First Happy Time

The early phase of the Battle of the Atlantic during which German Navy U-boats enjoyed significant success against the British Royal Navy and its Allies was referred to by U-boat crews as "the Happy Time" ("Die Glückliche Zeit"),[1] and later the First Happy Time, after a second successful period was encountered.

A U-boat shells a merchant ship which has remained afloat after being torpedoed

It started in July 1940, almost immediately after the Fall of France, which brought the German U-boat fleet closer to the British shipping lanes in the Atlantic. From July 1940 to the end of October, 282 Allied ships were sunk off the north-west approaches to Ireland for a loss of 1,489,795 tons of merchant shipping.[2]

The reason for this successful Axis period was the British lack of radar and huff-duff equipped ships which meant that the U-boats were very hard to detect when they made nighttime surface attacks – ASDIC (sonar) could only detect submerged U-boats.

When it ended is a matter of interpretation, with some sources claiming October 1940[3] and others extending it to April 1941,[4] after the Germans lost three prominent U-boat commanders: Günther Prien, Joachim Schepke and Otto Kretschmer.[5]

See also

References
  1. Purnell, Tom (April 11, 2003). "The "Happy Time"". "Canonesa", Convoy HX72 & U-100. Archived from the original on October 1, 2007. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
  2. Blouet, Brian W. Global Geostrategy: Mackinder and the Defence of the West, p. 131
  3. Hughes, Terry; Costello, John. The Battle of the Atlantic, p. 88
  4. Macintyre, Donald G. F. W. The Naval War Against Hitler, p. 52
  5. Milner, Marc (June 2008). "The Battle That Had to Be Won". Naval History Magazine. United States Naval Institute. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.