The Battle of the Atlantic Trivia Quiz

Answer: 57

A few notes about this number. First and foremost, "in commission" does not mean operationally capable, and the situation in this regard was not good. The KM's figures show a total of 16 operational type VII's, five type IX's and one of the two type IA's. Of the 35 type II's in commission, the 6 type IIC's were working up or training, and only 16 of the IIA's and IIB's were crewed up for war. In six months of war, the KM lost a total of ten of their sea-going subs, the types VII and IX. As a result of these losses, a severe strain was put on the training flotilla's (type II's) to maintain a (nominal) combat capability. The type II U-Boat was an ideal training and coastal machine, but far from suitable for service on the open seas. Hitler had long promised Admiral Raeder that war with the UK would not come until at least 1942 or '43.
The pace of submarine production had been steady, but far from a priority thus far.
This was all to change...

N.B.
My source for all information pertaining to U-Boats in this quiz will be uboat.net (the "absolute" online authority in the field) unless noted otherwise.

Answer: The "Secret" capture of U-110

This is a very interesting story, so interesting that Hollywood even made a lousy fictional movie out of it...
On his second patrol in U-110, Lemp and Oblt. Adalbert Schnee in U-201 were attacking convoy OB318 south of Iceland. A lookout on an escorting Corvette, (HMS Aubretia) sighted U-110's periscope and in the ensuing depth charge attack, severe damage was done to the sub. Lemp surfaced and upon reaching the conning tower, realized that the HMS Bulldog was coming directly for U-110, making to ram. He ordered the crew to abandon ship; as they did they were taken under fire from Bulldog, who believed they were going for the deck gun and fifteen of the crew were killed. Believing he was to be rammed, Lemp abandoned his command without taking any action to scuttle her; he watched in horror as HMS Bulldog suddenly slowed, preparing to heave to for boarding. All the then current code books and the Enigma machine were still on board and Lemp now began to swim back in a vain attempt to prevent their capture. German survivors say he was machine gunned in the water, the RN says he "disappeared". However he died, the British had just scored one of the most important victories of the war. The possession of these resources would enable the "boffins" at Bletchley Park to eventually solve substantial parts of the KM's unique version of the "Enigma" system...

Here is a good source for the RN's side of the story: www.uboatarchive.net/U-110.htm

Answer: Formation of hunting groups to "take the fight to the enemy"

Winston Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) advocated a very aggressive RN policy at the beginning of the war, one which almost "blew up" in his face. Initially, hunting groups were formed based around the RN's Fleet Aircraft Carriers, with the stated objective of "taking the fight to the enemy".

The flaw with this plan was the fact that the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) had no suitable shipborne aircraft weapons system with which to attack a submarine! Although the aircraft could locate the sub and report this back to the group's destroyer flotilla, the sub was always long gone by the time the destroyers arrived. HMS Ark Royal was on one of these patrols when she escaped destruction on 14 September; HMS Courageous was not so lucky three days later. Diversion of the RN's destroyer assets from convoy defense was also proven to be a grave error and led to severe merchant losses in the early part of the war.

Although the policy did bring results by sinking U-Boats, the loss of two fleet carriers in three days (had U 39's torpedoes not malfunctioned) would have been a disaster for the RN.

Answer: Admiral Graf Spee & Deutschland

Admiral Scheer was in port at Wilhelmshaven undergoing a refit at the beginning of the war; Admiral Hipper was still in "shake down", although nominally operational. Hipper was taken out of service for modifications (bow and funnel cap) by her maker (Blohm & Voss Hamburg) at the end of the year, and would not make her operational debut until Operation "Nordmark" at the end of February 1940. Spee's story is well known; Deutschland sortied from Wilhelmshaven on 24 August and returned to Gotenhafen on 16 November 1939, having sunk two freighters while also capturing a third, the US "City of Flint" (sent to Germany on 9 October with a prize crew on board).

