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During the Second World War, 4,700 British-flagged ships were sunk and more than 29,000 merchant seamen died. Since the Second World War, the British Merchant Navy has become steadily smaller, but has continued to help in wartime, notably during the Falklands War.
- First World War
Here are 10 important 'firsts' that happened during the...
- Second World War
british post-1945 official classified print collection. ......
- First World War
- The Perilous Atlantic Crossing
- 12 Million Tons Lost
- Starving The British Isles
- “Happy Time” For The U-boats
- Eighty-Percent Losses
- Half The World’S Maritime Fleet
- The Convoy System
- Transporting and Evacuating Troops
- Life Under The Red Duster
- The Arctic Convoys: Lifeline to The Soviet Union
At 7:45 that fateful Sunday evening, the 13,000-ton liner Athenia of the Donaldson Atlantic Line was on course from Belfast, Ireland, to Montreal, Canada, with 1,418 passengers—men, women, and children. They included 316 American citizens. Zigzagging at 10 knots, the Athenia was steaming 250 miles west of Inishtrahull, Donegal, when she was torpedo...
The stormy years from 1939 to 1945 saw the loss of almost 2,500 British merchantmen and 116 fishing vessels, amounting to about 12 million tons. A further 900 craft were damaged by enemy action. Great Britain began the war with almost 9,000 merchantmen of all classes, amounting to 21 million tons. These were vessels sailing under the British flag a...
As in the latter half of World War I, U-boats created havoc for the British and other Allied merchant fleets. The fall of Norway and France in 1940 transformed the strategic situation in the Atlantic. From newly acquired bases, starting with Lorient on the Bay of Biscay, U-boats could threaten all shipping passing south of Ireland, while their rang...
Allied losses soared as the war progressed, and almost three million tons of shipping were destroyed between June and December 1940. During their “happy time” between July and October that year, U-boat crews in the Atlantic sank 217 ships for the loss of only two boats. Although surface warships, disguised raiders, aircraft, and mines all accounted...
The year 1943 opened disastrously for the Allies, with Dönitz’s wolf packs sinking 203,000 tons of shipping in January, 359,000 tons in February, and 627,000 tons in March. This was twice the rate of Allied merchant ship construction, and for every U-boat sunk two were launched. Admiral Dönitz became commander in chief of the Kriegsmarine early in ...
Britain entered the war as the premier maritime country, with about 50 percent of the world’s shipping tonnage under her flag. But, as with the other British armed services, the outbreak of war caught the Merchant Navy largely unprepared. It had suffered grievously from years of depression since World War I. Rivers and lochs were choked with laid-u...
To meet the U-boat threat, the Admiralty introduced a convoy system in the Western Approaches soon after the outbreak of war, and this was gradually extended to cover most major Atlantic shipping routes. By 1943, Atlantic convoy lanes formed a huge interlocking pattern. Linked to it was the convoy route through the Indian Ocean, from the Cape of Go...
Throughout the war, even after America’s entry, the British Merchant Navy served as the main conduit for Allied troops, tanks, aircraft, weapons, spare parts, oil, food supplies, and essential related matériel in every theater of operations except the Pacific, where the U.S. Merchant Marine played the predominant role. From September 1939 to June 1...
Month after month through the war, in both fair and foul weather, the merchant ships and their crews plied back and forth, singly or in convoy. Day and night, lookouts and gun crews stood watch, eyes strained for black specks in the skies that could be enemy planes, and tirelessly scanned the waves for the telltale wake of a submarine periscope. It...
Merchant ship duty was rigorous at all times during the war, but the most hazardous conditions of all were endured by the sailors manning the Arctic convoys. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Britain decided to help the hard-pressed Russians by dispatching war supplies—aircraft, Matilda infantry tanks, and trucks—that Brit...
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Jul 30, 2005 · As I have already outlined before in another post somewhere on the site, the demise of the UK merchant fleet dates from the first budget of the Thatcher/Howe period, 1980, when the government withdrew accelerated depreciation from British shipowners, thus putting them at a severe disadvantage to many other flag state owners and foc operators in ...
Sep 27, 2013 · The British Merchant Navy was a term that applied to the employees of British shipping companies whose vessels ranged from the sleekest ocean liners to obsolete tramp steamers. Merchant seamen already included contingents of Black, Asian and Arab sailors and the British Merchant Fleet was swelled between 1939 and 1945 by the vital addition of ...
The British Merchant Navy comprises the British merchant ships that transport cargo and people during times of peace and war. For much of its history, the merchant navy was the largest merchant fleet in the world, but with the decline of the British Empire in the mid-20th century it slipped down
May 25, 2021 · They kept the British merchant navy afloat, and thus kept the people of Britain fuelled and fed while the Nazis attempted to choke off the country’s supply lines.
The British Merchant Navy was the largest in the world and required more crew than Great Britain had merchant seamen, as a result large numbers of Indian, Chinese and West African seamen were engaged to crew ships which regularly traded from Great Britain to ports in those areas.
