A study of the naval or maritime strategy of Germany in the recent war can be of particular interest to us for at least two reasons. First, Germany’s situation in the early years of the last war was closely parallel to that of Russia today—relatively very strong on the ground, in the air, and under the sea, but hopelessly outmatched on the sea. Second, we are far better able to draw instruction from the records of the losing side in a war, for, as the old saying goes, “Defeat cries aloud for explanation; whereas success, like charity, covers a multitude of sins.” Only those strategic decisions or plans will be considered, however, which had a major bearing on the war and which were either controversial or interesting and valuable as lessons.
Four major plans have been selected for study. The first of these is the 1937 German naval plan for the defeat of Britain in a war scheduled to start in 1946; second, the 1939 plan for the war which actually occurred; third, Operation “Sea Lion” or the proposed invasion of England; and fourth, the plans for the blockade of Britain between the fall of France and the attack on Russia. Nothing has been included after June, 1941, because, in the author’s opinion, despite later successes in the Battle of the Atlantic, German naval strategy could no longer affect the outcome of the war.
First, however, let us take a quick glance at the main architects of these plans. During the preparations for the last war, and during that part of the war in which Germany’s navy played a vital role, only two men were primarily involved in Germany’s naval strategic decisions.
The first was Adolph Hitler. He controlled the German Navy absolutely and, particularly after 1939, made all important naval decisions. Yet he was a man with little or no knowledge of sea power and can best be described by his own statement to his Commanders-in-Chief .“On land I am a hero, but at sea I am a coward.” In his lengthy and almost all-inclusive plan for Germany, Mein Kampf, he never mentions the navy or sea power. In fact, he definitely turns his face away from the sea when he lays down the fundamental direction of his foreign policies as follows:
“Thus, we National Socialists put an end to the pre-war tendencies of our foreign policy. We begin the work where it was left six hundred years ago. We stem the eternal Germanic migration to the south and west of Europe, and after the settlement of our accounts with France direct our eyes towards the land in the East. We finally terminate the pre-war colonial and trade policy and move over to the land policy of the future.”1
Certainly this is an almost perfect example of the pure continental theory of strategy. Hitler was a true modern successor to Napoleon and a whole string of land bound conquerors who have challenged the historic rule that the control of a continent such as Europe cannot be maintained successfully or for any length of time if the seas are dominated by another power.
We must now examine quite a different type of man, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy for fifteen crucial years, 1928 to 1943. He was a naval officer of the old school and a worthy successor to Von Tirpitz. As Anthony Martiensen puts it in his excellent book, Hitler and His Admirals,2 Raeder received his training and naval education during the heyday of the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet, and he carried with him throughout his career the stamp of the Prussian traditions in which he had been molded. This probably accounts for the fact that the capable though morally blind naval chief transferred his allegiance without reservation from General Von Hindenburg to ex-corporal Hitler. His own statement on this point is both interesting and revealing. A few months after VE day, he wrote a paper entitled “My Relationship to Adolph Hitler and to the Party,” which includes this paragraph: “When the Fuehrer, following the death of Hindenburg in August 1934, occupied the office of the Reich President and thereby became the Supreme Commander- in-Chief of the Armed Forces, I . . . offered him, upon his demand, the oath of allegiance. A consideration to the contrary was out of the question. A. Hitler was legally named Reich Chancellor by the most honorable Reich President, V. Hindenburg. ... He therefore could be regarded by the people as the legally arisen Fuehrer. In addition, it also became known that Hindenburg considered Adolph Hitler as his successor. In line with the prevailing estimate of Hitler’s abilities, none of us could name a more suitable or commanding personality than Hitler.”3
Although the Admiral never commanded a ship at sea, he had a great deal of sea duty as a junior officer and during World War I was Chief of Staff to Admiral Von Hipper, famous cruiser squadron commander. After the war in 1922, he wrote a two-volume treatise on cruiser warfare which became the standard work on the subject. In these books he displayed a phenomenal grasp of naval strategy and, in addition, a thorough knowledge of general military history. He was obviously an ardent admirer of our own Admiral Mahan and frequently quoted him in his books and papers. Furthermore, in his writings, as in his later career, he showed a clear understanding of the intimate relationship between foreign policy and naval power. One example among many to be found in his books is the following: “Naval Policy could be ultimately successful only when those at the head of public affairs made it their task to establish the indispensable foundations therefore by a suitable foreign policy.”4 One more key quotation from this same volume is useful in understanding the future German Commander-in-Chief, “The case of war with England must always be taken as the basis for German strategical studies.”5
Fortunately for us and even more fortunately for the British, Hitler did not fully appreciate and seldom used his excellent advice. Winston Churchill, however, in his recent books, frequently praises the sound views of Raeder and voices his own thanks that the German Fuehrer did not heed them.
