Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Battle of the Atlantic and the North African Front

In 1942 after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hitler did not hesitate to launch another attack on the Allies. He ordered submarine raids on ships along the Eastern Atlantic coast with the goal of preventing transportation of food and war supplies to Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The reasoning behind his plan lied within Great Britain's dependance upon the sea for transportation of goods. Hitler's ultimate goal was to starve Great Britain into submission, thus gaining another victory to support his plan for revenge from World War I. In the first four months of 1942, German fleets sank 87 Allied ships, and three months after, a total of 681 Allied ships had been destroyed. 
In order to prevent further defeat, Allies responded by organizing their cargo ships into convoys. These convoys were groups of cargo ships that traveled together and provided mutual protection, which was a tactic that was also used in World War I. The convoys were escorted with many layers of protection. They were followed by destroyers with sonars to detect German submarines. Also, they were covered in the air by planes with radars in order to spot German U-boats on the ocean surface. Eventually, Allies were able to find and destroy U-boats faster than Germany could produce them. Finally, in 1943, Admiral Karl Orenitz issued a statement that Germany's losses had "reached an unbearable height." As a result, the United States launched a ship building program in early 1943. Approximately 140 liberty ships were produced each month, and the amount of ships produced outnumbered the number of sunken ships. By the mid 1943s, the tide turned and the Allies were at an advantage. 
Towards the end of the year of 1942, Stalin pushed the Allies to invade Western Europe, but Churchill and Roosevelt felt that they weren't strong enough, so they launched Operation Torch: an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa instead.
In November, 1942, 107,000 Allied troops commanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in North Africa.  The troops pushed the Afrika Korps, led by General Erwin  Rommel (Desert Fox) eastward in continuous, bloody battle. The Afrika Korps finally surrendered in May 1943. British general Harold Alexander sent a message to Chuchill saying, "All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shores."

-Amelia Wong and Polly Cho

7 comments:

  1. good flow; there are a lot of facts, be careful that they stay organized

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  2. Good use of numbers and facts.

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  3. Bon travail! There is a lot of information covered here and it is presented in a smooth fashion. Very interesting!

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  4. What I don't understand is why the Allies did not start start keeping merchant ships in convoys a lot earlier. After the Allies saw Hitler's general plan of attack (attacking merchants with submarines), why didn't they immediately start using convoys, instead of letting so many ships sink first?

    By the way, the way you wrote it sounds like the U.S. started the shipbuilding program as a RESULT of the Germans reaching unbearable submarine losses. I think the shipbuilding started at roughly the same time as the convoys.

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  5. Good start. It has a lot of good information, but later on it seemed that some information were thrown into the sentences (my opinion).

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  6. The American response to the German's attack to the boats was really good, bring something used in WWI and adapt it so it works with the new technology... intelligent...

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  7. Grabbed my attention from the very beginning! And I like how you ended with a quote.
    This is a great recount of the battle of the Atlantic and North Africa, and there is a lot of information crammed in here, almost too much. The paragraphs transition very well into each other, almost as if you're telling a story! Great writing.

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