Answer: Faulty torpedoes

Problems with the German torpedoes led to serious operational "difficulties" early in WWII. Not only was there the Ark Royal/U-39 incident of 14 September 1939, there was also a similar one involving HMS Nelson and U-56 on 30 October where two hits were registered and both contact fuses failed to detonate. In this case U-56's skipper, Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Zahn was able to evade destruction, U-39 had not been so fortunate. By the time that Operation Weserübung came around, it was clear that there was definitely a major problem with both the contact and the magnetic pistols. On 15 April 1940, Günther Prien (U-47) of Scapa Flow fame, fired eight contact fused "fish" at a group of three large (30,000+GRT/ea.) British troopships and two RN cruisers north of Narvik in two separate attacks. The first attack (submerged; distance 800-1500m) failed completely and after double checking their firing solutions and depth settings, Prien surfaced and launched a further four torpedoes; all four again missed, one detonating against the shore. This brought a rapid response from the screening destroyers and Prien was fortunate to escape the resultant depth charging. The record of the U-Boats involved in Weserübung shows the magnitude of the problem. In a total of four separate attacks on the battleship HMS Warspite, fourteen attacks on various cruisers, ten on destroyers and ten on transports, the U-Boats sank... one transport. The most distressing realization of all was that it was now proven (beyond a doubt) that all German torpedoes had serious defects with both firing and guidance control systems. Heads would roll for this one...
Here's a brief, yet very informative article on this whole fiasco:
http://p210.ezboard.com/ftheworldatwar70879frm1.showNextMessage?topicID=1062.topic

Answer: Lorient

Lorient fell to the German army on June 21, 1940 and would eventually become the most important KM facility outside Germany. In November 1940, Admiral Karl Dönitz relocated his headquarters and staff (BdU-Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote) into a requisitioned house at Kernevel; the second and tenth combat flotilla's were also both based in Lorient for most of the war. Large maintenance/refitting capacities were built up as the battle progressed; 492 refits and major overhauls were eventually performed in these facilities (close to 40% of all submarine maintenance activity in occupied France). Surrounded following the D-Day landings, "Festung Lorient" held out until war's end (8 May, 1945), although submarine operations ended by the beginning of September 1944.

Some of the concrete enclosures and other facilities constructed during the war are still in use by the French Navy today.

Answer: 1,400,000 tons

Although the KM fielded fewer submarines in this period then they had at the beginning of the war and there were still major unresolved issues with the German torpedoes, the increased sortie rate allowed the small cadre of (by now, very experienced) crews to roll up a huge tally of the UK's merchant fleet.

The Germans devoted a herculean effort toward moving maintenance and logistic support forward into France and gave it a very high priority. The U-Boats were now resupplying and refitting some 700 kilometers closer to their primary hunting grounds, the Western approaches to the British Isles. One can't but help wonder what the outcome might have been, had Dönitz possessed even 100 operational ocean-going boats during this period of the war; as it was, there were never more than twenty available in this period. (6 Type VIIA [-1, U-32 lost 30, Oct.]; 5 Type VIIB [-1, U51 lost 20 Aug]; 3 Type IXA; 5 Type IXB [-1 U122 lost 22 June])

Answer: Numerous destroyers had been transfered to the RCN for duties in the Western Atlantic

Transfer of vessels to the Royal Canadian Navy would only occur later in the campaign, when convoy escort became a necessity in the Western and mid-Atlantic. These transfers took the form of the "loan" of a dozen or so of the US Navy "four-stackers", acquired in the "Bases for Destroyers" deal which was concluded on 2 September 1940. Dunkirk ("Dynamo") had been particularly hard on the RN, a fact that is not well known given the widespread belief that Göring's Luftwaffe "failed" so miserably in their efforts to prevent the evacuation.

The RN lost six Destroyers sunk and nineteen badly damaged at Dunkirk, the French lost seven sunk. The RN lost a total of five others sunk over the course of the French campaign, in addition to the specific losses taken during "Dynamo". During "Operation Ariel" (the evacuation of the rump of the BEF, a further 215,000 men) conducted between 14 and 25 June, the RCN lost HMCS Fraser, sunk in a collision with the RN's AA Cruiser HMS Calcutta.