So much for the men who fashioned the naval policy of Germany. Let us move on to the key strategic decisions or plans of those men.
Plan Zebra
The first, and one of the most interesting of these, stemmed from a fateful conference in the Reich Chancellery on the evening of November 5, 1937. At this meeting, Hitler detailed to his Commanders-in-Chief his plans for conquest and his theory of Lebensraum. He proclaimed the necessity of Germany’s expansion by force and posed but one problem. “The question for Germany is where the greatest possible conquest can be made at the lowest cost.”6 Of particular interest here was his naming England as the “hateful enemy to whom a strong German colossus in the center of Europe would be intolerable.” However, he believed that he could swallow Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland first, without British interference, and repeatedly promised Raeder that under no circumstances would he risk a war with England until 1946 at the earliest.
This confirmed Raeder’s private belief that the British were the ultimate enemy. However, he had spent the previous five years building his navy to fight France in loyal accord with Hitler’s earlier orders. During that period, Raeder had almost brought his fleet up to that of the French, but it was still woefully behind that of the British. In fact, it was operating under the 1935 Anglo-German Naval Treaty which established a firm tonnage ratio between the two navies at 100 British to 35 German. Furthermore, the Nazis must have realized that the British, with their vastly superior shipbuilding industry, would never have allowed the German Fleet to become their equal.
Admiral Raeder was therefore faced with an old familiar problem—what is the best possible employment of a weaker fleet in war? There is, of course, a great volume of literature and argument on this question. Many theories have been advanced and many adopted. Three of these are worth elaboration.
The Fleet in Being is based on the theory that a naval force, by the very fact of its existence, can greatly influence, restrict and, possibly, paralyze the operations of superior naval forces, without the need for battle necessarily, but with the threat of battle under favorable conditions always present. As Mahan says, there are many elements of truth in this doctrine and therein lies the danger. While it implies the use of the offensive on occasion, it also appears to give greater potential strength to the weaker side than is apt to exist.
This theory is, of course, best exemplified by the German High Seas Fleet remaining at its bases during World War I and thereby, theoretically, tying up the British Grand Fleet at Scapa. The complete uselessness of the idea in that war did not convince some naval theorists who claimed that it might well have worked if combined with a greater offensive spirit. For example, the Germans could have sallied forth in November of 1914. At that time, due to condenser failures on several British battleships plus the detachment of others to chase Von Spee’s cruiser squadron, the German High Seas Fleet was temporarily markedly superior to the British, so that properly used there is some good logic to the Fleet in Being.
The next theory, that of the Fortress Fleet, is primarily Russian in origin and almost purely defensive in fact. Herein naval forces form a part of the defensive system of the base. The ships are tied to the support of the base rather than the reverse and, in effect, merely extend the gun ranges and flexibility of the defensive systems. For example, Admiral Wirenius, in command of the Russian squadron sent from the Black Sea to reinforce the Far Eastern forces in the Russo-Japanese war, stated before his departure, that the Russian naval plan was to make Port Arthur and Vladivostok the two strongest and most important fortresses of the empire. Another example, though substituting defense of an army’s flank for defense of a base, is this quotation from The Red Fleet in the Second World War by Russian Admiral of the Fleet Isakov. “The most important task carried out by our Navy in all Soviet waters has been to protect the strategic flanks of the Red Army, extending to the coast, against enemy landing parties and Naval operations.”7 (The italics are Admiral Isakov’s.)
