The first Sunday in May each year is reserved as the Day we remember the “Battle of the Atlantic” I don’t suppose there are too many who remember this particular part of the Second World War. Yet for Winston Churchill this was his biggest fear throughout the war. Yes the “Battle of Britain” was a very important and necessary, indeed heroic part of winning the war, but if we had lost the Battle of the Atlantic we would surely have lost the war. The convoys provided the fuels, ammunition’s, equipment, materials, all the needs to wage a war. However the single most important item was food, without it the Island of Britain would have been starved into submission. The U Boat menace was a constant threat to cutting off the convoys and indeed came very close to succeeding. At one point early in the war when England stood alone against the Nazis we were down to a critical three week supply. Much too close for comfort. One very dangerous threat was the battleship Bismarck, had she managed to slip into the North Atlantic she could have stood off and destroyed convoys at will. The Royal Navy stopped her at a terrible price, the battle ship HMS Hood engaged the enemy but was lost in a huge explosion all hands but three were lost . The Bismarck was eventually caught by the home fleet, aircraft from the carrier HMS Ark Royal attacked with torpedo’s and destroyed her steering gear. She could not maneuver and was quickly sunk. As we lead up to the First Sunday in May I will relate other stories of this epic struggle
God Bless and keep reading.
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