Welcomd aboard, Stephen.

My Buckleys arrived this morning. They look like nice little kits.
As I understand it Royal Navy Captains had the torpedo tubes removed and the depth charge arrangement was slightly different to the US DE's. I'll have to check whatever references I can find carefully if I'm to do a decent job of it.

I also heard the RN removed the automatic dishwashers and ice cream makers - no kidding!

The swines!
You'd think the crews would be allowed a couple of little luxuries while on those long hard escort duties.

I figure maybe an organization as old as the Royal Navy had a doctrine of 'real naval men don't eat ice cream (on board ship) and do their dishes by hand'.

I can actually picture some old stuffy admiral going over the specs for those ships and thinking to himself 'Ice cream? Dish washers? Well they may be good enough for those yanks but it will just make our lads soft'

I was able to find a review of WEM's etch set for the Trumpy 1:350 USS England which has the parts needed to make a Captain-class. The reviewer very thoughtfully had scans of the instructions so I saved those pics. Its a quick and easy job to make the necessary adjustments. In short I need to make up 2 sets of Depth Charge storage racks per side, add a RN 25' motor boat on the starboard side and refit the row boat to port and HF/DF on the mast. Easy.

BOA Personality of the week - Ralph Kerr CBE (16 August 1891 – 24 May 1941)



From Wikipedia:
An officer in the Royal Navy, he served in the First and Second World Wars, and was killed in the sinking of HMS Hood by the German battleship Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Strait.

Kerr took command of the battlecruiser HMS Hood on 15 February 1941. Command of the Navy's largest capital ship was a major change, Kerr having only previously commanded destroyers. He took her to sea on the completion of her refit in mid March, and carried out gunnery exercises and patrols off Iceland.[1] He was commander of Hood for just three months, when he was killed at the Battle of the Denmark Strait, along with most of his crew, when Hood was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck. He was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches. Kerr is commemorated on Portsmouth Naval Memorial.

BOA Weapon of the week – HMS Hood



From Wikipedia:
When Bismarck sailed for the Atlantic in May 1941, Hood, together with the newly commissioned battleship Prince of Wales, was sent out in pursuit along with several other groups of British capital ships to intercept the German ships before they could break into the Atlantic and attack Allied convoys.Hood was commanded by Captain Ralph Kerr and was flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland. The German ships were spotted by two British heavy cruisers (Norfolk & Suffolk) on 23 May, and Holland's ships intercepted Bismarck and her consort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, in theDenmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland on 24 May.

The British squadron spotted the Germans at 05:37 (ship's clocks were set four hours ahead of local time – the engagement commenced shortly after dawn),[64] but the Germans were already aware of their presence, Prinz Eugen's hydrophones having previously detected the sounds of high-speed propellers to their south-east. The British opened fire at 05:52 with Hood engaging Prinz Eugen, the lead ship in the German formation, and the Germans returned fire at 05:55, both ships concentrating on Hood. Prinz Eugen was probably the first ship to score when a shell hit Hood's boat deck, between her funnels, and started a large fire among the ready-use ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns and rockets of the UP mounts.[65] Just before 06:00, whileHood was turning 20° to port to unmask her rear turrets, she was hit again on the boat deck by one or more shells from Bismarck's fifth salvo, fired from a range of approximately 16,650 metres (18,210 yd). A shell from this salvo appears to have hit the spotting top, as the boat deck was showered with body parts and debris.] A huge jet of flame burst out of Hood from the vicinity of the mainmast, followed by a devastating magazine explosion that destroyed the aft part of the ship. This explosion broke the back of Hood and the last sight of the ship, which sank in only three minutes, was her bow, nearly vertical in the water.[66] A note on a survivor's sketch in the British RN Historical Branch Archives gives 63°20′N 31°50′W as the position of the sinking.

Fritz-Julius Lemp (19 February 1913–9 May 1941)



From Wikipedia and U-boat.net:

A Kapitänleutnant with the Kriegsmarine during World War II and commander of U-28, U-30 and U-110. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.

On September 3, 1939, while in command of U-30 he sank the 13,581 ton passenger ship Athenia, the first ship sunk in World War II.

Lemp's first patrol in the newly-commisioned U-110 was a disappointment after his previous success, and the second proved disastrous. The boat was captured east of Cape Farewell, Greenland by the British destroyers HMS Bulldog, HMS Broadway and the British corvette HMS Aubretia. (Niestlé, 1998). The boat'sEnigma machine and current code books were captured, with grave consequences for the Germans. Kptlt. Lempwas killed in the action.

BOA - Weapon of the week – FW-200 Condor



From Wikipedia:

The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, also known as Kurier to the Allies and referred to as 'The Scourge of the Atlantic' by Winston Churchill, was a German all-metal four-engined monoplaneoriginally developed by Focke-Wulf as a long-range airliner. A Japanese request for a long-range maritime patrol aircraft led to military versions that saw service with the Luftwaffe as long-range reconnaissance and anti-shipping/maritime patrol bomberaircraft. The Luftwaffe also made extensive use of the Fw 200 as a transport.

It achieved some success as a commerce raider in the early days of the Battle for the Atlantic before the advent of long-range RAF Coastal Command aircraft and CAM ships (I'll profile these next week) eliminated its threat.

The Luftwaffe used the aircraft to support the Kriegsmarine, making great loops out across the North Sea and, following the fall of France, the Atlantic Ocean. The aircraft was used for maritime patrols and reconnaissance, searching for Allied convoys and warships that could be reported for targeting by U-boats. The Fw 200 could also carry a 900-kilogram (2,000 lb) bomb load or naval mines to use against shipping, and it was claimed that from June 1940 to February 1941, they sank 331,122 tonnes (365,000 tons) of shipping despite a rather crude bombsight. The attacks were carried out at extremely low altitude in order to "bracket" the target ship with three bombs; this almost guaranteed a hit.

BOA - Personality of the Week - Robert William Hanmer Everett, DSO (29 May 1901 – 26 January 1942)



Everett was a British jockey and World War II pilot. In 1929, on Gregalach, he won the prestigious steeplechasethe Grand National and in 1941 as a Fleet Air Arm pilot, he achieved the first "kill" by a rocket-launched fighter, shooting down a long-range Focke-Wulf Fw 200 "Condor" over the Atlantic.For this hazardous success, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Knowledge of Everett's life is fragmentary, with just a few notable events.