The theory of the Guerre de Course requires that the naval effort be directed primarily at the enemy’s commerce, not at his navy. No attempt is made to gain control of the seas for one’s own use, merely to deny its use to the enemy. Mahan stated his views on this theory as follows:
“The harassment and distress caused to a country by serious interference with its commerce will be conceded by all. It is doubtless a most important secondary operation of naval war; but regarded as a primary and fundamental measure, sufficient in itself to crush an enemy, it is probably a delusion, and a most dangerous delusion. Especially is it misleading when the nation against whom it is to be directed possesses, as Great Britain did and does, the two requisites of a strong sea power, a wide spread healthy commerce and a powerful navy. Only by military command of the sea by prolonged control of the strategic centres of commerce, can such an attack be fatal; and such control can be wrung from a powerful navy only by fighting and overcoming it.”8
It is ironic that Raeder, who was to command a navy so weak that its only recourse was war on commerce, should have quoted this passage of Mahan with full approval in his own 1922 work on cruiser warfare.
We have said that Germany’s navy in 1937 was weaker than that of Great Britain. The first two lines of the following table show a rough comparison of the two fleets at that time. The numbers are for ships in being and ships building in 1937. For a dividing line between new and old, the age of obsolescence laid down by pre-war arms conferences has been used. Further, as Raeder was planning for a war commencing in 1946, all ages of ships have been computed back from that year.
The seven new British battleships shown are Nelson and Rodney plus five of the King George V class which had just been laid down. The four German capital ships are the two Scharnhorsts which could outrun the British but which were outgunned by them and the two Bismarcks which could match anything afloat or building. The three “small” BB’s are, of course, the “pocket battleships” which were really fast heavy cruisers with 11- inch guns, especially designed for commerce raiding.
The British carriers are the five new Ark Royals just started, and they are compared to the two Graf Zeppelins also just started but never finished.
Fleet Comparisons |
||||||||||||
|
BB & BC |
CV |
CA |
CL |
DD |
SS |
||||||
|
New |
Old |
Small |
|
New |
Old |
New |
Old |
New |
Old |
New |
Old |
Germany—1937 Built & Bldg. |
4 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
5 |
2 |
22 |
12 |
51 |
0 |
Britain—1937 Built & Bldg. |
7 |
1 |
0 |
5 |
4 |
10 |
33 |
3 |
107 |
7 |
36 |
19 |
Germany—1946 Plan Zebra |
10 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
9 |
0 |
9 |
2 |
100 |
12 |
231 |
0 |
The three German heavy cruisers of the Admiral Hipper class, just about to be completed, were far superior to all the British cruisers, new or old. In light cruisers and destroyers Britain, whose problem was protecting her sea commerce by convoy and escort, was far superior to Germany whose primary thought was disrupting that commerce. However, Germany’s submarine production was still surprisingly low.
From this situation Raeder evolved a most interesting strategic concept, and a building program, the famous Plan “Z” or “Zebra,” to support it. His concept ignored the Fortress Fleet idea, but it did combine Fleet-in-Being, Guerre de Course, and finally, Control of the Seas. This latter would have pleased his maestro, Admiral Mahan.
Plan Z would have added by January, 1946, six fast heavy battleships, six fast heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, 180 submarines, and assorted light craft. The German 1946 situation would then appear as shown in line three of the table. Raeder realized, of course, that the British could and would match or overmatch this program, but he felt that his plan could handle that. Here is his proposed task organization—
1. Home Fleet—4 BB, 2 CA, several CL and DD
2. Raider Forces—3 BB (pocket), 5 CA, 5 CL, 190 SS
3. Attack Force “Able”—1 CV, 3 BB, 1 CA, several CL and DD
4. Attack Force “Baker”—1 CV, 3 BB, 1 CA, several CL and DD
Here is his plan:
He would keep at home a fleet in being with a battleline of two Scharnhorsts and two Bismarcks to hold down some of the British heavy ships in the North Sea area. He would initiate commerce raiding immediately on the declaration of war with these forces operating individually and widely dispersed: three pocket battleships, at least five fast heavy cruisers, several of the light cruisers, about 190 submarines. He knew that the British would be immediately forced to disperse their own heavy ships widely and very thinly either to escort convoys or to search out and destroy the surface raiders individually. Then Admiral Raeder would have sent out his two strong attack groups, each with a core of three fast powerful battleships and one carrier to hunt the hunters, that is, to prey on Britain’s scattered heavy ships in an effort to defeat them in detail.
