The Battle of the Atlantic: How the Allies Won the War

by Jonathan Dimbleby

Overview

"The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril," wrote Winston Churchill in his monumental history of World War II. His fear was shared by many. The North Atlantic was arguably the true front of the war for Europe, and the stakes there were terrifyingly high. Had Germany succeeded in cutting off the supply of American ships, England might not have held out. In a cable to Churchill in May 1941, Franklin Roosevelt put it plainly, "I believe the outcome of this struggle is going to be decided in the Atlantic and unless Hitler can win there he cannot win anywhere in the world in the end."

Hitler knew what was at stake. The shipping lanes of the Atlantic became the main target of the Kriegsmarine operations early in the war. Between 1940 and 1945 the death rate there was higher than in any other theater of the entire war, for both sides. The enemy was always and constantly there and waiting, lying just over the horizon or lurking beneath the waves. The conflict consisted of not one battle but hundreds, ranging from hours to days in duration, and forcing both sides into constant innovation and white-knuckled, nightmarish second-guessing, trying desperately to gain the advantage of every encounter. Some of this took place in treacherous seas with mountainous swells, in water so cold that survival in it could be counted in mere minutes.

Jonathan Dimbleby's The Battle of the Atlantic offers a detailed and immersive account of this massive and decisive campaign, placing it within the context of the war as a whole. Dimbleby delves into the politics on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the role of Bletchley Park and the complex and dynamic relationship between America and England. He uses contemporary diaries and letters from leaders and sailors to chilling effect, evoking the lives and experiences of those who fought. This is the definitive account of the longest battle of World War II.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190495855
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	241,956
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Dimbleby is a writer, broadcaster and filmmaker. His books include Russia: A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People, and the highly acclaimed Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein.

Table of Contents

Contents
List of Maps and Illustrations
Preface: A Momentous Victory
Chapter 1: The Phony War that Wasn't
Chapter 2: Caught Hopping
Chapter 3: Rash Moves
Chapter 4: The End of the Beginning
Chapter 5: U-Boats on the Rampage
Chapter 6: Churchill Declares 'The Battle of the Atlantic'
Chapter 7: Moving the Goalposts Again
Chapter 8: America Goes for It
Chapter 9: Secret Weapons
Chapter 10: Fingers in the Dyke
Chapter 11: Shifting Fortunes
Chapter 12: Beating the Drum
Chapter 13: Overstretched Everywhere
Chapter 14: Disaster in the Arctic
Chapter 15: Goading the Bear
Chapter 16: Dönitz Seizes His Chance
Chapter 17: Changes at the Top
Chapter 18: 'The Battle of the Air'
Chapter 19: A Very Narrow Escape
Chapter 20: A Dramatic Turnabout
Chapter 21: The Reckoning
Chapter 22: The Beginning of the End
Epilogue: Fates Disentwined
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

01/18/2016
Dimbleby (Destiny in the Desert), an experienced journalist and historian, makes a convincing case that of all the campaigns of WWII, the struggle for dominance over the North Atlantic was the most important. In support of his thesis, Dimbleby effectively describes the strategic situation as seen from London, Berlin, and Washington. Through the carefully researched actions of the senior leadership, he demonstrates that all of the senior naval and political leaders were aware of the importance of the campaign. The book shows how close the Germans came to victory: in 1941, the Allies could only replace one-third of the ships lost, and in 1942 the Germans destroyed a million tons more shipping than was replaced. Equally well done is Dimbleby’s telling of the personal experiences, using diaries, letters, and ship’s logs, including his descriptions of a days-long fight to survive in a life raft in the frigid North Atlantic and an hours-long depth-charge attack endured 700 feet below the surface of the ocean. The history of the battle for the Atlantic is well documented, but Dimbleby’s work, with its emphasis on the strategic importance of the battle, is an excellent addition to the story, and expert historians as well as general readers can enjoy this effort. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2016
The naval contest that raged over the Atlantic during much of World War II ended up costing the lives of tens of thousands of British, German, and American sailors. This titanic struggle between the surface navies of the Allies and the submarines or U-boats of the Axis powers has received a good amount of attention over the past decade, with solid accounts such as Richard Snow's A Measureless Peril. Dimbleby, a writer and filmmaker, adds his own deeply researched and well-crafted assessment. Using secondary sources as well as primary accounts, the author weaves a fascinating tale of strategy and tactics between the stealthy German submarines and the British and American efforts to develop an effective defense against sudden attack. As the war progressed, the Allies improved their code-breaking, radar equipment, and air support; eventually Germany was unable to replace their lost sea craft. The author muses that if the British had devoted more of their resources toward the Atlantic struggle earlier in the war, thus achieving superiority on the seas and allowing the Allies to invade France in 1943 instead of 1944, perhaps the Americans could have taken Berlin instead of the Russians. VERDICT For all collections supporting the history of World War II.—Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Library Journal

★ 2015-12-20
A fine account of the brutal sea campaign against Nazi Germany, from writer and broadcaster Dimbleby (Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein, 2013, etc.). On Sept. 3, 1939, hours after hostilities began, a U-boat torpedoed the liner Athenia about 200 miles off the coast of Ireland. With the benefit of hindsight, historians proclaim the event's significance ("the sinking revealed in a single blow how unready Britain was for a conflict in which the U-boat would become Germany's principal weapon against Allied merchant shipping"), but no contemporary leader got the message. Despite his prescience on Hitler, once Churchill took office, his strategy was mostly wrong. As First Lord of the Admiralty in 1939, he maintained that Germany's surface fleet was its greatest threat. As Prime Minister in 1940, he shared the universal delusion that air power held the key. Fortunately, Hitler shared this fantasy. By April 1940, the handful of U-boats on patrol sank nearly 250 ships. Churchill was worried, but Britain was slow to enforce a convoy system and remained short of escorts. Air force chiefs stubbornly refused to assign long-range bombers for anti-submarine patrol. Germany's decoding of British naval ciphers was far superior to its vaunted British Enigma counterparts, and U-boat production was increasing. Consequently, sinkings rose alarmingly for three years before the Allies got their act together. The turning point was April 1943, when the air forces finally coughed up a fleet of long-range bombers. Later, Churchill wrote that the U-boat sinkings were "the only thing that ever really frightened me during the war." Recent historians such as Clay Blair emphasize that the Allied supply line was never seriously in jeopardy, but Dimbleby sticks to the traditional cliffhanger version, delivering a gripping history overflowing with anecdotes and enough calamity, misery, explosions, and individual valor for a Hollywood disaster epic.

Kirkus Reviews

"Dimbleby makes a convincing case that of all the campaigns of WWII, the struggle for dominance over the North Atlantic was the most important...The history of the battle for the Atlantic is well documented, but Dimbleby's work, with its emphasis on the strategic importance of the battle, is an excellent addition to the story, and expert historians as well as general readers can enjoy this effort."—Publishers Weekly

"Recent historians...emphasize that the Allied supply line was never seriously in jeopardy, but Dimbleby sticks to the traditional cliffhanger version, delivering a gripping history overflowing with anecdotes and enough calamity, misery, explosions, and individual valor for a Hollywood disaster epic."—Kirkus Starred Review

"This is an exceptionally vivid account of one of the critical campaigns of the Second World War by a masterly writer."—Max Hastings

"Winston Churchill famously described the Battle of the Atlantic as 'a war of groping and drowning, a war of ambuscade and stratagem, a war of science and seamanship' and no book depicts all of those myriad aspects better than Jonathan Dimbleby's majestic overview. His judgments can sometimes be harsh and are bound to be controversial, but they are backed up with wide reading, diligent scholarship and cogent argument. This is a truly gripping account of a campaign that the author rightly puts epicentral to the Allied victory in the Second World War."—Andrew Roberts, author of Masters and Commanders

"A gripping read and a great contribution to the history of the Second World War. The author realizes his immense ambition of bringing out the human aspects of the drama at every level, from the heads of state to the crews in the Atlantic, while also bringing important nuances to received views on the struggle against the U-boats, and, indeed, on Churchill's war leadership. An epic account."—Peter Padfield, author of War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict 1939-1945, and biographies of Dönitz, Himmler and Hess\

"The epic Battle of the Atlantic can only really be understood when set against the strategic context of the time. Jonathan Dimbleby's highly engaging history does this by combining gripping accounts of the tactics and operational fortunes of the Germans and the Allies in the bitterest of battles with an authoritative review of strategic thinking."—Professor Geoff Till, author of The Development of British Naval Thinking

From the Publisher