The Second World War

The strategic situation at the outbreak of the war was much more favourable than that expected in the nightmares of the 1930s.1 The Royal Navy’s sole opponent was Germany, who had 21 larger U-boats at sea in the Atlantic and the Channel. Their orders were not to sink unarmed merchantmen without warning. U30, however, mistook the liner Athenia for an armed merchant cruiser and sank her without warning. The 112 passengers and crew lost convinced the Admiralty that the Germans had indeed begun unrestricted submarine warfare. It was therefore decided to put into effect the plan to introduce ocean convoys in the western approaches. This did much to neutralize the U-boats. The ill-considered policy of hunting them with fleet carriers was abandoned after Ark Royal had a lucky escape and Courageous was sunk. Although outward-bound convoys were only escorted to 15° west, the convoy system was able to reduce losses from 41 ships in the first month of war to 21 in November. By the end of 1939, nine U-boats had been sunk, three by escorting destroyers, two by patrolling destroyers, one by a British submarine, and three by the Royal Navy’s mine barrage in the Straits of Dover — which stopped Germans using that path to the Atlantic.