As Raeder stated later, “In this way, especially with the cooperation of Japan and Italy, who would have held down a section of the British Fleet, the prospect of defeating the British Navy and cutting off Britain’s supplies, in other words of settling the British question conclusively would have been good.”9
Would it have worked? That is, of course, hard to say. One thing is certain—the plan concentrated on the primary weakness of an island country that must import or die.
The British certainly agreed with Raeder’s views as to the seriousness of just one enemy cruiser loose on the oceans of the world. Mr. Churchill stated in September, 1939, “The question of a breaking out of any of the five or seven German ships of weight would be a major naval crisis requiring a special plan. These raids, if they occur, could only be deal' with as a naval operation of the main fleet which would organize the necessary hunting parties to attack the enemy.”10
This, in fact, happened shortly thereafter when four battleships, fourteen cruisers, and five aircraft carriers were organized into hunting groups for well over a month to search for one German raider, the Graf Spee. An additional three battleships and two cruised were used as convoy escorts during this period. Raeder’s plan certainly gives an interesting twist to that principle of war known as concentration, which in this case might be phrased in a reverse manner as “force your enemy to disperse.”
The Actual War Plan
When the German Naval Commander sat down to make his 1937 strategic plan he wd in the happy position of being able to make a plan and then have time to build the forces to carry it out. A year and a half later, however the situation was just the reverse. He was then handed a prospective, imminent was and told to make his plan to fit his very meager forces.
As a matter of fact, there is considerable reason to believe that Hitler also made the plan and merely told Raeder to carry it out. In any event, in May, 1939, when Hitler put out his order No. 1 for the attack on Poland, an appendix to that order was entitled “Battle Instructions for the German Navy.” Let us examine briefly its main points.
First, the document presents the general situation for the war which is summed up in these words: “The clear grouping of the leading great powers in Europe makes a war confined to a limited area improbable. It is therefore necessary to adjust ourselves to the possibility of a war on two fronts, against England and France and against at least one opponent in the East.” Particularly noteworthy here is Hitler’s admission that his actions will probably cause a war with England.
The most important paragraph of this order is Number 12, which reads as follows:
“12. The general tasks of the German Navy in wartime are:
(A) Protection of the coast against enemy sea and air operations.
(B) Protection of our own sea communications.
(C) Attack on enemy sea communications.
(D) Support of land and air warfare along the coast.
(E) Use as a politico-strategic instrument of war, e.g., to ensure the neutrality of the Scandinavian countries and of the Baltic states.”
This list is worth examining in detail. The first task, protection of the coast, included the manning of coastal AA batteries. It sounds, like task “D,” as though it had been written by that primary exponent of the Fortress Fleet, Russia’s Admiral Isakov.
The second task, “Protection of our own sea communications,” would seem to require some attempt to control the seas. Not so in this case, however, for the order in a later paragraph freely concedes that the British can and will stop all German seaborne commerce and thus applies this phrase only to the Baltic area.
The third task, attack on enemy sea communications, was to be limited entirely to commerce warfare and was completely defensive in nature, as is shown by the following quotation from another section of the order: “The task of naval warfare in extra-territorial waters is war on merchant shipping. Combat action even against inferior naval forces is not an aim in itself, and is therefore not to be sought.” Here we have an example of the pure, defensive theory of the Guerre de Course which Mahan and Raeder agreed could not defeat an enemy like Britain.
Finally, task E is a perfect example of a fleet in being without any offensive action included or even implied.