Robert Everett was born on 29 May 1901 in Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia. His parents were Lt. Colonel William Frank Everett and Charlotte Everett of Chelsea.

In 1929, he rode "Gregalach" in the Grand National at Aintree, winning by six lengths from "Easter Hero". This race had the largest Grand National field ever and Everett was praised for his horsemanship over heavy ground. Later, in 1934, he won the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse, this time on "Poolgowran".

At the same time, Everett had become an amateur pilot and jointly owned, with his father, a De Havilland Puss Moth, a relatively high-performance aircraft of its day. In 1934, with another Australian, Jimmy Melrose, he entered the MacRobertson Air Race (or the Melbourne Centenary Air Race) to Melbourne from Mildenhall, in England.[3] This was successfully completed in 120 flying hours, despite landing at Darwin with empty fuel tanks.

Everett joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and Fleet Air Arm in October 1940 and served with 760 Naval Air Squadron at HMS Heron, Yeovilton.[2] Later he volunteered for804 Naval Air Squadron, which for a time supplied pilots for fighter catapult ships and CAM ships. While he was on HMS Maplin, a FW-200 ‘Condor’ was sighted on 1 August 1941 and Everett's Hawker Hurricane was launched. After a hard fight, the Condor was shot down with Everett's last shots:

"By this time I had reached the starboard bow and three machine guns opened up as well as the forward cannon. I did a quick turn to port and opened up just abaft the beam I fired five second burst at this range and my guns were empty"

He managed to ditch near to HMS Wanderer which was escorting the nearby convoy, SL.81 Everett was awarded the DSO for this action.

Robert Everett died on active service on 26 January 1942, when his Hurricane crashed on the beach at Llanddona, Anglesey, Wales. He is buried in St Dona’s Church in Llanddona.

BOA - Weapon of the Week - Catapult Armed Merchant Ships (CAM ships)



From the WWII Today Website

Desperate times called for desperate measures. The greatest threat to Britain’s ability to continue the war lay in the Atlantic where the U-Boat attacks on convoys were a cause for serious concern throughout 1941. Some means had to be found to combat the long range German Condor aircraft that were used to locate convoys and call in U-Boats, as well as undertaking bombing themselves.

Catapult Armed Merchant ships were introduced in the spring of 1941. These were fitted with a launch rail from which Hurricats – catapult launched Hurricanes -could be given a rocket assisted take off whilst in mid ocean. Apart the hazards inherent in such a procedure there was the problem of recovering the pilot after he completed his task of defending the convoy. There was no way of recovering the aircraft to these merchant ships – these were single use planes. The pilot was expected to ditch in the sea and hope to be picked up by one of the convoy escorts.

On the 3rd August 1941 Flight Lieutenant Everett from No. 804 Squadron launched from HMS Maplin and shot down the first German aircraft by this method. He ditched in the sea and just managed to escape from his aircraft as it sank immediately – and was picked up by a destroyer.

Randy Harvey was kind enough to make us this ribbon for the campaign:



Since the Campaign is broken up into three parts:

The Early Years: 1939-1941

Happy Time/Dark Days: 1942-1943

Fighting a Losing Battle/Winning the Battle: 1944-1945

I thought, as what I’ve heard other campaigns have done, to add two more ribbons so we have one for each part a person does a build for.

So for Early Years:

Happy Time/Dark Days:

Fighting a Losing Battle/Winning the Battle:

If anyone else would like to submit alternate ideas for ‘Early Years’ or ‘Happy Time/Dark Days’ please feel free to post them here so we can get a consensus what people like.

Final choice can be decided for these two can be decided towards the end of the campaign.

I wanted to use Randy’s rendition as the anchor ribbon for the campaign and to represent the ‘for the ‘Losing/Winning’ part because the design reminds of when the Allies finally took control of the Atlantic.

The ribbons look great. I am looking forward to this campaign, especially the Early Years.
Cheers
Michael

BOA Personality of the week - Karl Donitz (16 September 1891 – 24 December 1980)



From Wikipedia and other sources:

The name most synonymous with the Battle for the Atlantic.

Karl Dönitz was a German naval commander who played a major role in the Naval history of World War II. He started his career in the German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine, or "Imperial Navy") before World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of UB-68, the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner. While in a prisoner of war camp, he formulated what he later called Rudeltaktik ("pack tactic", commonly called "wolfpack"). At the start of World War II, he was the senior submarine officer in the German Navy. In January 1943, Dönitz achieved the rank of Großadmiral (Grand Admiral) and replaced Grand Admiral Erich Raeder as Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine).

On 30 April 1945, after the death of Adolf Hitler and in accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Dönitz was named Hitler's successor as Staatsoberhaupt (Head of State), with the title of Reichspräsident (President) and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. On 7 May 1945, he ordered Alfred Jodl to sign the German instruments of surrender in Rheims, France. Dönitz remained as head of the Flensburg Government, as it became known, until it was dissolved by the Allied powers on 23 May.

Early life and career
Dönitz was born in Grünau in Berlin, Germany, to Anna Beyer and Emil Dönitz, an engineer. Karl had an older brother, Friedrich. In 1910, Dönitz enlisted in the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). He became a sea-cadet (Seekadett) on 4 April. On 15 April 1911, he became a midshipman (Fähnrich zur See), the rank given to those who had served for one year as officer's apprentice and had passed their first examination.

On 27 September 1913, Dönitz was commissioned as an Acting Sub-Lieutenant (Leutnant zur See). When World War I began, he served on the light cruiser SMS Breslau in the Mediterranean Sea. In August 1914, the Breslau and the battlecruiser SMS Goeben were sold to the Ottoman navy; the ships were renamed the Midilli and the Yavuz Sultan Selim, respectively. They began operating out of Constantinople (now Istanbul), under Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, engaging Russian forces in theBlack Sea.[4] On 22 March 1916, Dönitz was promoted to Navy First Lieutenant (Oberleutnant zur See). When the Midilli put into dock for repairs, he was temporarily assigned as airfield commander at the Dardanelles. From there, he requested a transfer to the submarine forces, which became effective in October 1916. He served as watch officer on U-39, and from February 1918 onward as commander of UC-25. On 5 September 1918, he became commander of UB-68, operating in the Mediterranean. On 4 October, this boat was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner on the island of Malta.

