The Battle for the Atlantic

[Saints1]

I have just finished watching a 4 part series on National Geographic about the convoys on the Atlantic, and how close we were to being put on our knees by the German U-Boat threat. It's amazing how many times we looked into the abyss in that war only to pull ourselves up in the last minute.

The braveness of the Merchant Navy and the under-reported presence of the Canadian Navy (who invented the method for thwarting the Nazi torpedo that used vibrations to attack its prey) is something that the wider public don't know about.

The Battle of Britain is well known and of course it was massively important that we won that particular war (not least because planes were the single biggest threat to U-Boats) but in spite of all my reading, I didn't know that we were so close to packing it all in because supplies were in too short supply.

God bless everyone who fought and died in that war.

 

[ORothlain]

The Imperial War Museum in London is a must see for you UK'ers. It really brings the impact and scope of the 2 World Wars into perspective.
http://london.iwm.org.uk/
I hold in high esteem Sir Winston Churchill for his vision and his direction during that time.

 

[Prestwick]

My grandad was in the Merchant Navy and was a veteran of the Actic and Malta convoys and in the end had three ships sink from under him. The first sign that any friends and family knew that you had been sunk was when the pay stopped, you didn't get a letter from anyone usually saying how great your Dad, Husband or Son was just no more money.

 

[Cymro]

Comes from Myth of the Blitz! Something I am currently studying as part of my degree in History. It falls under this category. Much of Britain is not taught the real facts of the war but just told of the glory. People are told that the Blitz was not that bad and people showed spirit but in truth this was never the case.

 

[ORothlain]

My Grandad was a courier for the US Armed Forces in WWII. He was in the UK before the Americans showed up and ran a route both within London and from London to Ireland (not sure the full extent of his duties outside of running mail back and forth between high ranking officers stationed there). He described the blitz in pretty amazing detail. One day his route would be fine and the next day he'd have to figure out a new way to run his messages as streets would be impassible from the debris. It's amazing when you look at the buildings in the city of London in particular you can see how many buildings were blown away by the new architecture in the rows of homes.