Download Battles in the Atlantic

Essential Questions:
• What were the key elements of the
Battle of the Atlantic?
• What things gave the Allies the
advantage to win control over the
Atlantic Ocean?
Battle of the Atlantic
• The Battle of the
Atlantic was the longest
continuous military
campaign in World War
II: 1939 -1945
U-boat shells a
merchant ship
• After declaring war on
the U.S., German
submarines entered
American coastal
waters.
United States East Coast
German U-boats
German U-boats at
anchor
Convoy System
• Great Britain required more than a million tons of imported
material per week in order to survive and hold off
Germany’s attacks.
• Blimps and airplanes flew overhead keeping watch.
• At the core of the battle was the blockade of Germany, and
Germany's blockade of Great Britain
U.S. Navy blimp flies over a convoy of ships
to protect it from German U-boats
Mass Production
• Even though the Germans wreaked havoc on
Allied ships in the Atlantic, by 1942 U.S. shipyards
are producing ships faster than the Germans are
sinking them
• New technology helps turn the tide in favor of the
allies
• Sonar, Radar, Depth
Charges
A fleet of U.S. Liberty ships
D-Day Plan
D-Day Deception
• Efforts to fool the Germans into
thinking the invasion would
occur elsewhere
• Method used:
• Controlled leaks of misinformation
• Physical deception
Dummy aircraft
•
•
•
•
Fake infrastructure and equipment
Dummy landing craft
Dummy aircraft/airfields
Decoy lighting
• Fake messages/transmissions
• Messages sent to and from fake units
Symbol of the fictitious
1st Army unit
The Normandy Invasion
• June 6, 1944 “D-Day” aka
“Operation Overlord”
• The attack was planned
months in advance; the
Nazi’s knew the Allies
planned to attack…but
didn’t know where
• Five “Landing Beaches”
were chosen: Utah,
Omaha, Gold, Sword, and
Juno
D-Day map of the coast of France
The Normandy Invasion
• Largest single allied
invasion in the war
• 1.5 million troops & 5
million tons of equipment
sent to Britain in
preparation
• Dawn of June 6:
• 7,000 ships, 100,000
soldiers, 23,000
paratroopers land on the
Normandy beaches
Troops & equipment landing
at a captured beachhead
Battle of the Atlantic
• Fill out the graphic organizer “Battle of
the Atlantic” while viewing the next
seven slides
• Sept 3, 1939 - WWII begins • 1939 totals:
• 165 merchant ships
• Set. 14th – 1st U-boat suck
• Sept. 16th – 1st Convoy route sunk
• 9 U-boats sunk
• June – Dunkirk evacuated
• June - France surrenders to
Germany
• July – Battle of the Atlantic
officially begins
• 1940 totals:
• 567 merchant ships
sunk
• 24 U-boats sunk
• Jan–April: German aircraft sink 113 • 1941 totals:
ships in Atlantic
• 503 merchant ships
st
• March – 1 radar detect U-boats
sunk
• June – German Naval code broken • 35 U-boats sunk
• Hitler declares war on U.S.A.
• Feb – Germany changes enigma
machine, British can’t read code
• May - U-boats begin night time
surface attacks
• June - British cryptographers
crack U-boat code
• 1942 totals:
• 1383 merchant ships
sunk
• 87 U-boats sunk
• Feb – War changes in favor • 1943 totals:
of the Allies
• 588 merchant ships sunk
• March – Germany
• 242 U-boats sunk
temporarily blocking code
breaking
• June 4th – D-Day Landing
• 1944 totals:
• 251 merchant ships
• Aug. – Largest convoy
arrives in U.K. with no losses sunk
• 252 U-boats sunk
• May 6th – Last U-boat sunk
• May 8th – Germany surrenders
• Sept. 2nd – Japan surrenders
• 1945 totals:
• 175 merchant ships
sunk
• 120 U-boats sunk
U-Boats scuttled at the end
of the war
• May 6-9, 1945: over 200
U-boats scuttled (sunk)
by the Germans
• 156 U-boats were
surrendered to the British
Royal Navy
• 116 were scuttled by the
U.K. off of Ireland
42 surrendered Uboats Northern
Ireland in June 1945
Essential Questions:
• What were the key elements of the
Battle of the Atlantic?
• What things gave the Allies the
advantage to win control over the
Atlantic Ocean?