Inter-war period
The war ended in 1918, but Dönitz remained in a British camp near Sheffield as a prisoner of war until his release in July 1919. He returned to Germany in 1920.

During the interwar period, he continued his naval career in the naval arm of the Weimar Republic's Armed Forces (Reichswehr). On 10 January 1921, he became a lieutenant (Kapitänleutnant) in the new German Navy (Vorläufige Reichsmarine). Dönitz commandedtorpedo boats by 1928, becoming a lieutenant-commander (Korvettenkapitän) on 1 November of that same year.

On 1 September 1933, he became a full commander (Fregattenkapitän) and, in 1934, was put in command of the cruiser Emden, the ship on which cadets and midshipmen took a year-long world cruise in preparation for a future officer's commission.

On 1 September 1935, he was promoted to captain (Kapitän zur See). He was placed in command of the 1st U-boat flotilla Weddigen, which included U-7, U-8 and U-9.

During 1935, the Weimar Republic's navy, the Reichsmarine, was replaced by the Nazi German navy, the Kriegsmarine.

Throughout 1935 and 1936, Dönitz had misgivings regarding submarines due to German overestimation of the capabilities of British ASDIC intelligence. In reality, ASDIC could detect only one submarine in ten during exercises. In the words of Alan Hotham, British Director of Naval Intelligence, ASDIC was a "huge bluff".

German doctrine at the time, based on the work of American Admiral Alfred Mahan and shared by all major navies, called for submarines to be integrated with surface fleets and employed against enemy warships. By November 1937, Dönitz became convinced that a major campaign against merchant shipping was practicable and began pressing for the conversion of the German fleet almost entirely to U-boats. He advocated a strategy of attacking only merchant ships, targets relatively safe to attack. He pointed out that destroying Britain's fleet of oil tankers would starve the Royal Navy of supplies needed to run its ships, which would be just as effective as sinking them. He thought a German fleet of 300 of the newer Type VII U-boats could knock Britain out of the war.

Dönitz revived the World War I idea of grouping several submarines together into a "wolfpack" to overwhelm a merchant convoy's defensive escorts. Implementation of wolfpacks had been difficult in World War I owing to the limitations of available radios. In the interwar years, Germany had developed ultra-high frequency transmitters which it was hoped would make their radio communication unjammable, while the Enigma cipher machine was believed to have made communications secure. Dönitz also adopted and claimed credit for Wilhelm Marschall's 1922 idea of attacking convoys using surface or very-near-the-surface night attacks. This tactic had the added advantage of making a submarine undetectable by sonar.

At the time, many – including Admiral Erich Raeder — felt such talk marked Dönitz as a weakling. Dönitz was alone among senior naval officers, including some former submariners, in believing in a new submarine war on trade. He and Raeder constantly argued over funding priorities within the Navy, while at the same time competing with Hitler's friends such as Hermann Göring, who received greater attention at this time.

Since the surface strength of the Kriegsmarine was much less than that of the British Royal Navy, Raeder believed any war with Britain in the near future would doom it to uselessness, once remarking all the Germans could hope to do was to die valiantly. Raeder based his hopes on war's being delayed until the German Navy's extensive "Z Plan", which would have expanded Germany's surface fleet to where it could effectively contend with the Royal Navy, was implemented. The "Z Plan", however, was not scheduled to be completed until 1945.

Dönitz, in contrast, was not constrained by such fatalism but set about intensely training his crews in the new tactics. The marked inferiority of the German surface fleet left submarine warfare as Germany's only naval option once war broke out.
On 28 January 1939, Dönitz was promoted to commodore (Kommodore) and Commander of Submarines (Führer der Unterseeboote).

World War II
In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II began. The Kriegsmarine was caught unprepared for war, having anticipated that war would break out in 1945, instead of 1939. The Z Plan was tailored for this assumption, calling for a balanced fleet with a greatly increased number of surface capital ships, including several aircraft carriers. At the time the war began, Dönitz's force included only 57 U-boats, many of them short-range, and only 22 oceangoing Type VIIs. He made do with what he had, while being harassed by Raeder and with Hitler calling on him to dedicate boats to military actions against the British fleet directly. These operations had mixed success; the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous and battleship Royal Oak were sunk, battleships HMS Nelson damaged and Barham sunk at a cost of some U-boats, diminishing the small quantity available even further. Together with surface raiders, merchant shipping lines were also attacked by U-boats.

Commander of the submarine fleet
On 1 October 1939, Dönitz became a Rear Admiral (Konteradmiral) and "Commander of the Submarines" (Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote, BdU); on 1 September the following year, he was made a Vice Admiral (Vizeadmiral).

With the fall of France, Germany acquired U-Boat bases at Lorient, Brest, St Nazaire and La Pallice/La Rochelle. A communication centre was established at the Chateau de Pignerolles at Saint-Barthélemy-d'Anjou.

By 1941, the delivery of new Type VIIs had improved to the point where operations were having a real effect on the British wartime economy. Although production of merchant ships shot up in response, improved torpedoes, better U-boats and much better operational planning led to increasing numbers of "kills". On 11 December 1941, following Adolf Hitler's declaration of war on the United States, Dönitz immediately planned for implementation of Operation Drumbeat (Unternehmen Paukenschlag) This targeted shipping along the east coast of the United States. Carried out the next month with only nine U-boats (all the larger Type IX), it had dramatic and far-reaching results. The U.S. Navy was entirely unprepared for antisubmarine warfare despite having had two years of British experience to draw from, and committed every imaginable mistake. Shipping losses, which had appeared to be coming under control as the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy gradually adapted to the new challenge, skyrocketed.

On at least two occasions, Allied success against U-boat operations led Dönitz to investigate. Among reasons considered were espionage and Allied interception and decoding of German Navy communications (the naval version of the Enigma cipher machine). Both investigations into communications security came to the conclusion espionage was more likely, or else the Allied successes had been accidental. Nevertheless, Dönitz ordered his U-boat fleet to use an improved version of the Enigma machine (one with four rotors, which was more secure than the three-rotor version it replaced), the M4, for communications within the fleet, on 1 February 1942. The German Navy (Kriegsmarine) was the only branch to use this improved version; the rest of the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) continued to use their then-current three-rotor versions of the Enigma machine. The new system was termed "Triton" ("Shark" to the Allies). For a time, this change in encryption between submarines caused considerable difficulty for Allied codebreakers; it took ten months before Shark traffic could be read (see also Ultra codebreaking and Cryptanalysis of the Enigma).