Answer: HK Atlantis

HK Atlantis would ultimately spend 602 days at sea, the longest cruise of any German raider. In this period she would sink 16 vessels and capture an additional six, for a total of almost 146,000 tons. This numerically insignificant group of vessels caused headaches for the RN that were out of all proportion to the amount of resources dedicated to their operation by the KM. They operated with a large degree of autonomy in terms of re-supply and re-fit, obtaining a significant proportion of their requirement for fuel and provisions by capturing merchant shipping, much like modern day "corsairs" (by definition: pirates operating under a national flag, not under a "Jolly Roger"). There is a consensus among researchers and strategists that the failure to greatly expand this fleet in the early period of the war was a significant opportunity missed by the Germans. Construction/conversion of the historical fleet of eleven (nine of which managed to breakout on at least one operational cruise) vessels was completed for a pittance relative to their overall effectiveness. The nine operational ships accounted for almost 870,000 tons sunk or captured (142 ships) in the course of 3,769 days at sea, an average of more than 230 tons per day. This admirable record notwithstanding, their most significant contribution was the wealth of secret information that was seized when these raiders captured Allied merchantmen. A large proportion of the successes of the "B-Dienst" code breakers can be traced to captured signals and codebooks secured through this source; the impact of this information on the operational effectiveness of Dönitz's U-Boats has been well documented.
Direct Quote from: www.scharnhorst-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/hilfskreuzer_introduction.html

QUOTE: "This outstanding performance was achieved by little more than 3,000 officers and men, in nine second-hand freighters, armed with third-hand weapons, whose total cost, both in terms of purchase price and fitting out expenses, represented barely 1% of the cost of the Bismarck."

Answer: Avro Anson

Coastal Command had started the war with the Anson as its primary patrol aircraft, despite the fact that its complete inadequacy for the role had long been realized. This speaks volumes as far as emphasizing just how under-appreciated maritime airpower was in prewar thinking. Replacement was in fact underway, in the form of an order for 250 Lockheed "Hudsons".

This was an adaptation of the famous Model 14, "Super Electra", a proven machine, in widespread service as an airliner. Issues with the sale of weapons to belligerents caused a delay in re-equipment with this aircraft (being purchased from the "neutral" United States) until the "cash and carry act" (Neutrality Act, signed by Roosevelt on 4 November, 1939), allowed deliveries to resume. Equally problematic in this early phase of operations was the offensive weapon given to Coastal Command with which they were to attack surfaced U-Boats and other maritime targets.

At only 100lb, the bomb was far too light to have any hope of success, unless one scored a direct hit in a vital area. Worse yet, it also had a nasty habit of simply "skipping" off the target without detonating, in one recorded case, skipping back into the air and destroying the aircraft from which it was dropped.

It was recognized early on that an air deliverable depth charge was the best answer to the submarine; work was underway on this by the beginning of 1940. Solving the problems with the restricted flight envelope during delivery, limited it's effective employment until much later in the campaign however.

Answer: The Fw 200

Much like the "Hilfskreuzer", the "Condor" was another very cheap yet very effective weapon in the early stage of the war that was grossly underfunded by the Wehrmacht. The first true long range patrol aircraft, the Allies had no immediate answer to it.

The fact that they approved the semi-suicidal "CAM" fighter project goes to show the gravity of the situation in the eyes of the Admiralty. The obvious answer would have been the use of the RN's fleet aircraft carriers but bitter experience had shown their vulnerability in a high-threat environment (Courageous, Glorious and the near loss of Ark Royal).

The ultimate solution, the CVE (Escort Carrier) was still only a concept at this stage of the war (although conversion of merchantmen for the role was taking place).

