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The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of the Second World War. In a hard-fought and intense struggle to cut off Britain's maritime supply lines, Germany mobilized submarines (or U-boats), battleships, battle cruisers, aircraft and mines against Allied merchant shipping. Substantial British, Canadian and American naval and air forces were deployed to defeat this challenge. By far the greatest threat came from the U-boat.
For the first nine months of the war, U-boats operated in British waters and surface ships in the Atlantic. There were few U-boats available and not all had the range to be ocean-going. The Royal Navy, which introduced the convoy system at the outset, was short of escort vessels. Therefore, many merchant ships still had to sail independently and losses from this category, as they would be throughout the campaign, were much heavier than from convoys. Mixed results were achieved; by the end of April 1940 the Germans had sunk 800,000 tons of shipping, but lost 22 submarines.
The fall of France in June 1940 gave the U-boats bases on the Atlantic coast, increasing their range and the threat they posed to the sea lanes. Over the autumn, Allied losses rose sharply. A significant growth in U-boat production from spring 1941 allowed Dönitz, the U-boat commander, to exploit new tactics whereby his submarines attacked in groups or "wolf packs". In response, the Royal Navy, with the help of the Royal Canadian Navy, extended the convoy system right across the North Atlantic. Intelligence successes allowed evasive routeing of convoys away from danger and reduced losses for the rest of 1941.
After America's entry into the war the unpreparedness of the US Navy allowed the Germans to wreak massive destruction amongst shipping on the American eastern seaboard during the first half of 1942. When the situation was stabilised by the introduction of a convoy system, the wolf packs returned to mid-Atlantic. The massive success of their onslaught was helped by the Allies' temporary loss of ability to read U-boat signals. By the end of 1942, Allied shipping was in crisis.
Losses reached devastating levels again in March 1943 but, thereafter, very effective Allied counter-measures including the introduction of escort support groups, some with aircraft carriers, and Very Long Range aircraft to close the air gap in mid-Atlantic quickly brought a decisive end to the U-boat threat. Although U-boats would continue to operate until the end of the war, the Germans had lost the Battle of the Atlantic by the end of May 1943.
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