The War Against The Nazi U-Boats 1942 – 1944. L. Douglas Keeney
it possible for the Army antisubmarine units to contribute impressively to the campaign which made the Germans reconsider the value of operations in US coastal waters
The figures themselves are misleading. In 59,243 operational hours flown between January and October 1942, not many more than 200 sightings were reported, of which several were no doubt mistaken identification by inexperienced crews. In 81 instances attacks followed which resulted in one U-boat definitely destroyed, six seriously damaged, and seven damaged to some extent. The aircraft made their contribution rather in forcing submarines to submerge so frequently that their targets were lost and their activity slowed up to the point where the returns became marginal or submarginal.
The quality of the patrols and especially of the attacks improved steadily as suitable equipment became available and crews gained in experience. The first attack that was assessed as in any degree damaging in the U-boat did not occur until 2 April 1942. During the nest 4 months the bulk of the damaging attacks were made. The frequency of attacks roughly paralleled the density of U-boats in the area and also the sinking of merchant vessels. It is estimated that, during May and June, when the U-boats were thickest and their work most deadly, each was attacked on an average of twice each month by aircraft of the I Bomber Command.
After June, enemy activity fell off rapidly in the coastal waters. Her again a look at the figures alone would convey a false impression. It is clear from them, and perfectly true, that in August the enemy began to withdraw to other areas, and by October had virtually abandoned the Eastern and Gulf Sea Frontiers. After 4 September no more bombings occurred in 1942 as a result of enemy submarine action in those waters. The Germans had shifted their area of activity steadily farther south in approximately direct proportion to the intensity of the aerial defense. June 1943 saw the pattern of sinking’s moving toward the Caribbean area. By August the Gulf was practically free of sinking’s which were by that time concentrated around Cuba and in the Trinidad area. By September the enemy had given up attacks around Cuba, Haiti and Puerto Rico, but continued in the Trinidad area until November when a certain amount of coordination, previously lacking, was achieved between air and surface defenses.
This progressive withdrawal of the enemy submarines does not, however, mean that the I Bomber Command had by itself made the Eastern and Gulf Sea Frontiers untenable. Its activity was a contributing, perhaps a determining factor, but it was not the only one. It appears that in the late summer of 1942 the U-boat fleet had been forced to abandon to some extent its original strategic mission of striking at Allied shipping wherever it might be found in most profitable quantities, and to have adopted a more defensive strategy dictated by Allied plans in Russia and North Africa. This shift in strategy involved greater concentrations in the northern and eastern Atlantic waters at the expense of operations in the American shipping lanes. The convoy system also did much to discourage attacks, although convoys without adequate air coverage were extremely vulnerable. And an increasingly large share of this coverage, as well as of routine patrol, was being provided by Navy planes, which accounted for 75 out of the total of 125 attacks made in the western Atlantic prior to 5 September 1943. The AAF 1st Sea Search Attack Group, operating primarily as an experimental unit from Langley Field, under the operational control of the Bomber Command, also made five successful attacks during the period from July to October. At any rate, the constant air patrol maintained by the various agencies in the antisubmarine campaign undoubtedly exercised a determining influence in the enemy’s strategic withdrawal. However, the enemy had not been defeated, scarcely even embarrassed; he merely concentrated his efforts in other areas, and so effectively that in November, 2 months after he had virtually abandoned the US coastline, total Allied shipping losses reached a new high.
Steps had been taken by the Army Air Forces to increase the efficiency of its antisubmarine units. An effort had been made to increase the number of medium bombers deployed in the campaign, and to equip as many of them as possible with ASV. Above all, the Army Air Forces had established in June the Sea Search Attack Development Unit (SADU) for the purpose of research in antisubmarine techniques and devices. By August this agency was in full operation. It was through the medium of this technical development that Dr. Edward L. Bowles, Expert Consultant to the Secretary of War, hoped to revitalize the antisubmarine campaign. Considerable attention had been given to the problem of equipment, especially radar, by the Joint Committee on New Weapons and Equipment (JNW) and it was becoming pretty evident that, if the submarines were to be defeated, some aid must be sought from these technical sources.
Unfortunately, a research unit could not win the “trade war” by itself. It was one thing to develop the weapons and quite another to use them effectively. The latter demanded a correspondingly stream-lined organization of the entire program, which meant in this instance the creation of a new command committed to an aggressive, closely knit campaign of U-boat destruction. Again the whole basic controversy was opened. It was, Dr. Bowles insisted, no longer so much a question of over-all unity of command between Army and Navy. That could well be conceded to the Navy. It was rather a question of organization within the Army itself, and for a frankly offensive campaign reaching beyond coastal patrol into the deeper waters of the mid-ocean.
He therefore proposed that an “Air Antisubmarine Force” be organized under the command of a general officer who would control the entire land-based air component of the antisubmarine forces, including the Navy land-based inshore patrol aircraft, and the research and training unit. In this way, without disturbing the ultimate unity of command, the vexing question concerning the allocation of land-based aircraft, which was tending dangerously toward the creation of two separate air forces with duplicated function, would be solved. This entire force would be placed under the Commanding General, Army Air Forces, in order to relieve it from dependency on any local command. It would confine its operations to US coastal waters, but would be free to send “detachments or task forces to other parts of the world.”
The last of the major arguments that led to the establishment of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command had now been presented in this penetrating document. The problem of aircraft allocations to the Army and Navy, the evident tactical need for unity of command and mobility of organization, and the Army’s strategic doctrine of the coordinated offensive were all loading in an intricate and overlapping pattern of influences to the creation of a separate command. Now the requirements dictated by the employment of new devices added one more telling item to this list which, together with the continuing grave situation in the Atlantic, made action essential.
None of the plans prepared and discussed in the summer of 1942 was used as the final pattern – none, that is , in its entirety. The ideas developed in the plans, however, determined the nature of the new command. Allowance naturally had to be made for the views of the Navy which had not been favorable to the establishment of such an organization. So the solution finally adopted was a modest one, retaining most of the reforms proposed by Army planners except those specifically reducing the authority of the Navy.
The first formal step in setting up the new command was taken by General Marshall. On 14 September, he wrote to Admiral King:
Experience with the First Bomber Command in antisubmarine operations since March indicates that the effective employment of air forces against the submarine demands rapid communications, mobility, and freedom from the restrictions inherent in command systems based upon area responsibility.
Accordingly, he proposed to create the “First Antisubmarine Army Air Command,” which would absorb those portions of the I Bomber Command engaged in antisubmarine work. Control of the new unit would be centralized in the War Department in order that it might “be promptly dispatched” to successive zones of submarine activity. It would begin operation in Atlantic coastal waters, the Gulf and the Caribbean; its expansion to other areas “will depend upon the planes available.” Operations “naturally will be under the operational control of the sea frontier concerned.” The closest cooperation with the Navy, especially in the transmission of intelligence which could only be compiled through naval sources, would be essential to the proper functioning of this antisubmarine command. Provision would therefore have to be made for liaison between “our immediate headquarters.”
Admiral King replied at once, concurring in general, but expressing his belief that “the preferable method” was allocation of air units to sea frontiers, changing the allocations