U-boats staying up to fight

Discussion in 'The War at Sea' started by Bart150, Jul 27, 2020.

  1. Bart150

    Bart150 Member

    In 1943 the Allies began using long range aircraft to hunt U-boats in the Atlantic.At first the German strategy was for a U-boat to stay on the surface to fight it out with an aeroplane. On balance this didn’t work in the Germans’ favour. So they soon abandoned the strategy.

    I’m looking for detailed information about this ‘stay up to fight’ period. Can anybody suggest any sources?
     
  2. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    The translated War Diary German Naval Staff Operations Division is available on the web in PDF. You could down load the volumes for 1943. However they are monthly with sometimes more than one volume per month so its quite a lot of material. Look in archive.org
    archive.org
     
  3. hucks216

    hucks216 Member

  4. Orwell1984

    Orwell1984 Senior Member

  5. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

  6. Bart150

    Bart150 Member

    Thanks, chaps. That’s a tremendous response. Should keep me busy.

    I’m interested because I knew a professor at Cambridge who served in Coastal Command and lost a couple of fingers in one of those encounters with a U-boat.
     
  7. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    The enclosed contains an analysis of why fighting it out on the surface failed. This had not only been employed against aircraft but also isolated escort vessels.
     
  8. Bart150

    Bart150 Member

    That seems a decently wrtten article. From it I get the following understanding:

    Casualties: Atlantic May-June-July 1943
    German U-boats 26 lost; 17 damaged
    British Aircraft (all types) 28 lost; >28 damaged

    Does this seem plausible? Or is there a significant misunderstanding somewhere?
     
  9. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

    Norman Franks, "Search, Find and Kill" and "U Boat v Aircraft " ( Frank & Zimmerman) are very good for encounters between Allied aircraft and U Boats.
    Also, see the earlier work "Aircraft vs Submarines" by Dr. Alfred Price.
    A German perspective comes from Gunther Hessler's " German U Boats and the Battle of the Atlantic", a history he was asked to write for the Royal Navy,
     

    Attached Files:

  10. Bart150

    Bart150 Member

    James S
    Wow! Thanks. That looks like plenty!
     
    James S likes this.

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