“Overview of the Atlantic Campaign

1939 to 1945”

The Battle of the Atlantic was the single longest continual campaign of World War II.  It began on the first day of the war and its last combat operation occurred on the last day of the war.

It was a struggle which found its initial principle adversaries, the United Kingdom and Germany, and later the United States, all equally unprepared.  The strategic goal of the UK was to insure a flow of food, oil, and both raw and finished materials across the North Atlantic from the countries of the Western Hemisphere.  The strategic goal of Germany was to intercept this flow, destroying both the ships and their cargos, and force the UK to capitulate through the simultaneous collapse of both its civilian economy and military production effort.

This lecture examines the roots of the campaign which are the product of the events of World War I and the Inter War treaty system.  It then moves on to the conduct of the Battle of the Atlantic itself.   The presentation is organized around a series of time slices set forth in the 1947 post-war Royal Navy, Office of the Admiralty, white paper.  In each of these phases, the quantity and quality of each side’s forces in the field, the state of the opposing technologies, the changing influence of geography, and the impact of events in other theaters of the war will be presented.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the first fully modern conflict.  Every element of modern warfare that we recognize today in contemporary naval strategy and tactics was present. 

We hope you will join us for a look at this critical time in history!