What an ignominious retreat this plan was from Admiral Raeder’s Plan “Zebra.” However, whatever specific faults might be found in the order, they pale into insignificance when compared to the over-all appalling error which Hitler committed in deliberately starting a war against Britain with neither a plan nor the necessary forces to win it. As he proved, he had the power on the ground and in the air to conquer his continental neighbors, but to defy British sea power—which had been a dominant, if not the dominant, factor in every major European war in generations—without even so much as a plan for defeating it, seems unbelievable.
It certainly would appear that this was the German Fuehrer’s first cardinal error of the war, and very possibly his most serious one.
The one important German naval plan during the first ten months of the war, the Norwegian Campaign, will not be discussed here, for it was, from a strategic viewpoint, both essential and successful, and therefore fewer lessons can be learned from it.
In July of 1940, Hitler offered the peace of appeasement to Britain, his sole remaining enemy. When this was coldly spurned, he, at last, had to face the facts and find some plan or some method to defeat Mr. Churchill and his obstinate island people. At this point, the German Fuehrer apparently believed that he had three general courses of action available to him. These were:
1. To seize and occupy the British Isles by amphibious assault;
2. To destroy the British people’s will to fight by strategic bombing;
3. To starve the British people by blockade.
The plan for the first of these courses and the reasons for, and implications of, its cancellation is the subject of the next discussion.
Operation Sea Lion
The German Fuehrer originally had no concept of the tremendous problems involved in such an operation. This is proved by the timing of his orders. On July 2, 1940, he mentioned the possibility of an amphibious landing for the first time. He told his three service chiefs that evening to consider such an undertaking and to prepare tentative answers to eight general questions which he listed. Then on July 16 he ordered that a definite plan be made for the operation, which he then named Sea Lion, and that all plans and preparations therefor were to be accomplished within thirty days. Raeder was stunned by this timing, though he had had a staff secretly working on such a plan for eight months just in case they did receive orders to produce one quickly. However, to make all the preparations, including interservice planning, training, assembling of lift, sweeping enemy mines, laying his own protective minefields, and the multitude of other vital operations and preparations that must precede a major amphibious assault, and to do all this in one month, was a tall order. In addition, Raeder had very grave doubts of its success even if this primary prerequisite of absolute air supremacy were gained.
On the other hand, the Army Chief of Staff, Field Marshal Haider was not nearly so worried. He wrote in his diary at this time that the invasion was “just like, and no worse than, an extended river crossing.” As for Goering, he was certain that his Luftwaffe would force Britain to her knees without help from anyone else, so he too showed little concern or interest in the plan.
During the entire month there raged a bitter argument between the Army, who wanted to land on a very broad front, and the Navy, who claimed that at best they could only protect a narrow lane across the Straits of Dover. Hitler finally solved this by compromise. One airborne division was to be landed behind Dover and six infantry divisions were to be landed simultaneously over four beaches in the vicinity of Dungeness, Beachyhead, and Brighton. Six more divisions were to follow onto the same beaches during the next ten days. H-hour was to be set at dawn, so the crossing could be made at night. To furnish sufficient transportation the Navy requisitioned just about every ship, boat, or barge in all of Germany and the occupied areas, including fishing vessels, motor boats, canal barges, river vessels, sailing vessels with or without auxiliary engines, ferries, tugs, etc., to the following totals:
1722 barges
471 tugs
1161 motorboats
155 small transports
The word barges included everything not self-propelled. The tugs included fishing vessels and anything that could tow a barge- The motor boats include everything self-propelled which could not tow a barge. The small transports varied from about three to five thousand tons in size and five to twelve knots in speed. Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, and Le Havre were to be the main ports of embarkation.
This fantastic fleet was to be protected by thirteen coastal guns of 11" to 15" caliber at Cape Gris Nez and by 6800 mines. However, the primary guardians of the troops were to be Goering’s “angels.”
Arrayed against this second “Armada” Britain had assembled in southern England ten poorly equipped infantry divisions, three armored divisions with very little armor, and an undefeated, though numerically inferior, air force. In addition, the British had in the immediate vicinity of the Channel several light cruisers, fifty to sixty large destroyers, and over 800 armed vessels such as corvettes, frigates, and other small escort ships, plus some PT boats and armed trawlers. Neither the Germans nor the British had any battleships or heavy cruisers within twelve hours steaming of the Channel area.