By the end of 1942, the production of Type VII U-boats had increased to the point where Dönitz was finally able to conduct mass attacks by groups of submarines, a tactic he called "Rudel" (group or pack) and became known as "wolfpack" in English. Allied shipping losses shot up tremendously, and there was serious concern for a while about the state of British fuel supplies.

During 1943 the war in the Atlantic turned against the Germans, but Dönitz continued to push for increased U-boat construction and entertained the notion that further technological developments would tip the war once more in Germany's favour, briefing the Führer to that effect. At the end of the war the German submarine fleet was by far the most advanced in the world, and late-war examples such as the Type XXI U-boat served as models for Soviet and American construction after the war. The Schnorchel (snorkel) and Type XXI boats appeared late in the war because of Dönitz's personal indifference, at times even hostility, to new technology he perceived as disruptive to the production process. His opposition to the larger Type IX was not unique; Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander of the United States Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines at the outbreak of thePacific War, opposed fleet boats like the Gato and Balao classes as "too luxurious".

Dönitz was deeply involved in the daily operations of his boats, often contacting them up to seventy times a day with questions such as their position, fuel supply and other "minutiae". This incessant questioning hastened the compromise of his ciphers by giving the Allies more messages to work with. Furthermore, replies from the boats enabled the Allies to use direction finding (HF/DF, called "Huff-Duff") to locate a U-boat using its radio, track it and attack it (often with aircraft able to sink it with impunity).

Dönitz wore on his uniform the special grade of the U-Boat War Badge with diamonds, his U-Boat War badge from World War I and his World War I Iron Cross 1st Class with World War II clasp.

Commander-in-chief and Grand Admiral
On 30 January 1943, Dönitz replaced Erich Raeder as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine) and Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) of the Naval High Command (Oberkommando der Marine). His deputy, Eberhard Godt, took over the operational command of the U-boat force[13] It was Dönitz who was able to convince Hitler not to scrap the remaining ships of the surface fleet. Despite hoping to continue to use them as a fleet in being, the Kriegsmarine continued to lose what few capital ships it had. In September, thebattleship Tirpitz was put out of action for months by a British midget submarine, and was sunk a year later by RAF bombers at anchor in Norway. In December, he ordered the battleship Scharnhorst (under Konteradmiral Erich Bey) to attack Soviet-bound convoys, after reconsidering her success in the early years of the war with sister ship Gneisenau, but she was sunk in the resulting encounter with superior British forces led by the battleship HMS Duke of York.

In the final days of the war, after Hitler had taken refuge in the Führerbunker beneath the Reich Chancellery gardens in Berlin, Hermann Göring was considered the obvious successor to Hitler, followed by Heinrich Himmler. Göring, however, infuriated Hitler by radioing him in Berlin asking for permission to assume leadership of the Reich. Himmler also tried to seize power by entering into negotiations with Count Bernadotte. On 28 April 1945, the BBC reported Himmler had offered surrender to the western Allies and that the offer had been declined.

In his last will and testament, dated 29 April 1945, Hitler named Dönitz his successor as Staatsoberhaupt (Head of State), with the titles ofReichspräsident (President) and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The same document named Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels as Head of Government with the title of Reichskanzler (Chancellor). Furthermore, Hitler expelled both Göring and Himmler from the party.

Rather than designate one person to succeed him as Führer, Hitler reverted to the old arrangement in the Weimar Constitution. He believed the leaders of the air force (Luftwaffe) and SS (Schutzstaffel) had betrayed him. Since the German Navy had been too small to affect the war in a major way, its commander, Dönitz, became the only possible successor as far as Hitler was concerned more or less by default.

On 1 May, the day after Hitler's own suicide, Goebbels committed suicide.Dönitz thus became the sole representative of the crumblingGerman Reich. He appointed Finance Minister Count Ludwig Schwerin von Krosigk as "Leading Minister" (Krosigk had declined to accept the title of Chancellor), and they attempted to form a government.

That night, Dönitz made a nationwide radio address in which he announced Hitler's death and said the war would continue in the east "to save Germany from destruction by the advancing Bolshevik enemy". However, Dönitz knew Germany's position was untenable and the Wehrmacht was no longer capable of offering meaningful resistance. During his brief period in office, he devoted most of his effort to ensuring the loyalty of the German armed forces and trying to ensure German troops would surrender to the British or Americans and not the Soviets. He feared vengeful Soviet reprisals, and hoped to strike a deal with the western Allies.[16] In the end, Dönitz's tactics were moderately successful, enabling about 1.8 million German soldiers to escape Soviet capture.

The rapidly advancing Allied forces limited the Dönitz government's jurisdiction to an area around Flensburg near the Danish border. Dönitz's headquarters were located in theNaval Academy in Mürwik, a suburb of Flensburg. Accordingly his administration was referred to as the Flensburg government. The following is Dönitz's description of his new government:

These considerations (the bare survival of the German people), which all pointed to the need for the creation of some sort of central government, took shape and form when I was joined by Graf Schwerin-Krosigk. In addition to discharging his duties as Foreign Minister and Minister of Finance, he formed the temporary government we needed and presided over the activities of its cabinet. Though restricted in his choice to men in northern Germany, he nonetheless succeeded in forming a workmanlike cabinet of experts.

“The picture of the military situation as a whole showed clearly that the war was lost. As there was also no possibility of effecting any improvement in Germany's overall position by political means, the only conclusion to which I, as head of state, could come was that the war must be brought to an end as quickly as possible in order to prevent further bloodshed.”

—Karl Dönitz, Ten Years and Twenty Days

Late on 1 May, Himmler attempted to make a place for himself in the Flensburg government. The following is Dönitz's description of his showdown with Himmler:

“At about midnight he arrived, accompanied by six armed SS officers, and was received by my aide-de-camp, Walter Luedde-Neurath. I offered Himmler a chair and sat down at my desk, on which lay, hidden by some papers, a pistol with the safety catch off. I had never done anything of this sort in my life before, but I did not know what the outcome of this meeting might be.

