Sea Power and Maritime Affairs

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Sea Power and Maritime Affairs

• Lesson 5.10 World War II U.S. Navy in North
  Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic,
  1938-1945

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Enabling Objectives

• Illustrate the absolute priority given to keeping
  the sea lanes to Britain open and the effect of
  U.S. attempts to remain neutral prior to 1941.
• Understand German U-boat strategy versus Allied
  convoy strategy in the Atlantic.
• Distinguish the differences between British War
  Attrition versus American Plan for a direct
  confrontation with Germany.
• Recognize Allied amphibious landings, Operation
  Torch to Operation Overlord, that assisted in
  ending the war in Europe.

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Fascism Spreads in Europe

• 1932 Japan invades Manchuria
• 1933 Adolf Hitler and Nazi Third Reich replaces
  Weimar Republic.
• 1935 Italy invades Ethiopia
• 1937 Japan renews war with China.

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini during Hitler's
visit to Venice from 1416 June 1934.
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Peace In Our Time

• March 1938 Germany annexes Austria.
• Sep 1938 Munich Crisis
• March 1939 Germany occupies Czechoslovakia
• April 1939 Italy occupies Albania

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
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1 Sep 1939 Germany Invades Poland
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War in Europe

• April 1940
• Germany invades Denmark/Norway
• May 1940
• Germany invades Netherlands, Belgium, and France
• June 1940
• France Falls to Hitler
• Soviet Union annexes Baltic States
• Soviet Union invades Finland
• Summer 1940
• Battle of Britain

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Germany Invades Soviet Union

• June 1941 Operation Barbarossa
• 3 million soldiers
• 3580 tanks
• 7184 artillery guns 
• 1830 planes  
• 750,000 horses
• Winter in Russia

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Prime Minister Winston Churchill
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the
seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing
confidence and growing strength in the air, we
shall defend our island, whatever the cost may
be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall
fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in
the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in
the hills we shall never surrender!
- 4 June 1940
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Enlisting American Help

• U.S. neutrality, 1939-1941
• March 1941, Germany 1st Strategy.
• Lend-Lease Program
• U.S. Navy Neutrality Patrols in the Atlantic
• Admiral Ernest J. King in command
• Undeclared naval war in the Atlantic against
  U-boats
• Destroyers escort convoys
• Anti-submarine patrol aircraft used to locate
  U-boats

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Allied Convoys vs Wolf Packs

• German U-boats hunt allied shipping in wolf
  packs.
• Very effective when based out of France and
  Normandy.
• Feb 1941 500k tons of UK shipping sunk by
  U-Boats!

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Competing Allied Strategies

• U.S. preferred direct attack on Germany through
  western France
• Russians desperately want a second front
• British preferred a peripheral strategy
• Attack Germanys weak underbelly.

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General George S. Patton
When we land against the enemy, don't forget to
hit him and hit him hard. When we meet the enemy
we will kill him. We will show him no mercy. He
has killed thousands of your comrades and he must
die. If your company officers in leading your
men against the enemy find him shooting at you
and when you get within two hundred yards of him
he wishes to surrender  oh no! That bastard will
die!
Patton Speech
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Operation Torch

• November 1942 Feb 1943
• Western Naval Task Force

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Operation Husky and Avalanche
July 1943
September 1943
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Operation Overlord D Day

• Operation Overlord
• 6 June 1944
• 5,000 ships
• 150,000 Allied troops
• Paris Liberated
• 25 August 1944

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War Termination

• 12 April 1945
• FDR dies
• 30 Apr 1945
• Hitler commits suicide
• 4 May 1945
• Doenitz, sues for peace
• 7 May 1945
• General Alfred Jodl signs surrender documents
• Midnight 8 May, 1945
• War in Europe ends

Yalta Conference, 4-11 Feb 1945
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Battle History Video

• 1938-1945
• Chapter 2 Fire and Water
• Time 3400 - 4048.

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Enabling Objectives

• Illustrate the absolute priority given to keeping
  the sea lanes to Britain open and the effect of
  U.S. attempts to remain neutral prior to 1941.
• Understand German U-boat strategy versus Allied
  convoy strategy in the Atlantic.
• Distinguish the differences between British War
  Attrition versus American Plan for a direct
  confrontation with Germany.
• Recognize Allied amphibious landings, Operation
  Torch to Operation Overlord, that assisted in
  ending the war in Europe.

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Questions ?
Questions?

• Next time World War II The US Navy in the
  Pacific, 1941-1945

Official Navy Photo