Another plan called for the manufacture of a large "iceberg" (I'm not making this up!) which would patrol in the "air gap" where the Fw 200 and wolf packs operated with impunity in the early period. The "Condor's" production numbers were derisory (as was also the case with many other systems), only 262 were produced in the entire war.

In its heyday (1940-43) production amounted to: 36 ('40), 58 ('41), 84 ('42), 76 ('43). Given the large amount of slack that was present in German aircraft manufacturing during this period, (when the "Condor" could have really made a major difference) this almost defies explanation. He 177 or not, if you've got a functioning aircraft already in limited production and achieving great success in its role; if it's only a simple matter of ramping up production by reallocating resources from... oh let's just say... the 1000 Me 210's (that were being produced at the time and were ultimately scrapped as un-airworthy) why on earth not do so? The unit which operated the type, KG40, was the object of an intense tug-of-war between Göring and Dönitz over operational control. This was finally resolved by the Admiral intervening directly with Hitler; this is a measure of the importance that Dönitz gave this asset.

Answer: Kapitänleutnant Wolfgang Lüth

Wolfgang Lüth survived the war, only to be shot in error by a German sentry (a few days after the capitulation of Nazi Germany) on 13 May 1945. He was felled by a single shot to the head which killed him instantly; he had failed to hear the sentry's challenge. Kretschmer (U-99) and Schepke (U-100) were both lost in the same action on 17 March 1941, attributed to the RN destroyers HMS Walker and HMS Vanoc. Kretschmer managed to surface after a crippling depth charge attack and 40 of the 41 crew were rescued and made prisoner; Schepke's boat was rammed while surfaced and only six were saved. Prien's U-47 was lost with all hands (45 men) on either 7 or 8 March 1941.

Initially credited to HMS Wolverine, further postwar research now indicates that she was likely a victim of her own torpedoes.

Answer: Heavy losses of German aircraft due to the CAM ships

The first kill by a CAM "Hurricat" would not come until August. The German invasion of the USSR did bring about a significant drop in the sortie rate and sinkings due to aircraft however - most significantly in British coastal waters. The capture of Lemp's U-110 with it's wealth of Enigma secrets was now being digested at Bletchley Park and this information was being used to route the convoys around the Wolfpacks.

The very first generation centimetric radar sets were also being installed on escort ships, although it would require a further year of development before becoming truly effective. "Huff-Duff" (High Frequency Direction Finding) was being introduced, allowing the U-Boat's position to be found by "triangulating" on their radio communications with BdU in Lorient.

Although these advances in the "electron war" were slow to develop, their introduction was in fact the "beginning of the end" for the U-Boat arm.

Answer: The US Navy assumes responsibility for escort duties in the western Atlantic

Although agreement was reached at Argentia as regards to the future role of the US Navy, the first active convoy escort did not come until 17 September, when convoy HX150 left Halifax, Nova Scotia under the care of five US Navy destroyers. Prior to this, on 4 September, the USN saw its first combat engagement (exchange of shots by both sides) of WWII; USS Greer tangled with U-652 while in transit to its operational area in Icelandic waters.
Most have decried Hitler's declaration of war on the USA as perhaps his most serious mistake in the entire course of WWII. The fact of the matter is that Germany and America were already at war on an economic level, and had been for more than a year by the time "Pearl Harbor" occurred. The events of this period (July-September, 1941) were final confirmation for Hitler that the USA was firmly committed to a policy of belligerence in the European war. His declaration of war was little more than a confirmation of the true situation that existed. The fact that the specifications for the B-36 intercontinental bomber had already been issued on 11 April, 1941 is further confirmation of American opinion of Hitler's ambitions.

One must remember that this occurred prior to the Red Army's counteroffensive at the gates of Moscow; world opinion considered the USSR conclusively defeated at this point in the war. The fact is that the Germans weren't the only ones taken by surprise when the Red Army counter attacked!
Hitler was certainly no idiot. He knew that war with the USA was inevitable; he knew this long before he crossed the Polish frontier. The fact that he chose to do so, (with only the faint hope of being able to mobilize economic assets as he captured them) in spite of the huge economic disparity between Germany and the USA, serves to illustrate his true "madness".