I handed Himmler the telegram containing my appointment. "Please read this," I said. I watched him closely. As he read, an expression of astonishment, indeed of consternation, spread over his face. All hope seemed to collapse within him. He went very pale. Finally he stood up and bowed. "Allow me," he said, "to become the second man in your state." I replied that was out of the question and that there was no way I could make any use of his services.

Thus advised, he left me at about one o'clock in the morning. The showdown had taken place without force, and I felt relieved.”

—Karl Dönitz, as quoted in The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan

On 4 May, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwestern Germany under Dönitz's command surrendered to Field MarshalBernard Montgomery at Lüneburg Heath just southeast of Hamburg, signalling the end of World War II in northwestern Europe.

A day later, Dönitz sent Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, his successor as the commander in chief of the German Navy, to U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters in Rheims, France, to negotiate a surrender to the Allies. The Chief of Staff of OKW, Colonel-General (Generaloberst) Alfred Jodl, arrived a day later. Dönitz had instructed them to draw out the negotiations for as long as possible so that German troops and refugees could surrender to the Western powers. But when Eisenhower let it be known he would not tolerate their stalling, Dönitz authorised Jodl to sign the instrument of unconditional surrender at 1:30 am on the morning of 7 May. Just over an hour later, Jodl signed the documents. The surrender documents included the phrase, "All forces under German control to cease active operations at 23:01 hours Central European Time on 8 May 1945." At Stalin's insistence, on 8 May, shortly before midnight, Field Marshal General (Generalfeldmarschall) Wilhelm Keitel repeated the signing in Berlin at Marshal Georgiy Zhukov's headquarters, with General Carl Spaatz of the USAAF present as Eisenhower's representative. At the time specified, World War II in Europe ended.

On 23 May, the Dönitz government was dissolved when Dönitz, Jodl, Speer and other members were arrested by British troops at Flensburg.

Nuremberg war crimes trials
Following the war, Dönitz was held as a prisoner of war by the Allies. He was indicted as a major war criminal at the Nuremberg Trials on three counts: (1) conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; (2) planning, initiating and wagingwars of aggression; and (3) crimes against the laws of war. Dönitz was found not guilty on count (1) of the indictment, but guilty on counts (2) and (3).

Dönitz was, for nearly seven decades, the only head of state to be convicted by an international tribunal until the conviction of Liberia's Charles Taylor in April 2012.

During the trial, Gustave Gilbert, an American Army psychologist, was allowed to examine the Nazi leaders who were tried at Nuremberg for war crimes. Among other tests, a German version of the Wechsler-Bellevue IQ test was administered. Dönitz scored 138, the third highest among the Nazi leaders tested.

Dönitz disputed the propriety of his trial at Nuremberg, commenting on count (2) "One of the 'accusations' that made me guilty during this trial was that I met and planned the course of the war with Hitler; now I ask them in heaven’s name, how could an admiral do otherwise with his country's head of state in a time of war?" Over 100 senior Allied officers also sent letters to Dönitz conveying their disappointment over the fairness and verdict of his trial.

At the trial Dönitz was charged with:

• Waging unrestricted submarine warfare against neutral shipping (see below).
• Permitting Hitler's Commando Order of 18 October 1942 to remain in full force when he became commander-in-chief of the Navy, and to that extent responsibility for that crime. His defence was that the Order excluded men captured in naval warfare, and that the order had not been acted upon by any men under his command.
• That knowing 12,000 involuntary foreign workers were working in the shipyards, he did nothing to stop it.
• Advice in 1945 when Hitler asked Dönitz whether the Geneva Convention should be denounced.

Hitler's motives were twofold. The first was, reprisals could be taken against Western Allied prisoners of war; second, it would deter German forces from surrendering to the Western Allies (as was happening on the Eastern front where the Geneva Convention was in abeyance). Instead of arguing the conventions should never be denounced, Dönitz suggested it was not currently expedient to do so, so the court found against him on this issue; but as the Convention was not denounced by Germany, and British prisoners in camps under Dönitz's jurisdiction were treated strictly according to the Convention, the Court considered these mitigating circumstances.

Among the war-crimes charges, Dönitz was accused of waging unrestricted submarine warfare for issuing War Order No. 154 in 1939, and another similar order after the Laconiaincident in 1942, not to rescue survivors from ships attacked by submarine. By issuing these two orders, he was found guilty of causing Germany to be in breach of the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936. However, as evidence of similar conduct by the Allies was presented at his trial, and with the help of his lawyer Otto Kranzbühler, his sentence was not assessed on the grounds of this breach of international law.

On the specific war crimes charge of ordering unrestricted submarine warfare, Dönitz was found "[not] guilty for his conduct of submarine warfare against British armed merchant ships", because they were often armed and equipped with radios which they used to notify the Admiralty of attack[24][29] but the judges found, "Dönitz is charged with waging unrestricted submarine warfare contrary to the Naval Protocol of 1936 to which Germany acceded, and which reaffirmed the rules of submarine warfare laid down in the London Naval Agreement of 1930... The order of Dönitz to sink neutral ships without warning when found within these zones was, therefore, in the opinion of the Tribunal, violation of the Protocol... The orders, then, prove Dönitz is guilty of a violation of the Protocol... the sentence of Dönitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare."

His sentence on unrestricted submarine warfare was not assessed, because of similar actions by the Allies: in particular, the British Admiralty on 8 May 1940 had ordered all vessels in the Skagerrak sunk on sight; and Admiral Chester Nimitz, wartime commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, stated the U.S. Navy had waged unrestricted submarine warfare in the Pacific from the day the U.S. entered the war. Thus although Dönitz was found guilty of waging unrestricted submarine warfare against unarmed neutral shipping by ordering all ships in designated areas in international waters to be sunk without warning, no additional prison time was added to his sentence for this crime.

Dönitz was imprisoned for 10 years in Spandau Prison in what was then West Berlin.

Later years
Dönitz was released on 1 October 1956, and retired to the small village of Aumühle in Schleswig-Holstein in northern West Germany. There he worked on two books. His memoirs, Zehn Jahre, Zwanzig Tage (Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days), appeared in Germany in 1958 and became available in an English translation the following year. This book recounted Dönitz's experiences as U-boat commander (10 years) and President of Germany (20 days). In it, Dönitz explains the Nazi regime as a product of its time, but argues he was not a politician and thus not morally responsible for much of the regime's crimes. He likewise criticizes dictatorship as a fundamentally flawed form of government and blames it for much of the Nazi era's failings.

