1943+BATTLE+OF+THE+ATLANTIC

Age: 28 D.O.B.: 06/06/1915 Relationship: married to Elena Banks Occupation: Navy officer Hometown: New York, NY Ethnicity: White School: Newport Naval School**
 * Name: Paul Smith

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America's east coast. The Germans wanted to prevent food and war supplies to reach Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Germany wanted to block the supplies because Hitler knew without them Great Britain would not be able to survive. And everyone on our ship knew that Hitler was right (Danzer 570). Ah, those German U-boats were so annoying. In case you don't know, they were submarines, and they were being very successful in destroying our ships especially in the North Atlantic. Part of the reason was that Germany's naval intelligence broke Allied convoy codes. They sure were a pain in the "you-know-what" because one could not locate one in time to prepare for an attack. Everyone hated them, we thought that the submarine was only used for cowards that can only win a battle by sneaking up on the opponent. But we would show those U-boats what they deserved in 1943 ("The Battle..."). http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ship-sinks.htm A ship attacked by a German U-boat

By July, 1943, Americans were producing far more ships at a faster rate than Germans were sinking them. We also had some new innovations on our navy. One was the escort carrier, which used merchant hulls outfitted with a flight deck that carried 20 or more fighter planes to destroy the submarines. We also had an improvement in anti-submarine weaponry. The "hedgehog", my favorite weapon, was created- these were improved anti-submarine mortars. They could reach those little suckers all the way down to the ocean floor, which is why I loved firing them at those U-boats. Another very helpful tool was the new improved sonar which could locate submarines earlier. Furthermore, the Canadian, British, and our own ships led better coordinated attacks on German Wolf Packs, or packs of U-boats because after a while, we adapted to their kind of warfare. I specifically remember one confidence boosting victory on our side. It was in May, 1943, and the convoy SC-130 was attacked by 33 U-boats. At the end of the battle, the convoy ship suffered no losses and it sank five German U-boats ("The Battle..."). By the end of June, early July, we kept beating those cowardly German... butts. I remember receiving the news that the German Admiral Karl Donitz had pulled back Germany's U-boats. Of course, everyone knew they would be back. We had received word that Donitz hoped to improve the submarines by adding many new features. One was the Schnorkel, a breathing tube for diesel engines which allowed U-boats to recharge while being submerged so they could avoid sonar detection. Also, the U-boat now had acoustic homing torpedoes that followed sounds of the ships' propeller noise, and better antiaircraft batteries, or squads of specialized U-boats. Their last improvement was that they made special Milch Cows, which were submarines that replenished the supplies of the U-boats so they wouldn't need to go back to base to get supplies ("The Battle..."). With the return of the submarines, we were more than ready to fight them off. I was very excited to hear that we had orders to plant mines outside of the U-boats' pens, and then to attack them by surprise by air in the night. As we were going to their pens, I couldn't have felt happier because I was about to show those Germans not to mess with us Americans.The fighter planes had been mounted with special radars to detect the submarines by night. They were carried by aircraft carriers. After setting the mines, the aircraft carriers came and we saw many fighter planes go and bomb the U-boats that were on the surface for the night. By the end of the battle, the Tirpitz, which was the most feared ship by us Allies, had been sunk because the British midget submarines had damaged its rudder, and it had been bombed by 14,000 "Tallboy" bombs. The rest of the U-boats were bombed by about 22,000 "Grand Slam" bombs by the fighter planes. For that night, I had wished I was a bomber for the Air Force just so I could fly down after dropping the bombs and see the damage caused ("The Battle...").

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/navycarriers/bljeepcarriers.htm An aircraft carrier

As fighting started again, we noticed that the acoustic homing torpedo was quite effective. But after only three days, we were smart enough to realize that by towing noise emitters far behind our ships, the torpedo would be attracted to it, and not to our propellers. The Germans were quickly realizing they were beginning to lose the battle for the Atlantic. Donitz wanted to stay in the fight long enough to allow the powerful new type XXI and XXIII U-boats, which were revolutionary designs that would have affected the war if they were introduced earlier. But, they only started to produce them by the end of 1943, and by then it was too late. By May, 1945, the Germans surrendered and the war was over. After returning to base camp, our general told us the estimated carnage. In total, the German U-boats sank 3,500 merchant vessels, 2,452 in the North Atlantic. 18,300,00 tons were also sunk by German U-boats, including 175 warships. It was a hard-fought battle, and I think we in the navy have put up a great resistance to what people thought were unbeatable and undetectable German ships ("The Battle..."). I specifically remember President Frankiln Roosevelt speaking on the radio about the battle in the Atlantic, "[Mariners] have written one of its most brilliant chapters. They have delivered the goods when and where needed in every theater of operations and across every ocean in the biggest, the most difficult and dangerous job ever undertaken. As time goes on, there will be greater public understanding of our merchant's fleet record during this war [World War II]" (qtd. in "The Sleeping..."). This quote describes the amount of work the navy had to do in the fastest, and safest way possible.

WORKS CITED "The Battle of the Atlantic January 1942 - May 1945." __World War II Multimedia Database__. 2000-2007. 22 Oct. 2007. <[|http://worldwar2database.com/html/atlantic43_45.htm>.]

Danzer, Gerald A. et al. __The Americans__. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell Inc., 2003.

Germinsky, Robert A. "The Carriers." __About.com:US Military.__ 2007. 22 Oct 2007. <[|http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/navycarriers/bljeepcarriers.htm>.]

"The Sleeping Giant Awakens." Angelfire. 23 Oct. 2007. <[|http://www.angelfire.com/la/raeder/Unitedstates.html>.]

"World War Two In Europe." __The History Place__. 22 Oct. 2007. <[|http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/ship-sinks.htm>][|]