanhorst or Tirpitz, thats about it. There is no Monty, no Ike, no Patton, no Harris, no Halsey; in short no named point of focus. Without family/personal involvement its hard to find an initial starting focus unless you're into logistics and just how exciting is logistics anyway
Very impressed with by your channel. Please keep up the good work. Smashing really.
The Atlantic campaign still is one of the major reasons why the Fairey Swordfish and their crews are so well regarded and remembered in the UK.
This is great, I've been listening whilst working on a Major Project for my University history class. I sure wish I could get ahold of Marc Milner to exchange e-mails!
Early convoy escorts only weapon was their presence on the water to keep the submarine underwater. Depth Charges were the only offense. Sonar came later.
Regardinf the fascination with U-boats, there's one other significant factor: U-boats had the initiative, and it's far more interesting to the lay reader to read about offensive rather than defensive operations.
Easily agree that the Battle of the Atlantic was the most important theatre in ww2 . Im huge on the importance of the Eastern Front make no mistake about it , but the Atlantic was the supply route not just for Western allies but for Russia too . An example being Canada built 1420 Valentines all but 30 where shipped to the Soviets across the Atlantic .
Winding down I hear from these fellows the idea birth of the concept of saturated Combined Arms. It's going to take a everybody in every branch working together to defeat this very dangerous enemy.
Book: Waves of Courage by Wayde Roswell___ 1942 severe storm south east corner of Newfoundland damaging Convoy
I always thought that not just Battle of Atlantic but entire Allied Naval Struggle against German Navy and Italian Navy (Japanese are a seperate issue since they were dealt with by mostly USN at anther theater) in all of worlds oceans like Indian Ocean , Mediterranean Sea , Red Sea , Caribbean , South Atlantic , Arctic Sea , Norwegian Sea and North Sea etc were main determining factor of the war
Brilliant 👍
why did it take the allies so long to produce the vlr liberator? Information on 120 squadron is hard to get even though terry bullock is a U-boat killing ace? I distinctly recall terry saying they had vlr liberators with a quad 20mm pack on the front instead .05 inch machine guns but this is never mentioned in variant descriptions of the vlr liberator. Did they have a large bladder tank to increase range instead of mid upper and rear turret?
I don't have the answers to these questions - sorry
@@WW2TV i will have to go the RAF museum and the coastal command museum
I think one of the problems with the Battle Of The Atlantic is that there are no, and the words are hard to find but, let's say, waypoints, locations, areas of recognition for reference, so it all becomes unrecognisable to Joe Public.
......similar to the tonnages, meaningless as you guys mentioned.
The comment about the convoy battles being battles of a lot of things that DIDN'T happen (paraphrased) hit the nail on the head !!! Kids today would say "boring".
One other comment immediately attracted my attention and that was that the Keiegsmarine was the larger naval force and had many more combat ships than everyone else had. It's one thing to have the most weaponry, but it's another to know how to use it in battle.
I believe that the German loss can be summarized in two words: Adolph Hitler. His ineptitude was, to me, incomprehensible. We were fortunate that he was NOT assinated early in the war. This is just my opinion but I believe that it contains a thread of truth.
Fire away !!! I have thick skin !!!
9 to 12 hours in foul weather using Dead Reckoning, Can you find Home?
I think another big contributing factor to the Battle for the Atlantic being "un-sexy" is that there were no big battles.
Sure, there's the Hood and the Bismarck. Everybody has heard about those. After that, you have PQ17, and already with that battle, only those who are interested in WW2 will have heard of it.
Beyond those two, no single engagement was really crucial, in any sense, if taken on its own (instead of in the context of all other shipments too).
So there's not one contained story to tell, like there is with the Battle of the Bulge, or on Guadalcanal.
In other words, we want big impressive impactful stories - anecdotal events.
But the Battle for the Atlantic was a statistical fight, where 99% of shipping made it through.
And that makes it _neurologically_ unappealing for humans...
Why the battle of the Atlantic doesn't get so much attention?. The Corvette and vomit aren't entertaining enough. For those looking for the glory and romance; puking everywhere doesn't cut it.
The codebreakers and the capture of the german code boos annd some Enigma machines did permit the British to increase their progress n many domaines such as Hufduf, better sonar plus a ten centimeter radar wich can be installes in aircrafts and destroters and more.The Germans belived then their Enigma was unbreakable. With the Americans with their mass production in any hardware, buwere the Britisht, we must not forget the lead in detection technology were the British who the leaders.
Reference to the Patton quote , delusional thinking the Red Army would have smashed the western allies in 45 . The iron curtain wouldn't have been 'Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic' it would have been the English Channel .
Do a series about escort groups and hunter killer groups based around an escort carrier please
U571... Eecckkk... 😱🤢🤢🥴🥴😞
Patton was right we defeated the wrong enemy
?
Regarding the point that the US Navy never engaged in a surface action against the Kreigsmarine the Battle of La Ciotat is worth noting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_La_Ciotat?wprov=sfti1.
Granted the ships were previously ships of the Italian and Egyptian navies but there were manned by Germans.