I recently found a 1st edition of The Hinge of Fate by Winston Churchill at a thrift store and so far it has been providing a great perspective of WW2 that was not covered during any history class I've taken. I understand that this is the last book of the series and my question may be answered by one of the earlier books that I have not yet read.
Just finished up the first passage about German U-boat superiority in the Atlantic and my question is: how was Germany able to amass such a large force of U-boats so close to American soil? Did it start as a small hindrance and once Germany saw a weakness they exploited it?
From The Hinge of Fate pp126, total of merchant ship losses from January to July of 1942 was 568 equating to 3,116,703 gross tons lost.
I can't believe I haven't heard anything about this before and it was quite striking that they were able to inflict such huge losses. I apologise if this has been answered elsewhere, I'm on mobile and haven't figured out yet how to search for topics. Thank you in advance for your answers
Edit: I realize that the US hadn't been fully committed to the war effort for long, but it still seems incredible that there were U-Boats less than 300 miles from the coast preying on merchant ships.
So maybe you can help clarify a bit OP if you mind? Are you asking how Germany built up an at least temporarily effective sub force and unleashed it when war began. Or are you asking more specifically about DRUMBEAT and the deployment of long ranged Type IX U-Boats to the North American coasts?
We should also note the original force sent was small in the weeks after Germany declared war on the US following Pearl Harbor. Fewer than a dozen boats in the first wave, with only about 2 dozen involved in the entire period. The ranges were so great only the big long ranged Type IX's could deploy with any sort of usefulness. They just encountered a nation very much unprepared for their coming and with a massive merchant coastal trade. 300 miles is nothing, ships were being sunk in sight of the coast often at night as American ASW and Patrol efforts left much to be desired. And while the losses were heavy, they were still only a small % of the US Merchant Marine, made good within a few months and bolstered by better protection. That is not to say though that Admiral King in particular hasnt come under scrutiny in works since the war for his initial poor response to the threat, and seeming unwillingness to adopt British best practices or credit the U-Boats as a serious threat in American waters until ships began being sunk nightly from Maine to Texas.
While I would suggest a part of why you may not have remembered learning about it in school is that it easily gets absorbed into the larger battle of the Atlantic narrative. And also that its greatest impact is very local. It features prominently in the local history and experience of the war in places like Long Island, Cape Cod, the Jersey Shore, and the Outer Banks. Not so much for Iowa as an example. Volunteer and Civil Defense patrols on the beach at night, debris and the dead washing ashore and ships burning in the night, enforced blackouts and rumors of German infiltrators landing at night was in part how many shore towns experienced the war, but it also is rather specific to their geography.