Allied tanker Torpedoed in Atlantic Ocean by German U-boat during 1942

The British and United States needed to win the Battle for the Atlantic before they could entertain any realistic hope of invading Nazi occupied Europe. Defeating the German U-boats however represented a daunting task. Historian Richard Overy wrote cogently about the Allied problems, in his 1995 study of allied successes; "In an area as vast as the Atlantic the submarine was an inherently difficult enemy to defeat. Cruising on the surface it could outrun most ships; submerged it was invisible without the right scientific equipment. The initiative lay with the submarines who could choose where and when to engage enemy traffic."

The scope of the devastation wrought by German U-boats during 1942 was such that when Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca in January of 1943, the Battle for the Atlantic served as one of the primary topics discussed. Although the Allies debated tactics inconclusively, they created the  groundwork for taking on the U-boat threat in a more cooperative manner; a basis for action that would lead to war winning results.


Picture Courtesy US National Archives, ARC Identifier 520607