WW2 RAF COASTAL COMMAND AIRCRAFT U-BOAT SUBMARINE HUNTERS 1939-45 NORTH ATLANTIC

INCLUDES FOLD-OUTS, CUTAWAY DRAWINGS AND COLOR PROFILES

SOFTBOUND BOOK in ENGLISH

SHORT SUNDERLAND

LOCKHEED HUDSON

CONSOLIDATED CATALINA

VICKERS WELLINGTON

CONSOLIDATED LIBERATOR

BOEING FORTRESS

AVRO ANSON

ARMSTRONG WHITWORTH WHITLEY

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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia

RAF Coastal Command was a formation within the Royal Air Force (RAF). Founded in 1936, it became the RAF's only maritime arm when the Fleet Air Arm was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1937. Naval aviation had been neglected in the inter-war period, due to the RAF having control of the aircraft flying from Royal Navy carriers. As a consequence Coastal Command did not receive the resources it needed to develop properly or efficiently. This continued until the outbreak of the Second World War, during which it came to prominence. But owing to the Air Ministry's concentration on RAF Fighter Command and RAF Bomber Command, Coastal Command was often referred to as the "Cinderella Service", a phrase first used by the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time A V Alexander.

Coastal Commands's primary task became the protection of Allied convoys from attacks by the German Kriegsmarine's U-boats, groups of which were known as "wolfpacks". It also protected Allied shipping from aerial attacks by the Luftwaffe. The main operations of Coastal Command were defensive, defending supply lines in the various theatres of war, most notably the Mediterranean, Middle East and African, and the battle of the Atlantic. It also had an offensive capacity. In the Mediterranean theatre and the Baltic sea it attacked German shipping carrying war materials from Italy to North Africa and from Scandinavia to Germany. By 1943 Coastal Command finally received sufficient Very Long Range [VLR] aircraft it needed and its operations proved decisive in the victory over the U-boats. These aircraft were Consolidated B-24 Liberators and, from early 1943, these, and other Coastal Command aircraft, were fitted with Mark III ASV [air-to-surface vessel] centimetric radar, the latest depth charges, including homing torpedoes, officially classed as Mark 24 mines [nicknamed 'Wandering Annie' or 'Wandering Willie'] and even rockets.

The Command saw action from the first day of hostilities until the last day of the Second World War. It completed one million flying hours, 240,000 operations and destroyed 212 U-boats. Coastal Command's casualties amounted to 2,060 aircraft to all causes. From 1940 to 1945 Coastal Command sank 366 German transport vessels and damaged 134. The total tonnage sunk was 512,330 tons and another 513,454 tons damaged. 10,663 persons were rescued by the Command, comprising 5,721 Allied crew members, 277 enemy personnel, and 4,665 non-aircrews. 5,866 Coastal Command personnel were killed in action.

From its formation in 1936, Coastal Command did not receive the support it required to be an effective naval air service. In September 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland beginning the war in Europe. The Command's position was comfortable for the first nine months of the war, the period known as the Phoney War. German submarines were not able to reach the Atlantic unless they undertook a dangerous transit journey through the North Sea and around Britain's northern waters or through the English Channel, which was guarded by the Royal and French Navies. The powerful French Navy was responsible for covering half of the Atlantic shipping routes and thus contributed half of the Allied forces available.

The events of April to June 1940 overturned the balance of naval and air power, as the Germans conquered Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium and France. The occupation of these countries permitted the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine to operate from French ports on the Atlantic coast, hundreds of miles closer to the Atlantic shipping lanes. German medium bombers could also reach British ports on the westernmost and northernmost coasts. The advantage enjoyed by the Germans, allowed them to interdict merchant shipping supplying food and war materials to Britain much more effectively, which had the potential to starve Britain. While merchant shipping was suffering these losses, Coastal Command had proven ineffective at countering German air and sea attacks on shipping. The command could not protect English Channel convoys, which were forced to abandon operations for a few months, in July 1940. RAF Fighter Command was given the task; the objectives of strategic air attack and defence predominated in the RAF, despite the warning signs from 1914 to 1918, that U-boats would become a serious threat again and experience that aircraft were a suitable counter to their operations. Coastal Command became the "Cinderella service" until 1943.

The situation would not improve until 1942. Coastal Command did operate with effect alongside RAF Bomber Command in disrupting enemy shipping during the Battle of Britain in 1940. Coastal Command attacked shipping and mined waters around invasion ports. The German invasion of Britain in 1940, Operation Sea Lion, was eventually cancelled owing to the German defeat in the Battle of Britain.

During the first three years of the Second World War, Coastal Command and the Admiralty fought a battle with the RAF and Air Ministry over the primacy of trade defence, in relation to the bomber effort against mainland Germany, a strategic tussle which conceivably could have cost the Western Alliance the Battle of the Atlantic. The Air Staff and Bomber Command enjoyed the backing of Churchill and the maritime air effort struggled to receive the recognition it needed. On the outbreak of war, the order of battle listed just 298 aircraft, of which only 171 were operational. On 15 February 1941, Coastal Command was placed under the operational control of the Admiralty. Instrumental in improving the strike rate against submarines was scientific advisor and assistant director of research E. J. Williams, who applied scientific analysis to the logistical problems to great effect. Williams was present at some meetings of the Cabinet Anti-U-boat Committee at 10 Downing Street, under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister.

Owing to the starvation of resources, even as late as March 1943, the Atlantic supply lines were being threatened. This situation arose as a direct result of the lack of very long-range aircraft. Despite the enormous losses of the disastrous 1940�1942 period, known to the Germans as the "First" and "Second Happy Time", the Air Ministry refused to invest in trade defence. Further delays in resource procurement might have led to German success, which could have defeated Britain and forced it out of the war or at least caused a postponement of Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North-West Africa in 1942 and Operation Overlord, the landing in France, in 1944. Other research indicates that losses unquestionably affected the build-up for Operation Neptune, the naval phase of the landings in Europe.

Eventually the Command was given the investment it needed. Radar and long-range aircraft enabled the Command to hunt and destroy U-boats with growing efficiency. German submarines had been sinking a large number of Allied ships in the Atlantic Gap, which was a stretch of water in the central Atlantic beyond the range of most Allied aircraft. The covering of the gap by very-long-range aircraft equipped with radar helped reduce the effectiveness of U-boats. In May 1943 the campaign reached a peak, when a large number of U-boats were sunk with little loss to Allied shipping; Coastal Command had gained the initiative and it was known by the Germans as Black May. Thereafter the suppression of German submarines was effective in the Atlantic and in their transit routes through the Bay of Biscay in 1942, 1943 and 1944. In June 1944 the Normandy landings and subsequent Operation OVERLORD liberated France and cost the Germans their air and submarine bases won in 1940. The U-boats were forced to relocate to Norway and Germany in August, restoring many of the difficulties faced by the Kriegsmarine in 1939 and early 1940. The entire strategic position, which had been the foundation of the U-boat war since June 1940 had been undermined.