The War Against The Nazi U-Boats 1942 – 1944. L. Douglas Keeney
warfare, defensive measures, though essential, can never destroy the U-boat menace, but must be sup0plemented by a vigorous offensive campaign. The authors of the plans outlined above considered the protection of convoys by aircraft “a last ditch defense.” Such purely defensive tactics were, and should be, the first priority, but they were “the smaller part of the total effort necessary to force the enemy from our coastal waters.” A well-coordinated offensive by aircraft and surface vessels could drive the enemy craft a considerable distance from the coast or restrict their operations to such an extent that their results would become negligible. Admittedly the airplane as it was then equipped failed to possess the necessary killing power to destroy the U-boat; but it did have great searching power, and was quite able to keep a submarine submerged so long that its effectiveness decreased. Whenever a sinking occurred or the presence of a submarine was detected, long-range planes should be sent to that area for intensive search. Constant patrol should be conducted within 300 miles of the coastline. Even if these measures failed to sink a single submarine, it was argued, they would keep the enemy submerged and so require him to use so much time going to and from his bases that his operating period would materially be shortened, Moreover, the submarines could thus be prevented from concentrating rapidly and effectively on convoys, and the morale of their crews would be seriously impaired.
Here again the example of the RAF Coastal Command exercised a profound influence. Although it had apparently taken the Admiralty some time to revise its doctrines to such an extent that it could incorporate within them an air striking force organized for an aggressive antisubmarine campaign, still that was the end finally attained. Two of the cardinal principles governing the British antisubmarine warfare were stated by Air Marshal Joubert: first, close cooperation between sea and air forces, between Admiralty and Coastal Command; and secondly, constant offensive action. He advised that:
While a certain amount of close escort of convoys, particularly when threatened, is a necessary feature of air operations, the main method of defeating the U-boat is to seek and strike. The greater portion of the air available should always be engaged in the direct attack of U-boats and the smallest possible number in direct protection of shipping. Our experience is that a purely defensive policy only leads to heavy loss in merchant shipping.
Ideas such as these may seem natural enough to those unacquainted with the conflict of policies between Army and Navy. There would, for instance, seem to be little objection on any score to action which, while preserving the existing convoy system and routine patrol, would carry the war to the enemy as well. But to organize an offensive would mean to reorganize the entire antisubmarine campaign. Specifically it would require the creation of just such a semi-independent and mobile command as the AAF planners had in mind. For, at the time, only such a body could carry out a strategic policy that reached beyond the Navy’s defensive doctrine of convoy and offshore patrol, and be able to attack the U-boats at their point of greatest concentration. Moreover, the long-range Army-type bombers alone combined the range and striking power necessary for such offensive action, and as yet the AAF was better able than the Navy to equip such a force. In short, under existing conditions, an offensive strategy simply would not fit into the Navy scheme of things. Not only did it run counter to the Navy’s preference for a defensive antisubmarine war, but it also would tend to weaken naval control over the Army elements engaged in the antisubmarine campaign.
By the summer of 1942, therefore, it is possible to see the outlines of those two related controversies, the jurisdictional and the strategic, which determined the history of the AAF antisubmarine effort. The AAF plane, as shaped in May, could lead only in one direction. Unchecked they would eventually have placed the entire responsibility for the air antisubmarine campaign in the hands of those who held the aggressive strategic doctrine and who were in immediate possession of the organization and the weapons necessary to carry out that doctrine. But the Army plans did not remain unchecked. They met the consistent opposition of the Navy, energetic in this defensive action as in its defensive Battle of the Atlantic.
In view of all this discussion it is surprising to find formal action taking a much slower and more compromising course. For the rest of the summer little was done in a radical way to reorganize the antisubmarine campaign. In immediate response to General Eisenhower’s directive of 20 May, General McNarnoy, Assistant Chief of Staff, WDGS, informed Admiral King that 10 B-18’s, ASV-equipped, together with 10 additional medium bombers without ASV, had been sent to the bedeviled Gulf area where they would work under the operational control of the Gulf Sea Frontier commander. He also outlined a proposed reorganization of the Army antisubmarine program. The I Bomber Command was to be organized as a unit to wage antisubmarine “and related operations” on the East and Gulf coasts. Air bases were to be established at strategic locations in order to take maximum advantage of the mobility of land-based aircraft. As soon as available, ASV-equipped aircraft would be welded into units “particularly suited for hunting down and destroying enemy submarines by methods developed by our experimental units which have been operating off Cape Hatteras.” Mobility was to be the keynote of this reorganized force. When a unit moved to an area outside the HDC, it would operate under the control of the particular sea frontier commander concerned, but it would still remain assigned to the I Bomber Command. “Movement to and operation in areas beyond the jurisdiction of the latter will be viewed as a temporary detachment therefrom.”
Admiral King’s reaction to these cautious proposals was expressed with equal caution. They were, he felt, satisfactory but he planned to place the control of aircraft assigned to each sea frontier in the hands of the commander of that frontier. Moreover, in providing air coverage for convoys it would not be necessary for planes attached to one frontier to operate in another “unless exceptional conditions make it necessary.” In a note to the sea frontier commanders, concerning General McNarney’s letter, he said, further: “It will be noted that the division of aircraft, both Army and Navy, as between the sea frontiers, will be a matter under the cognizance of the Commander in Chief, and that the air operations within the sea frontiers will be under the direction of the Commander Sea Frontier concerned.” In other words, rigid geographic lines were to be retained in the use of Army planes, and such use was to be dictated unequivocally by naval authorities.
While these plans were under discussion, the heavy shipping losses continued at such an alarming rate that on 19 June 1942 General Marshall expressed to Admiral King his fear that “another month or two” of similar losses would “so cripple our means of transport that we will be unable to bring sufficient men and planes against the enemy in critical theaters to exercise a determining influence on the war.” This note of alarm elicited a definite statement of the Navy’s strategic doctrine in its campaign against the U-boat. Admiral King had already made it clear that the system of Navy regional control would remain a part of the united command that the Navy was to exercise. Now he set himself clearly in opposition to the Army’s offensive doctrine. If that doctrine had not been emphasized officially, it had certainly been given enough informal currency to have established it as a basic point of difference between the services. And Admiral King apparently took General Marshall’s memo as an implied criticism of the Navy’s antisubmarine strategy. The Navy had, he said in reply, employed, and would continue to employ, all available forces in the antisubmarine war and that “not only the Navy itself but also all other agencies concerned must continue to intensify the antisubmarine effort.” But that intensified effort to him meant intensified convey protection. “Escort,” he declared, “is not just One way of handling the submarine menace; it is the only way that gives any promise of success … We must get every ship that sails the seas under constant close protection.” The work of the I “Bomber Command had been valuable in this respect, and after 15 May the coastal waters of the United States had been quite safe for coastwise shipping under convoy. The convoy system was being extended, as rapidly as possible, but the Army should supply at least 500 medium bombers for use in the four sea frontiers – Eastern, Gulf, Caribbean, and Panama – to augment the force of 850 planes the Navy hoped to operate in those areas.
The Army was thus exhorted to bend every effort in the common cause. It had, however, been far from idle. The I Bomber Command had been useful, if not determinative, in making the Atlantic seaboard unhealthy for U-boats. Lack of proper equipment and training continued to keep the quality of attacks on a comparatively low level. But, from July on, improvement in material and a half year