Maps, Charts, and Pictures

A convoy of merchant ships, 1941

Red Circles: areas where U-Boats were sunk
Blue outlines: enclosed areas where merchant ships were sunk by U-Boats
Blue shading: where there was the most sinking of merchant ships

http://www.junobeach.org/images/english/flash/convoy41.html
(Map of Convoy Route 1941)

TimeLine of the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1942

• September 3rd ,1939 the sinking of the ocean liner Athenia by U-boat 30 started the battle
• October UK/ Gibraltar convoy OG1, three U-boats attacked and sunk three of the twenty-seven of the convoy
• November The RAF coastal command continued to patrol for U-Boats, but Lacked effective anti-submarine explosives
• May of 1940 Germany attacked France , British royal marines land from two cruisers at Reykjavik, Iceland, More troops followed to set up air and sea bases that soon became vital to Britain's defence of the Atlantic supply route.
• June 1940 Germany move hundreds of miles closer to the Atlantic convoy routes due to the loss of Norway.
• July 1940 Allied convoys were forced to re-route their path through the northwestern approaches to the British isles
• august 1940 - Long Range Focker Wulf Kondor Bombers started patrols off the coast of Ireland, led by Admiral Doenitz
• October 1940 U.S destroyers go into service with the U.K for permanent escorts, RAF coastal command and Western Approaches Command improve steadily.
• November 1940 fifteen merchant ships sunk including seven U-boats from the SC11
• January 1941 Bad weather in January through February left Germany with only 22 operational Uboats out of the 90 that were in commission
• February 1941 Admiral Sir Percy Noble takes over as commander and chief
• March 1941 The U.S lend lease bill is passe which led Britain and the allies to be able to receive american arms. On march 6th, Winston Churchill issued merchant ships to be armed with anti-aircraft guns as first priority.
• June 1941 the Royal Navy captured U-Boat 100 and captured Enigma material and tracked down to where supply ships were positioning to support the Bismark and other raiders and the U-boats. within the next twenty days six tankers and three other ships were sunk/ captured. this led Germany to only get supplies form boats called "Milchcows" which were not ready until 1942 .
• October,1941- U.S and Royal Canadian navies becomes established to the North Atlantic. U.S naval Air Force and Army Air Force now adding more efforts to the RAF and RCAF by escorting and patrolling from Newfoundland and Iceland.
• November 1941- considerable drops to German U-boats in the North Atlantic thus increasing the number of escorts by the help of the U.S navy. Escort carrier Audacity was also proving her worth by the number of planes carried. Hitlers orders then sent large numbers of U-boats to the Mediterranean sea. these were needed to shore up the Italian and help to try and secure the supply lines to the axis armies in North Africa.
• January 1942 -2/3 of Uboat spread out across the Atlantic Admiral Doenitz ordered to be at least 10-12 Uboats at each position at one time. German operation Paukenschlag (Drumroll) is launched towards the coasts of America.
• February 1942- Operation Paukenschlag gets extended down to the Caribbean and towards oil ports
• March 1942 - U.S lost 40+ ships many of valuable tankers
• May 1942- Mexico declares war on the Axis powers, Germany's U-Boat power increases to 100 operational subs with 200 decommissioned
• November 1942- The Anti-Uboat committee was formed under the chairmanship of Prime Minister, Winston Churchill
• December 1942- Uboat "triton" code was broken

A picture of a U-Boat

The Home Front

Problems faced, getting supplies, etc.

   Americans faced the problems of evacuation, rationing, and jobs.

Homefront:

·         Men fought in the war but those left behind helped with the war effort.

·         The Home Front is the name given to the effect of the war on peoples’ everyday lives.

·        

Evacuation:

§  The government believed that large American cities would be a target for German bombs and that casualties would be high in result.

§  Evacuations moved school children, teachers, mothers with children under the age of 5, and disabled people out of the cities and into the country side.

Rationing:

§  Since Ships were being bombed, supplies were limited.

§  People were given ration books to keep track of the food they bought, and had to register with a grocery store.

§  At first only butter, sugar, and bacon were rationed, but by the mid-1940’s all meat, cheese, eggs, jam, mild, and tea were rationed as well.

§  There was also a rationing with clothing due to the shortage of raw materials. Factories concentrated on producing weapons and ammunition.

Women:

§  During the war women were called up to take over jobs that were traditionally done by men.

§  They worked in factories producing aircraft, ammunition, weapons, and other goods needed for the war. Some women also worked farming in the fields.

§  Women worked long hours and still make less than men who would do the same job.

Home Guard:

§  Formed in 1940, the Home Guard or Local Defense Volunteers (LDV) were men that were too old or too young (above 40 or below 18) to serve in the forces.

§  The men were volunteers and were given a uniform and an armband that showed that they were a part of the LDV.

§  The men were provided with donated rifles, pistols and/or shotguns.

§  Their training was at night because most of them held a job in the day and they prepared themselves for a German invasion.

