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Course: Battle of the Atlantic: 1939-45 (OSH-ATLBATTLE)
As an island nation, Britain was (and still is) highly dependent on imports. According to Wikipedia, during World War II, the British needed more than a million tons of imported materials per week in order to survive and fight. So, naturally, during the war Germany attempted to cut off Britain's 'existential' supply lines, primarily with its submarine (or 'U-boat') fleet.
In his postwar memoirs, Churchill wrote 'THE ONLY thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.' The Battle of the Atlantic, then, was the continuing effort to keep Britain supplied. It began on the first day of World War II and ended only with Germany's final surrender.
In this course, we'll look at how Germany attempted to force Britain out of the war by cutting off Britain's supply lines and how -- and why -- those efforts failed.