The Battle of the Atlantic

27. The German success in the Battle of the North and in the Battle of France had immeasurably increased the pressure on the British defence in the battle of the seas. The U-boats now had the use of ports on the Arctic and Atlantic seaboard right down to the Pyrenees, while the airfields behind them could not only provide protection for the U-boat movements far out to sea but could also send bombers to contribute to the assault on the shipping. Losses at sea rose sharply and the threat of a German counter-blockade became a real one.

28. The North Atlantic is not a waste of empty ocean. In a wide arc, the British Isles, the Orkneys and Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland form the links between the old world and the new. German held Trondhjem is roughly the same distance from Iceland as is the Royal Naval base at Scapa in the Orkneys, and so the fall of the Scandinavian States made necessary the British occupation of the Danish possessions in the Atlantic. In this way the land frontier of the Atlantic north of Britain was assured against German assault. American interest in the Atlantic was becoming more and more obvious and the arrangement whereby bases in the West Indies, vital to the defence of the Panama Canal and of Central America, were leased to the U.S.A., together with others in Bermuda and Newfoundland, while fifty laid-up destroyers were handed over to the Royal Navy, not only helped to relieve the pressure but emphasized the American interest in the defence of the last belligerent outpost of freedom in Western Europe. The combination of these measures with the growing organization of Coastal Command operating from the British Isles and the development of new weapons and techniques for the detection and destruction of the enemy vessels and bombers held the attack, but losses continued very high. Meanwhile at home the second farming year of the war was seeing the progressive development of British agriculture towards its maximum power of feeding the people of the islands, while the organization of salvage of all kinds, military, domestic and industrial, was helping to provide raw materials not requiring shipping.

29. 'The dangers of the German occupation of Norway were emphasized when the German battleship Bismarck attended by the Prinz Eugen slipped out to the Atlantic waters. Her threat to Atlantic shipping was eliminated by her destruction only after her first interceptor, the battle cruiser Hood, had been sunk. Efficient shadowing and the concentration of air and naval power brought against her made her attempted escape to Brest impossible.