In 1973 he appeared in the Thames Television production The World at War, in one of his few TV appearances.

Dönitz's second book, Mein wechselvolles Leben (My Ever-Changing Life) is less known, perhaps because it deals with the events of his life before 1934. This book was first published in 1968, and a new edition was released in 1998 with the revised title Mein soldatisches Leben(My Life as a Soldier).

Late in his life, Dönitz made every attempt to answer correspondence and autograph postcards for others. Dönitz was unrepentant regarding his role in World War II since he firmly believed no one will respect anyone who compromises with his belief or duty towards his nation in any way, whether his betrayal was small or big. Of this conviction, Dönitz writes (commenting on Himmler's peace negotiations):

The betrayer of military secrets is a pariah, despised by every man and every nation. Even the enemy whom he serves has no respect for him, but merely uses him. Any nation which is not uncompromisingly unanimous in its condemnation of this type of treachery is undermining the very foundations of its own state, whatever its form of government may be.

Dönitz lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity in Aumühle, occasionally corresponding with collectors of German Naval history, and died there of a heart attack on 24 December 1980. As the last German officer with the rank of Grand Admiral, he was honoured by many former servicemen and foreign naval officers who came to pay their respects at his funeral on 6 January 1981. However, he had received only the pension pay of a captain because the West German government ruled all of his advances in rank after that had been because of Hitler. He was buried in Waldfriedhof Cemetery in Aumühle without military honours, and soldiers were not allowed to wear uniforms to the funeral.[36] However a number of German naval officers disobeyed this order and were joined by members of the Royal Navy, such as the senior chaplain the Rev Dr John Cameron, in full dress uniform. Also in attendance were over one hundred holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

Wife and children
On 27 May 1916 Dönitz married a nurse named Ingeborg Weber (1894–1962), the daughter of a German general Erich Paul Weber (1860–1933). They had three children whom they raised as Protestant (Evangelical) Christians, viz., daughter Ursula (1917 - 1990) and sons Klaus (1920 - 1944) and Peter (1922 - 1943).

In 1937 Karl Dönitz's daughter Ursula married the U-boat commander and Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipient Günther Hessler.

Both of Dönitz's sons were killed during the Second World War.[37] The younger, Peter, was a watch officer in U-954 and was killed on 19 May 1943, when his boat was sunk in the North Atlantic with all hands. After this loss, the older, Klaus, was allowed to leave combat duty and began studying to be a naval doctor. Klaus was killed on 13 May 1944 while taking part in an action against his standing orders in involvement in any combat role. Klaus persuaded his friends to let him go on the torpedo boat S-141 for a raid on Selsey on his twenty-fourth birthday. The boat was sunk by the French ship La Combattante and Klaus died, though six others were rescued.

BOA – Weapon of the Week – G7a Torpedo

The G7a (T1) was the standard issue Kriegsmarine torpedo during the early years of World War II.



The G7a(TI) was initially fitted with a combined mechanical/magnetic exploder, which was inadequately tested (like the U.S. Navy's Mark 14), having never been live fired.[1] In addition, because the G7a's performance had never been assessed, between deep running and premature explosions[2] (both also familiar to the Mark 14),[3] the G7a suffered a thirty percent failure rate early in World War II.[4] The response of the high command, ignoring complaints and blaming the operators,[5] was also common to the U.S. Pacific Fleet's Submarine Force.[6] The problems were so serious, Admiral Dönitz said, "...never before in military history has a force been sent into battle with such a useless weapon.

There is at least one recorded case of a U-boat being bombed based upon her position being given away by a G7a's wake. On 14 September 1939, U-30 was attacked by loitering United Kingdom Fairey Swordfish naval bombers when she fired a G7a from her stern torpedo tube at the SS Fanad Head. U-30 was undamaged in the attack and served until she was scuttled at the end of the war.

Though the G7a could easily be spotted by surface ships, it remained the torpedo of choice for some U-Boat captains until the release of the G7e (TIII) electric torpedo in 1942, largely due to the inferior performance and tendency of the G7e (TII) (the wakeless electric torpedo available to U-boats from 1939–1942) to fail to detonate, both on proximity andcontact fuses.

The G7a were also issued in versions with programsteering gyroscopes, using the Fat I ladder search pattern and the Lut I or Lut II pattern running for attacking convoys.

Specifications:
*
• Type: Standard, straightrunning torpedo with wet-heater propulsion and whitehead tail
• Design: Ca. 1930
• Operative service in Kriegsmarine: 1938–1945 1)
• Length (prepared for launch with warhead): 7163mm
• Diameter: 533.4mm (21")
• Weight (prepared for launch with warhead): 1538 kg
• Charge, warhead: Ca. 280 kg Hexite
• Boostercharge (Pi1 pistol): 300g Pentrite
• Minimum angle of impact to detonate (Pi1 pistol, mechanical mode): 16 degrees
• Speed: 30kn ("Weitschuß", WS) / 40kn ("Nahschuß", NS) / 44kn ("Schnellschuß", SS) 2)
• Depthsetting: 1-12m (TA-I), 1-15m (TA-II)
• Armingdistance (Pi1 pistol): 100m (black impeller) / 150m (red impeller) / 300m (blue impeller) 3)
• Propulsion: 4-cylinder steam engine (powered by a mixture of overheated steam and compressed air)
• Fuel: Decaline
• Power output, engine: 110Hp (30kn) / 255Hp (40kn) / 350Hp (44kn)
• Engine RPM: 1170 (30kn) / 1280 (40kn) / 1470 (44kn)
• Propeller: 2 x 6-blade (contra-rotating) 4)
• Max running distance: 12000m (30kn) / 7500m (40kn) / 5000m (44kn)
• Capacity, air-tank: 676l (200 kg/cm^2)
• Freshwatercompartment: 57l
• Fueltank: 14,5l
• Oiltank (engine): 6,5l
• Oiltank (low-pressure regulator): 0,3l
• Steering: Mechanical gyroscope powered by pressurized air (GA VIII) with anglesetting mechanism (+/- 90 degrees from initial course after launch)
• Depthcontrol: Hydrostatisc mechanism with pendulum (TA-I or TA-II)

Great ribbons, like the idea of one for each time period.

Will there be three threads as well, might make easier to keep track, just a thought.

