Wolf Packs: Battle of the Atlantic

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One of the hallmarks of the Second World War was the technological maturity and systematic application of military technologies which were still in their infancy during the first war. Tanks, which had previously been lumbering and mechanically histrionic death traps, emerged as pivotal assault and exploitation weapons which trampled Europe by the thousands. Aircraft, initially used in the first war in reconnaissance roles, now swarmed in vast hordes, ranging hundreds of miles into enemy space and disgorging unprecedented firepower. The radio became ubiquitous on the battlefield and provided unprecedented levels of command and control over far flung and fast moving units. Tanks, mechanized infantry forces, self propelled artillery, rockets, strategic bombers, close air support: all deadly and cinematic, and part of a deadly new tactical package. However, they could hardly match the sinister terror induced by the most understated and subtle member of this maturing era of warfare: the submarine. The Second World War witnessed two concurrent campaigns by which submarines were used in an attempt to economically isolate and degrade an island nation enemy. One of these attempts was remarkably successful. In the Pacific, US Submariners sunk millions of tons of Japanese shipping - more shipping, in fact, than Japan had possessed at the outbreak of war. A brutally effective submarine campaign against Japanese tankers affected a near perfect starvation of Japan’s war machine: after intaking 40% of East Indies crude production in 1942, only 5% would reach Japanese shores in 1944. This …