The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, stretching from 1939 to the German surrender in May 1945. German U-boats posed an existential threat to the Allied war effort, sinking more than 3,500 merchant ships and nearly 200 warships. The crisis peaked in early 1942 when U-boats ravaged the U.S. East Coast in a campaign the Germans called Paukenschlag (Operation Drumbeat). The tide turned through a combination of convoy escorts, long-range patrol aircraft, hunter-killer groups centered on escort carriers, and the cracking of German naval codes at Bletchley Park. Published one month after Germany’s surrender, the June 1945 All Hands looked back at the six-year struggle in six pages covering the U-boat threat, the Navy’s anti-submarine campaign, and the final defeat of the German submarine fleet.
Click to enlarge