Answer: USS Reuben James

Coming hot on the heels of the first major incident on 4 September, the USS Kearney was torpedoed and damaged by U-568 on 17 October. Two weeks later, on 31 October, U-552 sent USS Reuben James and 100 of her 144 officers and crew to the bottom. USS Niblack is recorded as being the first USN ship to attack an enemy vessel in the Second World War.

This incident happened in Icelandic waters on 10 April, 1941. The USS Ward, based in the Pacific, would soon become a household name in association with the Pearl Harbor attack.

Answer: Five

This question preys on a common misconception; (one which I also held, prior to researching for this quiz!) yet another case where the name of a singular operation has since come to incorrectly represent an entire phase of the war. "Drumbeat" was in fact, the name given to the dispatch of the first "wave" of the offensive. Dönitz assigned twelve Type IX boats to this initial wave; this was immediately vetoed by Hitler.

The Fuehrer's concerns revolved around continuing the efforts to prop up his "weak sister" (Mussolini) in the Mediterranean theater; increasing U-Boat pressure on the RN was seen as critical in this regard.

As a result, the offensive proceeded with what resources could be mustered; the first of five Type IX's (U-125) set out for American waters on 18 Dec, 1941, followed by U-123 (23rd), U-66 (24th) and U-130 and U-109 on the 27th.

The sixth boat (U-128) could not be re-fitted in time and did not sail as part of "Paukenschlag".

Answer: 10

The Type XIV was a redesign of the Type IXD, radically modified for its intended mission. Although an initial order was placed for a total of twenty-four vessels, only ten were ever completed. Initially, they were very successful in the prosecution of their mission; the growing net of escorts and aircraft equipped with both HF/DF and centimetric radar soon changed this however.

The Allies assigned absolute priority to the interception and destruction of these boats and as such, their utility was short lived.

By the summer of 1943, it was apparent that the operational effectiveness of the type was at its end and the remaining fourteen on order (three were almost complete and were broken up) were canceled. After the loss of U-460 on 4 October 1943, there remained only two such boats in commission; both of these were lost in the first half of 1944.

Answer: Metox

Metox proved effective against the first generation (ASV MkI) of Allied airborne search radar which operated on the 1.5 metre bandwidth. Unfortunately for the Germans, this equipment was being replaced at the time with the much more effective ASV MkIII system, which operated on the 10cm bandwidth.

This quickly led to the assumption that the British had figured out how to "home in" on emissions from Metox and thus its use was restricted. The British were in fact trying to figure out how to do just this, but were making little progress in this direction! These false conclusions were reinforced by the deceptive efforts of some captured Coastal Command aircrew, who claimed that they did indeed have this capability! The increase in detections was in fact entirely due to the increased use of the new centimetric apparatus in Coastal Command aircraft; the Germans still considered the existence of such a device a practical impossibility at this point in time. All the other answers were actual radar related devices which played some part in the "Electron War" at sea, as it related to the U-Boats.

Answer: A primitive radar antenna

The introduction of "Metox" also brought about the introduction of this term to the lexicon of the Second World War. This rudimentary antenna was made by lashing two sticks together in a cruciform shape; the copper windings were then wrapped around this form. Rotating the cross moved these windings through the electromagnetic field allowing sudden changes in this field to be identified.

This antenna was not "seaworthy"; it had to be "struck down" below decks before the submarine dived and brought up to it's mount on the conning tower each time the boat surfaced.

