By Brian Walter
In his 1990 book, Operation Pacific, author Edwyn Gray references ‘a strange quirk in the British character which prefers to dwell on failure rather than success.’ When expanding this concept further, one can find a vast host of historians that have expounded the notion that the Soviet Union was the true architect of victory during the Second World War, and that everything the Western Allies contributed was of secondary importance. Within this historical view, Britain’s contribution to the overall Allied victory was particularly inconsequential. Beyond this, in keeping with Mr. Gray’s observation, many historians have also expressed a skeptical attitude regarding Britain’s performance during the conflict.
As a lifelong student of the British military, I have found these positions to be inaccurate. When reviewing the record, three things become abundantly clear:
- First, the Soviet Union did not win the war by itself, but did so in conjunction with the Western Allies who made major and arguably essential contributions to the victory.
- Second, Britain was not a minor player within the Western alliance, but rather a major military power that played a predominant or significant role in every campaign waged by the Western Allies.
- Third, given the results attained for the outlay of cost, Britain’s performance during the war was actually quite good.
Unlike the conventional view that Germany waged a two-front war, the Western Allies actually forced Germany into a five-front contest. The areas pertaining to the Western Allies consisted of the western, southern, aerial and maritime fronts. The western front constituted the campaign in Northwest Europe where the Western Allies landed in Normandy, liberated four European countries, conquered two-thirds of Germany and destroyed a sizable portion of the German army. The Southern Front involved actions in Africa and Southern Europe that knocked Italy out of the war and eventually absorbed a million German fighting men into the theatre. The aerial front primarily centered upon the strategic bombing campaign that deprived German industry of its full output potential, forced Germany to divert sizable resources to defensive applications and was the catalyst for the defeat of the Luftwaffe. Finally, the maritime front constituted the substantial efforts the Germans expended to wage naval warfare against the Western Allies. Although not normally viewed as a major naval power, Germany actually accumulated more principle warships than did the Imperial Japanese Navy. While roughly three-quarters of these consisted of U-boats, this also included 450 surface warships ranging from battleships to fleet minesweepers.
U-boats
Against this, the Western Allies waged five major campaigns that generally corresponded to these fronts (maritime, African, Southern European, strategic bombing and Northwest European). In each of these, Britain played the predominant or a substantial role in waging the campaign and bringing about the Allied victory. Of these, the maritime campaign was the most important since none of the remaining campaigns would have been remotely possible without success in the maritime realm. It was only through the successful application of maritime power that Britain was able to survive and the United States was able to bring its massive human and materiel resources into the European conflict. Without a successful maritime campaign, there would have been no Western alliance, and the Soviet Union would have faced the full brunt of the German war machine alone.
Often referred to as the Battle of the Atlantic, this maritime campaign was actually much larger in scope than the title implies. In fact, it was the longest running campaign of the war spanning almost six years from September 1939 through May 1945. During this time, the campaign broke down into two concurrent parts. The first of these was defensive as the Allies fought to secure their own maritime lines of communication against the U-boat threat and other forms of Axis interdiction. This effort spanned the globe but was overwhelmingly centered in the North Atlantic were the battle derived its popular name. The second component was the offensive effort to blockade Germany and deprive it of all forms of seaborne transportation. Although often overlooked compared to the more publicised defensive struggle, this offensive effort ran just as long and encompassed numerous operations across the entire globe with particular emphasis placed in the waters off Northwest Europe and the Baltic.
In waging this campaign, the British used maritime power to secure several major objectives. In direct defence, it was the strength of the Royal Navy that provided the greatest deterrent to a German invasion of Britain in 1940. Even before this, the successful seaborne evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France was a major impetus to Britain’s decision to fight on. Once Britain’s immediate survival was secured, it was only through the preservation of maritime lines of communication that the nation’s long-term viability was maintained. While this was underway, the British waged a long and debilitating blockade against Germany that ultimately destroyed 80 percent of Germany’s accumulated merchant fleet and reduced its seaborne imports to a trickle. Finally, once conditions were right, the British used maritime power to execute Operation Overlord and wage large-scale warfare in Northwest Europe.
The Normandy Landing
Britain was the predominant player in this maritime contest. It was the British who provided the majority of resources, conducted the majority of operations, suffered the majority of losses and scored the majority of successes against the German navy and merchant fleet. In terms of the latter, Britain’s share of German maritime losses (both sole and partial) included 100 percent of their capital ships, 75 percent of their cruisers, 80 percent of their destroyers and torpedo boats, 77 percent of their U-boats and 73 percent of their merchant vessels. These successes helped foster an exchange rate of 4.8 Axis warships lost for every corresponding British casualty thus attesting to the efficiency of the British effort. In viewing these results and the stakes involved, victory in this maritime campaign arguably constituted the finest hour in Britain’s long and illustrious military heritage.
About the author:
Brian E. Walter is a retired army officer from a combat arms branch with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Political Science and International Relations. A Distinguished Military Graduate and recipient of the Excellence in Military History Award from the U.S. Army Center for Military History and the Association of the United States Army, he has been a student of the British military during the Second World War for more than 30 years. He currently resides in his home state of Minnesota in the United States where he continues to write on a number of military and historical subjects.
Brian Walter is the author of The Longest Campaign: Britain’s Maritime Struggle in the Atlantic and Northwest Europe, 1939–1945, available now from Casemate UK.
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