The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest
continuous military campaign of World War II,
running from 1939 right through to the defeat of
Nazi Germany in 1945, and was at its height from
mid-1940 through to about the end of 1943.
World War II lasted for a total
of 2,075 days. The Battle of the
Atlantic lasted for 2,073 of
these. It started with the
sinking of the passenger liner
Athena on the day Britain and
France declared war on
Germany.
Battle of the Atlantic
German U-Boats patrolled the
Atlantic against the British
blockade of Europe and in an
effort to stop supplies from
America from ever reaching
Britain.
The Allies developed a convoy
system where merchant ships
were guarded by destroyer
escorts. The British developed
a system for detecting
Uboats that resembled radar.
this development gave the
Allies the edge in the Battle for
the Atlantic.
" The German
navy, carried out submarine
warfare to cut off Britain's
imports and military
supplies.


German U-boats were sinking ships bound for
England with arms.
FDR created a defense zone in the west Atlantic
to allow the US Navy to help detect the subs
for the Brits.
The campaign pitted the German Navy’s
surface raiders and U-boats against Allied
convoys from North America and the South
Atlantic to the United Kingdom and Russia,
protected mainly by the British and
Canadian navies and air forces, later aided
by United States ships and aircraft.
• The German plan was to launch over 100 UBoats.
• Only a couple of dozen were built and
launched.
• The allies always assumed there were more
than there were.
• With the use of SONAR, the U-Boat’s
advantages were neutralized.
The British and
their allies
gradually gained
the upper hand,
driving the
German surface
raiders from the
ocean by the
middle of 1941 and
decisively
defeating the U-


The
agreement
between FDR
and Churchill
as to what the
world would
be like after
WW II would
like.
FDR promised
Churchill he
would “force
an incident” to
get US in the
war!
Sinking of the
Bismarck
“Wars always start with the strategies of the last one”
were lost to a submarine
attack in the North
Atlantic and more than
8,300 American merchant
seamen died as a result.
About 330 convoys in the
Atlantic were attacked by
U-boats.
565 escorts and 234
stragglers were sunk.
1,100 proceeding
independently were also
sunk.
96,977 crossings were
completed successfully.