Answer: 1,160 ships with a total of 6,266,000 tons

Allied record keeping was meticulous throughout the war. The true figures were however, a closely guarded secret. It was not until midway through 1944 (when the "Battle of the Atlantic" had been for all intents and purposes, been decisively won by the Allies) that the loss figures for the year of 1942 were released. The figures I've given are from Naval-History.net. Further research online shows them to be in agreement with most sources by a factor of +/- 5%. This same research also found these figures cited in:
Miller, Nathan. War at Sea - A Naval History of World War II, New York: Scribner, 1995
November 1942 was by far the deadliest month of the war to be a merchant seaman; 119 ships with a total tonnage of 729,000 were lost - attributed to Axis submarines, largely in the Atlantic theatre.

Answer: Scharnhorst sunk, Hipper badly damaged

The German ships were the 8" heavy cruiser, Admiral Hipper and the 11" "Panzerschiffe" Lützow plus 6 destroyers (4 @ 5.9", 2@ 5"). This action should have resulted in a decisive German victory when the relative strengths of the two forces are considered. Tactical bungling and lack of fortitude on the part of the German commander, Admiral Kummetz, is regarded as part of the reason for the eventual outcome.

It must be stated however, that the Admiral was operating under an extremely vague set of rules, issued by none other than the meddlesome (and navally naive) Hitler. "Sink the convoy, but don't risk your ships while doing so!" The plan called for Adm. Kummetz to split his force in two, with "Hipper" attacking first from the north flank. This should serve to draw off the escorting destroyers and send the convoy south, where "Lützow" waited for it. Weather conditions caused a great deal of confusion on both sides in this initial phase, allowing the RN destroyers far greater freedom of action than might otherwise have been the case.

The British took full advantage of this and prosecuted their attacks with suicidal fervor. The poor weather caused further confusion when the RN Light Cruisers showed up; with "Hipper" damaged by 6" gunfire and one Destroyer (Z-16, Friedrich Eckoldt: 5" guns) lost with all hands and fearing torpedo attacks, Kummetz chose to withdraw. The original plan did actually work, however the gunnery displayed by Lützow was abysmal; she fired 87 11-inch and 75 6-inch rounds without scoring any direct hits, this at ranges between three and seven nautical miles! Hitler went ballistic, ordering Raeder to prepare a plan of action whereby every ship larger than a destroyer was to be paid off and broken up! To the contrary, Raeder returned with a well reasoned argument as to why this was a ridiculous course of action to adopt; when Hitler lost it on him again, he tendered his resignation. Although far from senior in the chain-of-command, the fervent Nazi Dönitz was given overall command of the Kreigsmarine by Hitler. This was to all intents and purposes, the end of the road for the German surface fleet in the Second World War (although Scharnhorst was still yet to "go down swinging" in the "Battle of the North Cape", at the end of 1943).

Answer: Approx. 400-425

"In commission" does not equate to operationally capable. The following is a direct quote from Jürgen Rohwer, cited in "The Journal of Intelligence History" as a part of his review of the book: Stephen Harper. "Kampf um Enigma. Die Jagd auf U 559". Hamburg: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 2001.
QUOTE:
"Of the 419 U-Boats in commission at this date (March 1943, I've added this for clarity), 61 were old and small boats for training duties, 135 were new boats in tests and training, 32 were front line boats in the Arctic, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. Of the remaining 191 front-line boats in the Atlantic, 116 were at sea, but 21 were in far distant areas or going there, and 4 were tankers. Thus, only 91 were taking part or going to or returning from convoy operations in the North and Central Atlantic."
*He does not give a source for this information, yet there is little reason to doubt its veracity, given the nature of the editorial standards of publication in which it appears!
These factors notwithstanding, obviously Dönitz had a far more capable operational component at this point in the war than at any time previous. The lines were drawn for the escalation of the conflict, long feared by Prime Minister Churchill...

Answer: Widescale use of "Escort" class carriers

Escort carriers were coming into service in this period and did play a role in the defeat of the U-Boats. There were however, only four in commission during the time period in question: HMS Archer, HMS Biter, USS Bogue and HMS Dasher. HMS Dasher was lost on 27 March 1943 (due to a mysterious internal explosion, taking 379 of her 528 crew with her), leaving only three in service. Given the number of these ships that were ultimately to become available, this was definitely not "wide scale" service.

