The Lake Norman Brief
Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939 to May 1945: nine chaptered articles on the convoys and the U-boats, the Happy Time, America’s undeclared war, Torpedo Junction off the North Carolina coast, the code breakers, the air gap and the Arctic convoys, Black May, the hunter-killer groups and the cost. Start with the interactive ocean atlas.
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The Cost and the Memory: Merchant Mariners, Wrecks and Memorials
What the Battle of the Atlantic cost in ships and lives, how the merchant mariners who died were finally recognized, and where…
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Hunter-Killers and Victory: U-505, the Schnorkel and the Last Patrols
After Black May the hunters became the hunted: American escort-carrier groups destroyed the U-boat supply fleet, Capt. Daniel Gallery’s task group captured…
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Crisis and Black May: HX 229, ONS 5 and the Turn of 1943
In March 1943 the U-boats came closer than ever to cutting the Atlantic lifeline; ten weeks later, after convoys ONS 5 and…
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The Air Gap and the Arctic Convoys: the Black Pit and PQ 17
Why a stretch of the mid-Atlantic lay beyond the reach of Allied aircraft until 1943, and how the convoys to Murmansk and…
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Codes and Science: Enigma, Bletchley Park, Radar and Huff-Duff
The U-boat war was also fought in code rooms and laboratories: the Polish break into Enigma, Bletchley Park’s Hut 8 and the…
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Torpedo Junction: The U-boat War off the North Carolina Coast, 1942
In the first half of 1942 German U-boats sank dozens of ships within sight of the Outer Banks, and the waters off…
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The Undeclared War: Lend-Lease, the Reuben James and the Bismarck
In 1941 the Royal Navy lost HMS Hood and sank the Bismarck in a single week, Canada took on the mid-ocean escort,…
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The Happy Time: French Bases, Wolf Packs and Convoy SC 7
After the fall of France, U-boats sailing from Lorient attacked British convoys on the surface at night. From SC 7 and HX…
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The Lifeline: 1939, the Athenia and the Return of the Convoy
On the first evening of the war U-30 torpedoed the liner Athenia, and within two weeks Britain had brought back the convoy…