Si

I'll check with the Campaign Elders. I'm not sure how past multi-part campaigns worked and I don't have forum admin rights.

BOA - Personality of the Week - Fleet Admiral Ernest Joseph King (23 November 1878 – 25 June 1956)




From Wikipedia:
Ernest Joseph King was Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CINCUS) and Chief of Naval Operations (COMINCH-CNO) during World War II. As COMINCH, he directed the United States Navy's operations, planning, and administration and was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the U.S. Navy's second most senior officer after Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, and the second admiral to be promoted to five star rank. As COMINCH, he served under Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and later under James Forrestal.

At the start of US involvement in World War II, blackouts on the U.S. eastern seaboard were not in effect, and commercial ships were not travelling under convoy. King's critics attribute the delay in implementing these measures to his Anglophobia, as the convoys and seaboard blackouts were British proposals, and King was supposedly loath to have his much-beloved U.S. Navy adopt any ideas from the Royal Navy. He also refused, until March 1942, the loan of British convoy escorts when the Americans had only a handful of suitable vessels. He was, however, aggressive in driving his destroyer captains to attack U-boats in defense of convoys and in planning counter-measures against German surface raiders, even before the formal declaration of war in December 1941.

Instead of convoys, King had the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard perform regular anti-submarine patrols, but these patrols followed a regular schedule. U-boat commanders learned the schedule, and coordinated their attacks to these schedules. Leaving the lights on in coastal towns back-lit merchant ships to the U-Boats. As a result, there were disastrous shipping losses — two million tons lost in January and February 1942 alone, and urgent pressure applied from both sides of the Atlantic. However, King resisted the use of convoys because he was convinced the Navy lacked sufficient escort vessels to make them effective. The formation of convoys with inadequate escort would also result in increased port-to-port time, giving the enemy concentrated groups of targets rather than single ships proceeding independently. Furthermore, blackouts were a politically sensitive issue – coastal cities resisted, citing the loss of tourism revenue.

It was not until May 1942 that King marshalled resources — small cutters and private vessels that he had previously scorned — to establish a day-and-night interlocking convoy system running from Newport, Rhode Island, to Key West, Florida.

By August 1942, the submarine threat to shipping in U.S. coastal waters had been contained. The U-boats' "second happy time" ended, with the loss of seven U-boats and a dramatic reduction in shipping losses. The same effect occurred when convoys were extended to the Caribbean. Despite the ultimate defeat of the U-boat, some of King's initial decisions in this theatre could be viewed as flawed.[39]

In King's defense, noted naval historian Professor Robert W. Love has stated that "Operation Drumbeat (or Paukenschlag) off the Atlantic Coast in early 1942 succeeded largely because the U.S. Navy was already committed to other tasks: transatlantic escort-of-convoy operations, defending troop transports, and maintaining powerful, forward-deployed Atlantic Fleet striking forces to prevent a breakout of heavy German surface forces. Navy leaders, especially Admiral King, were unwilling to risk troop shipping to provide escorts for coastal merchant shipping. Unscheduled, emergency deployments of Army units also created disruptions to navy plans, as did other occasional unexpected tasks. Contrary to the traditional historiography, neither Admiral King’s unproven yet widely alleged Anglophobia, an equally undocumented navy reluctance to accept British advice, nor a preference for another strategy caused the delay in the inauguration of coastal escort-of-convoy operations. The delay was due to a shortage of escorts, and that resulted from understandably conflicting priorities, a state of affairs that dictated all Allied strategy until 1944.

BOA - Weapon of the Week - USS Reuben James (DD-245)



From Wikipedia:
A post-World War I, four-funnel Clemson-class destroyer—was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in the European theater of World War II and the first named for Boatswain's Mate Reuben James (c.1776–1838), who distinguished himself fighting in the Barbary Wars.

Reuben James was laid down on 2 April 1919 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey, launched on 4 October 1919, and commissioned on 24 September 1920, with Commander Gordon W. Hines in command. The destroyer was sunk by a torpedo attack from German submarine U-552 on 31 October 1941.

Upon the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, she joined the Neutrality Patrol, guarding the Atlantic and Caribbean approaches to the American coast. In March 1941, Reuben James joined the convoy escort force established to promote the safe arrival of materiel to the United Kingdom. This escort force guarded convoys as far as Iceland, after which they became the responsibility of British escorts.

Based at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, she sailed from Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland, on 23 October, with four other destroyers to escort eastbound convoy HX 156. At about 0525 on 31 October, while escorting that convoy, Reuben James was torpedoed by U-552 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Erich Topp near Iceland. Reuben James had positioned herself between an ammunition ship in the convoy and the known position of a "wolfpack", a group of submarines that preyed on Allied shipping. Reuben James was hit forward by a torpedo and her entire bow was blown off when a magazine exploded. The bow sank immediately. The aft section floated for five minutes before going down. Of the 159-man crew, only 44 survived. Many consider the Reuben James to have been the first US warship to be sunk in WWII.

BOA - Personality of the Week - Wolfgang August Eugen Lüth (15 October 1913 – 14 May 1945)



From Wikipedia:
Kapitän zur Lüth (15 October 1913 – 14 May 1945), was the second most successful German U-boat ace of World War II. His career record of 46 merchant ships plus the French submarine Doris sunk during 15 war patrols, with a total displacement of 230,781 gross register tons (GRT), was second only to that of Korvettenkapitän (Lieutenant Commander) Otto Kretschmer, whose 47 sinkings totaled 272,958 GRT.

Lüth joined the Reichsmarine in 1933. After a period of training on surface vessels, he transferred to the U-boat service in 1936. In December 1939 he received command of U-9, which he took on six war-patrols. In June 1940 he took command of U-138 for two patrols. In October 1940 he transferred again, this time to the ocean-going submarine U-43 for five war-patrols. After two patrols on U-181, the second being his longest of the war, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten). He was the first of two U-boat commanders to be so honored during World War II, the other recipient being Albrecht Brandi.

Lüth's last service position was commander of the naval academy at Mürwik (Flensburg).