The real killer was the Type 271 (ASV MkIII) radar. Kills by aircraft attack went up in leaps and bounds during this period, both in the Bay of Biscay and in the operational areas. The free ranging Escort Groups, (of which there were five) acted as mobile "fire brigades", dashing from one engagement to the next to supplement the beleaguered convoy's assigned escort.

These groups had been in formation for over a year, had received extensive training for the role, and became available at exactly the critical juncture in the battle.

They were equipped with the latest radar, ASDIC, HF/DF and weapons suites ("hedgehog" batteries) and trained to work as a team, under strict tactical doctrines. The results were dramatic, to say the least. The subsequent closing of the "air gap" would be the final nail in the coffin although the Germans still had one ace up their sleeve...

Answer: Two

Those of you taking full advantage of the learning opportunity that this quiz provides (i.e. reading my ramblings in the info sections) might remember our friend Kapitänleutnant Lemp (and his friend Oblt. Adalbert Schnee). Here's the rub... Schnee had command of one of the two Type XXI's that actually went on an op! He left Bergen, Norway on 30 April 1945 in command of U-2511; the other boat, U-3008, left Wilhelmshaven on 3 May and made a mock attack on a convoy before returning to port.

The various sources I can find online seem to disagree as to whether U-3008 was fully provisioned for combat when she sailed.

The successful mock attack proves that she was fully trained and combat capable, armed or not. As a side note, six of the smaller (coastal) Type XXIII's also made operational patrols in the period January-May 1945.

Answer: It employed a revolutionary propulsion system

The propulsion system used in the Type XXI was little different from that of other "conventional" submarines. What made it different was the massive battery capacity that it contained; three times that of a conventional Type VIIC. This was achieved by utilization of the space allotted for fuel storage in the Type XXVIII design, the combat version of the "Walter" boat. The "Walter" boat was, of course, the one with the revolutionary propulsion system. Professor Hellmuth Walter's propulsion system used conventional fuel oil, burned in a most unconventional manner. The oxygen required for combustion was obtained from a specially formulated hydrogen peroxide which Walter dubbed "Perhydrol". This arrangement allowed for the operation of an internal combustion engine while submerged, thereby obviating the need for both the bulky batteries and the electric motors. Equally important was Walter's actual hull design, a sleek, streamlined, torpedo-like machine; quite unlike the "conventional" U-Boats with their deck guns, guy wires, blisters and bulges and their unwieldy conning towers. Walter figured his design would easily achieve 26 knots surfaced and an incredible 30 kts submerged yet finding support to test his theories took quite some time; five years in fact! He had first presented his ideas to the OKM in October of 1934; funding for a small "proof of concept" vessel (V-80) was not obtained until 1939. As the conventional U-Boats were operating with relative impunity early in the war, development continued at a lackadaisical pace. It was not until the undeniable change in the sinking/sortie ratio of the second half of 1942, that interest was revived in Walter's work. At a conference held in November 1942, Dönitz was informed that an operational Walter boat was still at least two years away. From this conference was born the ad hoc proposal which ultimately turned the Type XXVIII into the Type XXI.

The Type XXI or Type XXVIII submarine was indeed the closest thing to a potential "war winning" weapons system that the Third Reich's science ever developed, yet having it operational in the spring of 1943 would still not have won the war for Hitler. The German codes remained compromised; American shipyards were only just getting up to speed churning out "Liberty" ships. If it became necessary, the USA would have just built a massive fleet of air transports (imagine B-29's with "guppy" style fuselages) to get their manpower across the pond; god knows they had the capability to do so.
It might have taken a little longer, cost more lives...but Hitler was pretty much doomed right from the start...after all, the USA's had a few pretty serious aces up their sleeve too...like the B-36 and the nasty things that it can carry all the way across the ocean at 45,000 feet...

Thanks for taking my quiz...I hope you found it informative.