Okay, thank you both. I just wanted to make sure I was getting my info right.
Thanks again, :-)
john
Attacking A British Convoy III: Atlantic Breakout
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I was looking at booking a fishing trip into the Gulf of Mexico. In my research I have found that many of the best fishing spots are U-Boat victims of 1942. Around 60 tankers and cargo ships were sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, with another 15 damaged by torpedos.
The Texas Gulf Coast in those days was one of the riches oil producing regions of the World. The United States did not have a suitable pipeline system for oil and fuel to reach the East Coast of the United States and depended on tankers. Had the German U-Boats been in greater numbers in the Gulf the war economy could have been slowed down greatly.
In 1942 only U-Boat was sunk in the Gulf, U-166 was sunk 60 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.
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@ABWorsham:
The Texas Gulf Coast in those days was one of the riches oil producing regions of the World. The United States did not have a suitable pipeline system for oil and fuel to reach the East Coast of the United States and depended on tankers. Had the German U-Boats been in greater numbers in the Gulf the war economy could have been slowed down greatly.
On this subject, this book may be of interest:
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Thank you! I just purchased it on Amazon!
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@CWO:
@ABWorsham:
The Texas Gulf Coast in those days was one of the riches oil producing regions of the World. The United States did not have a suitable pipeline system for oil and fuel to reach the East Coast of the United States and depended on tankers. Had the German U-Boats been in greater numbers in the Gulf the war economy could have been slowed down greatly.
On this subject, this book may be of interest:
I greatly enjoyed the read, thanks for the tip.
My favorite story was an U-boat without torpedos and shells running down a large tanker firing a 20mm AA gun. The tanker crew leaves the ship and two U-boat crewmen swim to the ship and open several valves to slowing sink the tanker.
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Better to go after the ships in the Carribean, than -just- before they reach USSR. Especially if you’re having success there.
A ship that has almost reached Murmansk has a higher value than a ship that is still in the Caribbean, since the first ship has used a lot of fuel and resources to get so far.
It is easyer and cheaper to protect a ship just outside the East Coast than to escort a ship up in the Norwegian Sea.A German sub use less fuel and time, and work more effectiv in the Norwegian Sea, than a sub that have to travell half around the globe to the Caribbean before it can start working.
German subs was sunk because the britons broke the Enigma code, not because they were in this or that Seazone
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@ABWorsham:
I greatly enjoyed the read, thanks for the tip.
Glad you liked it. I’ve never read it myself; just the review I mentioned.
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Better to go after the ships in the Carribean, than -just- before they reach USSR.� Especially if you’re having success there.
A ship that has almost reached Murmansk has a higher value than a ship that is still in the Caribbean, since the first ship has used a lot of fuel and resources to get so far.
It is easyer and cheaper to protect a ship just outside the East Coast than to escort a ship up in the Norwegian Sea.A German sub use less fuel and time, and work more effectiv in the Norwegian Sea, than a sub that have to travell half around the globe to the Caribbean before it can start working.
In early 1942 most Caribbean ships sailed alone and if a convoy was formed it consisted of 3 to 5 supply ships and one or two escorts, soft targets. Ruissian convoys had multi levels of escorts and at times air support. I would attack the soft target everytime. After all Germany was fighting a tonnage war not an actual blockade.
If goods stop flowing from the U.S to England, the West would soon after stop or canel Murmansk convoys.
In 1942 Germany still had the U-boat tankers supplying fuel and stores to distance boats.
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I picked u-boats and other. The other being wait until 1945 or 46 to even start the damn war. Germany couldve built a much better military force had they waited ans not have even invaded Poland.
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Germany had so many advantages in WWII with the Navy compared to the Kaiser’s Navy, but had little to no Navy to work with.
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Worsham: was that because Hitler distrusted the old navy?
The Luftwaffe was a Nazi inovation, but the Navy would have had a longer held tradition and therefore, be less susceptible to infiltration and absorption by the Nazi Party. -
@wittmann:
Worsham: was that because Hitler distrusted the old navy? The Luftwaffe was a Nazi inovation, but the Navy would have had a longer held tradition and therefore, be less susceptible to infiltration and absorption by the Nazi Party.
I don’t know for sure whether, in terms of percentages, the German Navy had fewer Nazi-minded officers than the German Army did, though it’s my impression that this was indeed the case. There was certainly a mix of both types of officers, for which I can think of a couple of examples. On the one hand, the old-Navy / new-Nazi split is nicely illustrated by a photograph that was taken after the Battle of the River Plate, when the German crew members who’d been killed in the action were buried in Uruguay. The photo shows the German ambassador to Uruguay giving a Nazi salute at the funeral while angrily looking sideways at Captain Langsdorf, who’s giving the traditional naval salute. And I’m sure Hitler’s trust of the Kriegsmarine wasn’t improved by the fact that Admiral Canaris, the head of Abwehr (Geman military intelligence) from 1935 to 1944, had long been under suspicion of being an anti-Hitler conspirator (which he was, and for which he was ultimately executed).
On the other hand, I recall reading that, in Allied camps holding German POWs, there were often hardcore Nazis (including naval officers) among the POWs who acted as “enforcers” towards their less ideologically-inclined fellow prisoners. I think that Burkhard von Müllenheim-Rechberg (a senior surviving officers from the Bismarck, who wrote a book on the subject) ran into some of these enforcer types while being held as a POW. If I recall correctly, the POW camp in Bowmanville, Ontario (where U-boat ace Otto Kretschmer was interned) had a fair share of Nazi ideologues among its inmates.
Another reason for Hiter’s distrust, however, is that he had little understanding of warfare at sea. He apparently enjoyed sketching battleships on the backs of envelopes, but that’s about as far as his interest in naval matters went. He’d been a corporal in the German Army in WWI, and his military thinking thereafter continued to be in terms of land warfare. Hitler distrusted the Army establishment and resented its Prussian elitism, but at least he felt in his element when it came to war on land; in the case of the Navy, he had the same distrust, but with the added factor that he was out of his depth when naval matters were discussed. He even admitted it on one occasion when he proclaimed that “At sea, I am a coward.”
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Thank you as usual for your detailed thoughts, Marc.
Some of what I think on the subject has come from reading, but I vividly remember the anti Nazi sentiment felt by Das Boot crew. I knew about Langsdorf and would have thought the Bismarck’s crew might have been indoctrinated more as their ship was a modern Nazi weapon and propaganda tool(love it!).
I think(not a WW1 historian) the Imperial Navy mutinied in 1918, so Hitler probably had that in his mind.
I do love what some of you on this forum dredge up, keeping me forever thoughtful and. interested. -
@wittmann:
I think(not a WW1 historian) the Imperial Navy mutinied in 1918
Yes, in the last days or weeks of the war, the German Navy’s high command contemplated sending out the fleet against the Royal Navy (whose size advantage was very large at that point) so that it could go down in battle honourably after having spent much of the war sitting safely at anchor. German sailors got wind of this plan and mutinited, since they did not take kindly to the idea of their lives being thrown away in a lost cause for the sole purpose of saving face.
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