The key to the plan in Hitler’s eyes was the gaining of air supremacy. If Goering won this invaluable advantage, the operation would be on; otherwise, it would be off.
However, with all due respect for the capabilities of air power, it hardly seems possible that the invasion would have succeeded even if absolute air supremacy had been gained. Visualize this motley group of craft issuing forth from their narrow harbors some evening, forming up in the dark into groups, held down to the low speed of the slowest ship, and proceeding across the English Channel with its swift and changing currents, its great rise and fall of tide, and doing all this at night against the might of the British Navy. Certainly, air power or no air power, this operation was bound to produce one of the most colossal failures ever recorded in the histories of war. Admittedly, if the Luftwaffe pressed home their attacks, the British destroyers and smaller escort ships would have been badly hurt during daylight hours and German mines would have taken a terrible toll, but the British ability to turn back such a landing can hardly be doubted.
At the beginning of this discussion of Sea Lion it was stated that Hitler might have won the war had he gone ahead with Sea Lion. This theory is not so illogical as it might appear on the surface for, although the British would have won a great victory, it might well have been Pyrrhic victory. The loss of 40 or 50 destroyers and several hundred smaller escort vessels might have seemed like a good exchange for one or two hundred thousand German soldiers, for Britain’s margin in the Battle of the Atlantic was never that great in escorts. She might well have won the Battle of Britain only to lose the Battle of the Atlantic.
Now Herr Goering and his Luftwaffe were given their opportunity to “win the war by air power alone.” That plan is not properly part of this subject so it can be passed over with two remarks: First, it failed dismally, and second, by refusing to cooperate with the other services, the German Air Force assisted in the downfall of the one plan that might have succeeded.
The Battle of the Imports
This single plan that promised final success was to coordinate every ounce of German effort on the blockade of Great Britain. Now, by blockade is meant a great deal more than a Guerre de Course. In this case the word is used to describe a complete war against the imports of Britain including the Guerre de Course at sea plus the closing of ports by mines and the destruction of all harbor facilities by aerial bombing. The amazing thing is that the Germans came very close to strangling Britain, yet never seemed to realize it.
But, though the Nazis may not have appreciated this, their enemy certainly did. Mr. Churchill has made several revealing statements on this subject. The first was written in a letter to President Roosevelt dated December 8, 1940. “The danger of Great Britain being destroyed by a swift overwhelming blow has, for the time being, very greatly receded. In its place there is a long, gradually maturing danger, less sudden and less spectacular, but equally deadly. This mortal danger is the steady and increasing diminution of sea tonnage. We can endure the shattering of our dwellings and the slaughter of our civil population by indiscriminate air attacks but the decision for 1941 lies upon the seas. Our estimate of annual tonnage which ought to be imported to maintain our effort at full strength is 43,000,000 tons; the tonnage entering in September and October was only at the rate of 37,000,000 tons. Were this diminution to continue at this rate it would be fatal.”11 Then, looking back on this period when Britain stood alone, he wrote in his book, Their Finest Hour. . . .“for now our lifeline even across the broad oceans, and especially in the entrances to the island, was endangered. I was even more anxious about this battle than I had been about the glorious air fight called the ‘Battle of Britain.’ Either the food, supplies, and arms from the New World and from the Empire arrived across the oceans or they failed.” Then further on in the same chapter he describes the vital importance of the ports of Liverpool and Glasgow as follows: “As November and December drew on, the entrances and estuaries of the Mersey and the Clyde far surpassed in mortal significance all other factors in the war.”
.Yes, the Germans came close to winning the war by blockade, and yet they did it with only a portion of their national effort, with one hand tied behind their backs. Let us examine the methods and weapons available to Hitler after the fall of France for the Battle of the Atlantic, which might better be named the “Battle of the Imports.”
These are very obvious but are listed here for reference purposes.