He was accidentally shot and killed by a German sentry on the night of 13/14 May 1945. Lüth was given the last state funeral in the Third Reich, the only U-boat commander to be so commemorated

BOA - Weapon of the Week - 8.8cm SK C/35 naval gun



From U-Boat.net:
The type VII U-boats had the 8.8cm gun. This weapon is not to be confused with the famous German Army 88 anti-tank / anti-aircraft gun which was probably the best weapon of the war, they did not even use the same ammunition. The 8.8cm gun fired a 12-14 kilogram round (9kg warhead), on board were usually 250 rounds. From June 1943 the Atlantic-boats left their bases without the deck gun. Only in the Mediterranean and the Northern Sea boats kept their guns for a few months longer. In July 1944 some of the VIIC boats from the 8th Flotilla in Königsberg got their guns back for the patrols in the Baltic Sea against the Russians.

The 88mm naval deck gun was not capable of anti-aircraft fire since its maximum elevation was only 30 degrees.

Already got kit for next years build.

I got a Heller 1/400 Admiral Scheer for $26.00, inlcuding shipping, off ebay.

I'm happy with that because for the past 6 months, I could not find anything less than the $40+ range.

I find the Scheer more interesting than the Bismark because the Scheer achieved more in commerce raiding (though it wasn't near as much hoped for) and survived until April '45.

BOA - Personality of the Week - Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Joubert de la Ferte (1897-1965)



From Wikipedia and www.warhistory.ie:

This British Air Marshal headed RAF Coastal Command between 1941 and 1943. At the outbreak of war he had been Air Officer Commanding in India but returned as Assistant Chief of the Air Staff to advise on air co-operation with the Navy and on radar. On his appointment to Coastal Command, a post which he had previously held between September 1936 and August 1937, he initiated a `planned flying' scheme in an endeavor to combat the serious deficiencies which existed within the command, including the lack of a practicable anti-submarine weapon and the limited number of available aircraft.

de la Ferté was highly critical of the Air Ministry's attitude to his service. In 1937 several exercises were carried out by Coastal Command in cooperation with submarines against the Home Fleet to judge the surface fleet's defense against submarine and air attack. However, despite the experiences of the First World War, no attention was paid to the problem of attacking submarines from the air as part of trade protection measures. Owing to the imperfect ASDIC invention, it appeared the Royal Navy no longer considered U-Boats were a threat to Britain's sea lanes. The Air Ministry, keen to concentrate on strategic air forces, did not dispute the Admiralty's conclusions and Coastal Command did not receive any guidance from the Air Ministry. The saving grace of both services was the construction of the Combined Headquarters which enabled rapid collaboration in maritime operations. This was one of the few successes in organization and preparation made before the outbreak of war.

BOA - Weapon of the Week - PBY4-1 Liberator



From Wikipedia and ww2eagles.blogspot.com:

The Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator was the US Navy’s designation for the B-24. At the start of the war the USAAF had responsibility for flying long range anti-submarine patrols from the American mainland, having spent a great deal of effort in the pre-war years overturning the US Navy’s monopoly on operations over the sea. However, as the war developed the Army Air Force soon became willing to share that duty, and from the middle of 1942 the Navy began to share the responsibility.

Unfortunately the US Navy lacked aircraft that combined the long range and the bomb load required for this role. Both of the USAAF’s heavy bombers, the B-17 and the B-24 were adapted for the role, with the B-24, under the Navy designation PB4Y-1 Liberator, proving to be the best.

The Navy acquired their B-24s by making a deal with the USAAF. The Navy had a factory at Renton, Washington, that was producing the Boeing Sea Ranger, itself an inadequate patrol bomber. This factory was traded to the USAAF in return for a supply of B-24s (the army wanted the factory to build the B-29). Eventually the Navy would gain 977 B-24s from this deal (as well as a number of Mitchells and Venturas).

The PB4Y-1 designation was used to describe every version of the B-24 that entered Naval service. Twenty four Navy and Marine squadrons were equipped with the PB4Y-1, which remained in service long after the war, despite the appearance of the PB4Y-2 Privateer. The aircraft first went operational with VP-101 based at NAS Barbers Point, Hawaii.

Reflecting their navy operators, on the PB4Y-1 the nose turret is normally referred to as the bow turret. Early PB4Y-1s had not arrived with a bow turret. In some cases the navy added an ERCO (Engineering and Research Company) turret to these early aircraft. Later PB4Y-1s came with either Emerson or Consolidated nose turrets.

Air to surface radar was not equipped as standard on early aircraft, but by the end of the production run all Navy PB4Y-1s came with radar, often installed in a retractable fitting.

In 1940, the RAF purchased 20 Consolidated B-24 A - serial numbers 40-2349 to 40-2368 - under the name of Liberators B. I. The aircrafts were dellivered from mid 1941 and sent to Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down, where they were intensively tested. They were declared unsuitable for combat operations over Europe, given the lack of self-sealing fuel tanks, poor defensive armament and weak performances.

The Liberator had, however, some important characteristics which could be very useful: its long range and heavy bomb load made it an ideal maritime patrol aircraft. They were passed to the Coastal Command, who was desperately looking for long range patrollers to counter the German U-boats.

An extensive conversion program started, installing ASV MK II radars and Leigh Light searchlights. Some aircrafts were given a pack of four 20mm-cannons under the fuselage, while some others were equipped with 3 ich (76mm) rockets under each wing.

The first unit to receive the Liberator GR I was No.120 Sqn, operating from Northern Ireland. The deployment of the four-engine bomber had great effects in the Battle of the Atlantic; the Coastal Command reconnaissance force almost doubled its range capabilities and, for the first time in the war, it was possible to cover part of the mid-Atlantic gap. For almost an entire year, No. 120 Sqn was the only unit capable of supply air cover for convoys in the previous uncovered area.

To further increase the aircraft range, armor and gun turrets were sacrificed in order to save weight and carry extra fuel; the new version was renamed VLR (Very Long Range) The Leigh Leight searchlight gave the Liberator the capability to hunt U-boats also by night, where they had been safe and undisturbed for almost three years.

In the final months on 1942, four U-boats were sunk by No.120 Sqn and the more recently-equipped No. 224 Sqn.

The US Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force also started to operate VLR Liberators on the other side of the Atlantic, and by mid-1943 they started to fly from the Azores too.

The sudden and decisive turning of the Battle of the Atlantic in May 1943 was given to many factors, and the long range cover given by the Liberators was one of the msot important.

At the end of the war, the B-24/Liberator VLR was credited with 72 sinkings (full or shared), making it the most successful aircrafts against the U-boats.