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>He supervised every detail of submarine construction, and was responsible for the dispersal of factories throughout occupied Europe to escape British bombings.
>He originated a spare-parts system of submarine manufacture, which gave Germany a U-boat fleet, packed away in crates and waiting assembly, long before the Versailles restrictions were overtly junked; which now makes possible overland transport of unassembled submarines.
The Wolf Pack. Two years ago this week Karl Doenitz declared that "it makes no difference to the present-day German U-boat fleet' whether British ships sail alone or are convoyed. . . . The truth is that the danger increases for neutral ships when they are members of a British convoy." But as U.S. strength showed up in British convoys, Karl Doenitz changed his mind, shrewdly withdrew a large part of his U-boat fleet into his native Baltic, emerged with a new, radical offensive technique known to the Germans as the Rudelsystem, to the Allies as the "wolf pack": a number of submarines attack the center of a convoy, preferably at night, loose torpedoes in every direction, slip away at top surface speed. (In a wolf-pack attack the Reuben James was sunk.)
Another favorite Doenitz variation on this theme: the wolf-pack leader singles out one ship in a convoy, draws the escort's attention to the single encounter while the rest of the pack, often operating on the surface in the dark, move in on the unprotected merchant units.
The Bacon. At his desk in Kiel, hardworking Karl Doenitz can, by twisting his close-cropped head, ponder a wall portrait of prong-bearded old Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, World War I evangelist of unrestricted U-boat warfare. Inscribed on the portrait he could read the U-boat credo: Die Tat ist alles—The deed is all. In other words: the only thing that matters in U-boating is the bacon you bring home.
In the first year of the war Admiral Doenitz found operations in close-in British waters so costly* that he virtually ceased operations there, giving over the areas to his and the Luftwaffe's mines. Since U.S. warships joined British in convoying, his attacks on transatlantic convoys have also become more costly. The entrance of the U.S. into the war gave him a new field of operations, the Atlantic Coast. There he has another chance, perhaps his last, to prove that U-boats can bring home the bacon.
The transatlantic mission is not ideal for U-boats. The voyage to the U.S. coast requires long-range U-boats which are more difficult to build in quantity. Operating from European bases, his subs may normally count on ten to twelve days in U.S. waters after allowances for a possibly unprofitable 7,000-mile round trip. They may be able to extend the stay two or three months if they can afford the luxury of a wandering supply ship. And off the U.S. coast his submarines will have to operate within the range of land-based planes and blimps, and small Navy and Coast Guard patrol boats, not to mention mine fields and submarine nets close to ports.