1. The normal Guerre de Course or sinking merchant vessels at sea by
(a) Submarines (with air reconnaissance)
(b) Air attack
(c) Battleship and cruiser raiders
(d) Converted merchant ship raiders
2. Destruction of harbor facilities and ships in harbor by
(a) Bombing
(b) Mining
The Germans used or attempted to use each of these methods, but their over-all strategy failed primarily because they violated most of the so-called “Principles of War.” For that reason it is interesting to examine this phase of the war within the framework of five of the most commonly accepted of those principles:
1. Objective—;the selection and maintenance of a proper goal or goals toward which military activity should be directed.
2. Concentration—of superior forces at the decisive place, at the decisive time, including the sustaining of this superiority for the requisite length of time.
3. Economy—of forces used against secondary goals in order to permit concentration on the primary objective.
4. Offensive.
5. Cooperation—this includes cooperation between the forces or services of one country as well as between allies.
Now let us examine the first method shown on the outline—commerce attacks by a submarine-air team. Certainly the U-boats thoroughly scared the British, yet the sub number was incredibly small and the construction of new ones and repair of operating boats was never given the highest priority by Hitler. During this period, Admiral Doenitz, the submarine commander, was able to average only ten boats operating at a time in the Atlantic.
Similarly he was not able to get the air reconnaissance he so desperately needed. In January, 1941, a pitifully small unit of twelve planes was assigned to the undersea warfare command, by personal direction of Hitler. At this time the German Fuehrer stated that he had reached two conclusions: —first, that Britain’s greatest vulnerability was her dependence on imports, and, second, that merchant vessel sinkings could be greatly increased if air reconnaissance were available to the Navy. Yet, in spite of the fact that Hitler finally recognized his primary objective, he would transfer only twelve planes from his secondary objective of strategic bombing—an insignificant proportion of his air force of over 4,000 planes.
This is certainly a striking example of refusing to use Economy of forces against secondary objectives, and failure to Concentrate forces at the decisive place and time.
Also, Hitler should be given a black mark in the Objective column because he was so slow in selecting his proper aim and even more guilty of not maintaining it.
Next on the outline is air attack on ships at sea. This was always a very secondary task in the plans of the Luftwaffe. They were not only not interested in it, they were incapable of handling it efficiently. Consider the following statement from the minutes of a conference of the Chiefs of Staff: “The Air Force believes that it is uneconomical to use torpedoes against merchant ships.” Of course, back of this apathy and ignorance lay a fundamental lack of cooperation on the part of the Air Force. They had made up their minds they would win the war by air power alone and they violently opposed any deviation from this goal, towards which they believed themselves almost divinely directed. In 1939 Goering absorbed practically all of the Navy’s air arm on the promise that, where possible, he would fulfill all naval requests which he considered to be necessary. Of course these were invariably either not possible or, in his opinion, not necessary. Herr Goering and his Luftwaffe certainly accumulated a whole series of checks against the principle of Cooperation.
Next we have the use of heavy warships as commerce raiders. We often hear of the loss of Graf Spee and Bismarck. This should not blind us to the fact that other ships of this category had very successful cruises, judged not only by tonnage sunk but also by their severe disruption of trade routes causing diversions and delays due to escorting, etc. Admiral Scheer sank 99,000 tons in five months and was never scratched; the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at the same time got over 100,000 tons in three months. But Raeder was never allowed to move one heavy ship without his master’s approval, which was rarely given by the man who had admitted that at sea he was a coward. Most of these ships spent their time in port and were uselessly sunk therein—an obvious case of lack of the Offensive.
During the war, Germany had ten merchant ships converted to raiders. These were surprisingly successful. Many of them approached, and four surpassed, the 100,000-ton mark in sinkings and captures. In fact one of these ships, under Captain Krueder, accounted for 120,000 tons, including 50,000 tons captured and boldly brought into home port. The Naval Commander-in-Chief naturally wanted to place many more of these in commission but was told that the guns could not be spared from other projects— another violation of Economy of force on the one hand, and, on the other hand, of Concentration on the primary aim. Incidentally, here is another proof that these two principles usually go hand in hand. In most cases you cannot get concentration at the decisive place at the decisive time without economizing elsewhere.
