Battle of the Atlantic (review)

A misnomer, the Battle of the Atlantic was in reality a grinding, nearly six-year campaign, pitting Germany's U-boats, under the command of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, against British, Canadian, and American antisubmarine forces. Although it lacked the drama of the American and Japanese carrier task forces going head-to-head in the Pacific, the protracted struggle for the Atlantic sea routes was vital to the success of the war in Europe. Had Germany somehow managed to sever the allied transatlantic arteries, Britain might not have survived and at the very least the invasion of France and ultimate defeat of Germany might have been delayed for years.

The German naval offensive was, however, little more than a forlorn hope. At the start of the war, the Germans had only a handful of submarines and surface raiders, which, when combined with thorough prewar planning by the British and the establishment of convoys, meant that Germany never had the opportunity to deliver a "knockout blow." From the spring of 1943 on, the U-boat threat essentially became endemic, more of a tactical than a strategic headache. Still, there were crises. In the spring of 1940 when the British faced a dearth of escort vessels for convoy protection, the Royal Canadian Navy provided relief at the same time the Germans had to divert some of their forces to the Norwegian campaign. Early 1942 saw Dönitz's U-boats wreak havoc along the American east coast, only to be neutralized by the tardy implementation of convoys and the employment of land-based aircraft. The dénouement came in early 1943 when the Germans unleashed their U-boat "wolf packs" against convoys in the mid-Atlantic "air gap." By this time, the allies understood that the convoys provided perfect "bait" for the German submarines, drawing them to certain destruction in a battle of attrition that Dönitz "could not win" (p. 146). The circumstances resembled the climactic early 1944 air battles over Germany in which American long-range heavy bombers drew out the German air force where it could be defeated by escort fighters, ultimately securing the air superiority necessary to the successful Allied prosecution of the ground war.

Milner skillfully blends broad analyses of strategy and tactics with vivid descriptions of engagements where the adversaries desperately tried to outwit each other in a deadly game of high-tech, three-dimensional chess. The Allies enjoyed the advantages of intelligence from Ultra, sonar (or asdic), radar, radio-direction finding, homing torpedoes (Fido), ahead-throwing weapons (Hedgehog and Squid), magnetic anomaly detection (MAD), escort carriers, and sonobuoys. The Germans introduced acoustic homing torpedoes of their own, schnorkel equipment, radar detectors, glide bombs, and the swift and potentially deadly Type XXI U-boat. Toward the end of the war, the Germans developed inshore tactics that vastly complicated the Allied antisubmarine problem and that provide valuable lessons for today's joint planners who have to cope with fast, quiet, and efficient submarines in littoral waters. Milner's book is generally well-balanced, although it is heavy on the Canadian contribution and critical of the British, who churlishly dismissed Canadian leadership, tactics, and training at the same time as the Royal Canadian Navy "sacrificed" itself while the Royal Navy retrained and reequipped in late 1942 and early 1943.

As with any survey—especially one this sweeping in scope—things are bound to be overlooked or receive only minimal treatment. American lighter-than-air craft are missing entirely, as are background on the key innovation of operational research, the Allied merchant and warship production effort, and the unglamorous but crucial mining efforts on both sides. There are no notes, and only the most brief bibliography. Nevertheless, Milner deserves praise for what is likely to be for some time to come the best short history of the Atlantic war.