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Only by radio control could such coordination of the blind underwater vessels be achieved. Nerve center of this system was a great camouflaged central control somewhere in occupied Europe, probably in France. The Nazis boasted that Allied bombers frequently flew over this headquarters without recognizing it. Into and out of it flowed messages from U-boats and air reconnaissance in every theater of German naval operations. Routes of convoys were plotted there, location of submarine packs picked out and corresponding orders given for attack. Radio in code and clear was flashed out constantly: on Christmas Eve last year Doenitz himself addressed his U-boat crews all over the world to wish them Merry Christmas and good hunting.
Initial U-boat successes fell off when the British woke up to the fact that the submarine was still a grave menace, and escorted their convoys more heavily. But after the fall of France, when the U-boats had bases along the entire west coast of Europe, the wolf-pack system raised hob with Allied shipping. Of some 57,600,000 total deadweight tons of British shipping, U-boats sank at least 17,600,000 tons in three and a half years. Working in the Nazis' favor was the vast demand on Allied shipping for the supply of many distant war theaters, a list in which Britain herself had a No. 1 priority. And there were other factors which helped to reduce the Allied potential.
Tonnage available to supply Britain's vital needs was cut, in effect, by various demands and limitations to perhaps 20,800,000 tons. The additional limitations of convoy operation further reduced the effective total to some 9,600,000 tons. Result: the loss of every ship sunk on the Atlantic run was doubly felt by the Allies.
Of the 1,150 U.S. ocean-going ships afloat when America went to war, at least 700 having been unofficially reported sunk, and U.S. figures are behind the actual sinkings. Secretary Knox last week admitted that the Allies last year had a net shipping loss of about 1,000,000 tons (see p. 23).
To keep Britain alive and functioning as the Allies' European base, 700 to 800 ships must cross the Atlantic each month. Each new Allied war theater means more convoy routes, more targets for Admiral Doenitz' fleet, more dispersal of scant Allied escort ships.
The Counter-Drive. In the censored picture of the Allied countermoves against the U-boats, there were some encouraging highlights last week:
> Canada's Rear Admiral L. W. Murray was given command of a joint U.S.Canadian anti-submarine program which, dovetailing with Britain's R.A.F., would give air and naval protection to Europe-bound convoys. With a chain of bases extending from the Canadian mainland across Greenland and Iceland to Britain, Allied long-range bombers would provide mile-by-mile protection and reconnaissance. The Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy had long been bearing much of the Atlantic burden; the appointment of Admiral Murray indicated that they will bear more.