BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC: Desperate Campaign

OWI's report last week that U.S. merchant-marine casualties in one year of war had reached 3,200 or 3.8% of the crews* underlined the gravity of the U-boat campaign—a campaign which may yet stalemate the war and will certainly delay final Allied victory.

The greatest submarine fleet the world has known is now operating against the lifelines to Russia, Britain, North Africa. Well-informed U.S. and British officials drew a picture of that fleet:

Modern German submarines are as far advanced over the undersea ships of 1914 as modern planes are over planes of World War I. Some of the long-range types can travel 14,520 miles on a single load of fuel. Refueled and reprovisioned by undersea tenders ("milk cows"), they can remain at sea for months at a time. Monstrous metal whales, 220 ft. long with a 20-ft. beam, they carry in their bellies a dozen torpedoes, a crew of 45. When submerged they displace 882 tons (about half the displacement of a typical destroyer).

Their thick skins are double, with oil compartments between to absorb the shock of depth charges, which must explode within 20 ft. of them to blast open their hides. They can crash dive in seconds, submerge to 100 fathoms (600 ft.), resist with safety the pressure of more than 19 tons per square foot. On the surface they can shoulder through the sea at 20 knots, driven by great 2,800-h.p. diesel engines. On their bows is a quick-firing gun big enough to enable them to engage Allied corvettes in surface action. U-boat production is at the rate of 20 to 30 a month. Hitler should have a fleet of 500-700 or more by spring, and the rate of losses now inflicted by Allied planes and ships will have to be greatly increased before the growth of the German fleet is halted.

Into this last-chance gamble Hitler has thrown many of his still vast resources. From the inland industrial centers of the Ruhr he can spawn his raiders and send them across the world. The biggest craft are launched into the Baltic and the North Sea. Smaller craft can be floated through river and canal arteries across the face of France, spewed out into the English Channel through the Seine, into the Mediterranean through the Saone-Rhone Rivers, into the Bay of Biscay through the Loire River.

In the Air. The Allies are desperately fighting submarines with planes. Two out of every three R.A.F. bombers have been fighting the Battle of the Atlantic. Practically every German city under major attack in the last twelve months manufactures some U-boat part. Last week R.A.F. bombers, in their 112th raid on Cologne, made the heaviest attack since May 30, when 5,000 acres and 250 factories were ruined. Last week's raid was timed to flatten Cologne's burgeoning reconstruction, level factories just resuming the production of diesel engines and U-boat batteries. The British dropped 100 two-ton bombs.