In our next general subject—the attack on harbor installations and ships in the harbors or approaches thereto, we find the most amazing lack of the appreciation of the Objective and the maintenance of that objective as well as failure to Concentrate on the key battle, practice Economy of forces on other battles and worst of all the fantastic lack of Cooperation of the Air Force. The “Battle of the Imports” might well have been won by the Germans, if the Nazi flyers had concentrated on the ports as the Nazi submariners concentrated on the ships at sea. For example, as noted above, Mr. Churchill clearly pointed out the vital importance of Liverpool and Glasgow during this fateful year. Yet, until March, 1941, Liverpool was seriously attacked only three times, and Glasgow was not even touched. During that same period, Goering wasted thousands and thousands of missions on cathedral towns and residential areas with only one real effect—the hardening of the people’s will to fight. Finally, Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to hit the ports. Hitler’s directive and Churchill’s reaction are both of interest. First, der Fuehrer in an order issued in February, 1951:
“1. Contrary to all our previous conceptions, the strongest blow to the British war economy was the high figure for losses in merchant ships, . . . the sphere in which we have achieved the least effect is that of the British nation’s morale and capacity to resist.
“2. The object of our future war efforts must therefore be to concentrate every means of waging war by sea and air on enemy supplies from overseas. ...”
This started the “tour of the ports” which lasted through March, April, and early May, of that year. Churchill remarks on this in Their Finest Hour. “This was a far more deadly plan than the indiscriminate bombing of London and the civil population, and it was fortunate for us that it was not pursued with all available forces and greater persistence.” At that, the March 14 and 15 raids on Glasgow put most of the shipyards out' of commission until June and many until November. The raids on Liverpool in early May put 69 out of 144 berths completely out of action and for awhile reduced the tonnage landed there by 75%. Fortunately, this series on Liverpool was not continued and the Germans ended their attacks on the ports on May 10.
To sum up the Battle of the Imports from June, 1940, to June, 1941, or between the fall of France and the War with Russia, Germany sank nearly six million tons of British and Allied shipping. In addition, protective measures such as convoying, diversions, degaussing, and mine clearance, plus lengthening of trips and delays in port due to bombing of facilities, blackouts, etc., reduced “the operative fertility” of British shipping to an extent even more serious than the actual losses. The total imports, and that was the true test of this campaign, were, in January, 1941, for example, less than half what they were in January, 1940. In other words, the Germans lost this Battle—but by no wide margin. Whether that narrow margin could have been wiped out, no one can say for sure, but it certainly could have been made much slimmer had the Germans—
1. Selected British imports as their primary objective earlier and maintained that objective longer.
2. Economized on their forces used against the secondary objective of general strategic bombing.
3. Coordinated their air reconnaissance with their submarines.
4. Been more offensive minded in the use of their battleships, cruisers and merchant raiders, and
5. Concentrated every nerve and fiber of the industrial and military forces of the nation on the blockade of Britain.
Finally, in conclusion, one more quote from Mr. Churchill—short and to the point:
“In Britain, whatever our shortcomings, we understood the sea affair very thoroughly.”
The same statement can easily be turned to describe the naval strategy of the German people who might truthfully and sadly have said: “In Germany, whatever our sources of tremendous power, we have never understood the sea affair at all.”
1. A. Hitler, Mein Kampf, London, 1939, p. 635. (The italics in the above passage are mine.) Hitler put the whole paragraph in italics.
2. E. P. Dutton & Co., 1949. Much valuable background information on Raeder was derived from this book.
3. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (The Nürnberg Trials), U.S.G.P.O., Washington, 1946, Vol. VIII.
4. Captain E. Raeder, Cruiser Warfare in Foreign Waters, Berlin, 1922, Vol. I, p. 26.
5. Ibid., p. 9.
6. Notes on Conference used as evidence in Nürnberg trials.
7. Hutchinson & Co., Ltd. of London, p. 16.
8. Capt. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, Boston, 1890, pp. 539 and 540.
9. Memorandum signed by Raeder, dated Sept. 3, 1939, entitled “Reflections of the C in C Navy on the outbreak of war.”
10. W. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, Boston, 1948 p. 42.
11. W. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, Boston, 1949, p. 560 fl.