Allied Campaigns

The main thing that the Allied troops wanted to do was secure shipping routes across the Atlantic. In doing doing so they would also have to blockade the Axis powers to secure the shipping routes and fight them on the seas. Britian had the largest fleet at the time with 3,000  ocean vessels and 1,000 coastal ships. What helped Britain to defeat the germans U-Boats was this machine called Asdic which was basicly like sonar. Britain also started intercepting German Enigma Code so we could anticipate the U-boat. We would use the radio to alert where an attack was going to be.

Persecution and/or Mass Murder in the World Today

Darfur (region of Sudan)

• Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed
• Over 2.5 million are homeless refugees
• Over 400,000 people murderend by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed

Persecution of Christians in China

• In some places, Chinese Christians are punished for their religion
• More Christians in jail for their faith than any other country
• Many of the Christians in jail are beaten and abused in prisonPersecution in Nigeria
  
  • Muslim mobs attack Christians
  • Sometimes fire-bombings are put on Christian groups
   Persecution in Sudan
  
  • Mulims attack Christians and other non-muslims
  • Burn down their churches or use bombs
  • People are sold as slaves or forced to change their faith to Muslim
   There is also persecution in other areas as well, Indonesia, Burma, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Uganda and many others.
  
  
  What you can do stop this from happening: become aware of the problem, get others aware of the problem, make donations, join charities.
  
  
  

Axis Advanced or Retreats

Axis campaigns in the Atlantic were mainly trying to cut off Great Britain's supply lines. The Germans did this by using U-Boats much like they did in the First World War. Although the U-Boats were almost completely beaten by 1943, the battle still lasted the remainder of the war. The Germans continued to launch attacks to  the Indian ocean, Caribbean and to the Irish Sea. They also attacked all along the South and the North Atlantic, all the way to the Bering Sea and along Norway and the route to Murmansk. the Germans U-Boat operation in which Erich Raeder, the Grand Admiral, was head of until he was replaced by Karl Donitz in 1943. The Germans lost seven hundred and eighty-three U-boats, numerous surface ships and twenty-eight thousand sailors.

Holocaust

Holocaust and Rwanda Genocide Videos

The Holocaust is the death of 11 million people, half of them were Jews. Jews were the center of Nazi targets. They blamed Jews for most of their problems, including the defeat of World War 1. The Nazis made the Jews wear the Star of David on their clothing, so they would identify them easier.  When the Jews were found, they would either be sent to a concentration camp or immediately executed. Many were dragged out of their homes and were thrown in trucks or shipped to these concentration camps. Many families were separated. They built about 6 camps in Poland.  Concentration camps were a cycle of hunger, humiliation, and work all the way to death. If they were too weak to work, they would be sentenced to death. They were mostly separated by their strength.   Many people were put in gas chambers. Then the stronger people would have to clean up the bodies. To cover up these mass murders they made huge crematories. Many were also tested on by doctors to improve the “master race” Six million Jews died by the Nazi massacre.

We should remember these people because they were all innocent people that all died. Just because of their religion and what they believed in they were all murdered. Holocaust is not just a word. It’s now spelled with a capital H because it is known as a huge tragedy.  We think everyone should study the holocaust because it teaches us about prejudice, how cruel the Germans were, and to be grateful for what we have.

Battle of the Atlantic

The problems troops faced, getting supplies, etc.

·       The Battle of the Atlantic- ran from 1939-1945, and was the longest continuous military campaign of WWII  
·         Hitler ordered submarine raids against American ships after the attack on Pearl Harbor 

·         Germans aimed to prevent food and war supplies from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union
·        Britian needed over a million tons of imported material
·         Hitler knew Britain depended on supplis from sea, so if he cut the 'lifeline', then Britain would be starved into submission

·        Germans saw uprotected American ships as an easy target

·        In the first 4 months of 1942, Germans sank 87 ships off Atlantic shore

·         681 allied ships in the Atlantic destroyed by German wolf packs 7 months into the next year
·          The Allies were in the lead for the battle, but 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were sunk for the loss of 783 U-Boats

·        Allies responded by organizing cargo ships into convoys.* These convoys sailed with destroyer shops equipped with sonar.

·       U-Boats were also detected near the surface by the airplane radars. The allies were now able to be spotted and German U-Boats were destroyed faster than they could be made. 
·        The allies lost 30,248 merchant sailers and the Germans lost 28,000 sailors.

·         Spring of 1943, Admiral Karl Doenitz, the commander of the German U-Boats, said that his losses had "reached an unbearable height."

·       Early 1943, 140 Liberty ships were produced each month- launched by a crash shipbuilding program. The more produced, the more it outnumbered the sunk ships. 

·         The Battle of the Atlantic had turned by mid-1943. Churchill was happy to report to the House of Commons that June “was the best month (at sea) from every point of view we have ever known in the whole 46 months of the war.”
                         
                             *Convoys- groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection