Six Air Forces Over the Atlantic

How Allied Airmen Helped Win the Battle of the Atlantic

Joseph T. Molyson Jr.

• Publisher: Stackpole Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9780811775373
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of World War II, lasting the entirety of the war in Europe from September 1939 to May 1945. It was also one of the war’s most complex campaigns, involving strategy, operations, tactics, logistics, politics, diplomacy, and alliances. During the war’s first two years, the United States was drawn deeper into partnership with Great Britain, and closer toward conflict with Germany, in the waters of the North Atlantic. Franklin Roosevelt realized this theater’s importance: “I believe the outcome of this struggle is going to be decided in the Atlantic.” And so American, British, and Canadian forces battled Germans at sea and in the air to protect the flow of first materiel and then men from the United States to the United Kingdom. The sea part has been well covered: how German U-boats and other warships hunted Allied convoys and how the Allies ultimately turned the tide. Not so much the air war.

In Six Air Forces over the Atlantic, Joseph Molyson tells the story of the Battle of the Atlantic from the perspective of the air forces—and airmen—who waged it from the skies above the icy waters of the North Atlantic. He blends big-picture attention to strategy and tactics with dramatic episodes of air-to-air and air-to-sea combat, including the engagement in which a British light bomber captured a German U-boat near Iceland. He details the close eye Franklin Roosevelt kept on the campaign, the effect B-24 Liberator bombers had, and the rise of the Royal Air Force Coastal Command as a true U-boat-busting force. The result was victory in the Atlantic, as well as a significant contribution to victory in World War II.

Table of contents

• List of Maps
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1: The Atlantic Theater
• 2: Between the Wars (June 1919–August 1939)
• 3: Göring’s Wars
• 4: The Phoenix Years
• 5: Death on the Horizon—Surface Forces (Flottenstreitkräfte)
• 6: Death from Below—Submarine Forces (Ubootwaffe)
• 7: Death from Above—Naval Air Arm (Seeluftstreitkräfte)
• 8: Six Air Forces Over the Atlantic
• 9: Convoys and Shipping
• 10: Situation Summary September 1939
• 11: Gateway (September–October 1939)
• 12: The Not-So-Phony War (October 1939–April 1940)
• 13: Seeadler— The Sea Eagles (January–March 1940)
• 14: Scandinavian Adventure (February–June 1940)
• 15: North Cape to the Pyrenees (May–June 1940)
• 16: Battles for Britain (July 1940–May 1941)
• 17: Situation Summary November 1940
• 18: Beyond Coastal Waters (June–May 1941)
• 19: Death of the Empress (October 1940–May 1941)
• 20: Situation Summary April 1941
• 21: Sea Monsters (November 1940–May 1941)
• 22: Payback (May–June 1941)
• 23: The Undeclared War (September 1939–December 1941)
• 24: Early RAF Coastal Command Antisubmarine Operations
• 25: Situation Summary January 1942
• 26: From DRUMBEAT to POINTBLANK (January 1942–November 1943)
• 27: Pens and Shipyards
• 28: Allied Aviation at Sea
• 29: Enigma and ULTRA
• 30: Situation Summary November 1942
• 31: Finding a U-Boat
• 32: Killing a U-Boat
• 33: Lighter Than Air
• 34: A Grim April and a Black May (November 1942–May 1943)
• 35: Situation Summary July 1943
• 36: The Battle for the Bay (June 1942–December 1943)
• 37: Fritz and the Henschel (April–September 1943)
• 38: The großen Dessauer (October 1943–August 1944)
• 39: The Ural Bomber (August 1943–June 1944)
• 40: Situation Summary December 1943
• 41: Trouble on EPICURE B
• 42: Situation Summary June 1944
• 43: Invasion (January 1944–May 1945)
• Terminology Tables
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author