Wolfpack: Inside Hitler’s U-Boat War

416 pages

Dr Andrew Boyd

 

Roger Moorhouse is a historian and author of several well received books on Second World War topics. His introduction to Wolfpack argues that the historiography of the U-Boat war is predominantly Anglo-centric, written from the perspective of the victors. He perhaps downplays the number of translated German works now available, not least the multi-volume semi-official history Germany and the Second World War, and, despite acknowledging the enduring importance of Clay Blair’s magisterial study published nearly 30 years ago, overlooks some of its key conclusions. Nevertheless, he is right that few British or American historians have specifically addressed the German side of the U-boat story in detail.  That applies to the wider story of the Kriegsmarine too.  As a fluent German speaker, Moorhouse is potentially well qualified to tackle this gap.

The book is structured in short, snappy chapters and is very readable, clearly aimed at a wide audience. Those not already familiar with the U-Boat campaign will find the various phases easy to follow although there are some striking omissions. Moorhouse is pleasingly direct on the ineffectiveness of the campaign, rightly dismissing a still pervasive view in too many popular accounts that it was a close run struggle. He describes it as a “bloody and elaborate failure” doomed from the very beginning. He dismisses the suggestion that the Type XXI electro-boat offered any real prospect of late transformation. Translating its revolutionary potential, comprising multiple innovations, into a reliable weapon system produced at scale under relentless Allied bombing was beyond Germany’s power. “Overpromised and substandard”, the Type XXI ran out of time.  Moorhouse suggests convincingly that Adalbert Schnee’s famous mock attack on the cruiser Norfolk with U-2511 never happened.

Moorhouse is at his strongest in recounting the human story illustrated with many powerful anecdotes – what life was like for the roughly 40,000 personnel comprising the U-Boat crews who suffered a 75 per cent death rate across the war. He vividly conveys the cramped conditions in predominantly small boats, the stench of closely packed bodies and diesel fumes, indifferent food, pervasive damp and mildew, and chronic skin infections. This grim existence was compounded by often atrocious weather in patrols conducted predominantly on the surface while long periods of monotony combined with constant fear of attack. As the war progressed, life ashore got grimmer too. U-boat bases were bombed increasingly as were loved ones at home. Periods of leave in Germany were bleak or worse. The French resistance kept the Allies supplied with excellent intelligence on U-Boat movements and sabotage was a growing problem. Moorhouse shows how the elite, superbly trained, pre-war force created by Karl Dönitz, who commanded the U-boat force for the entire period 1935– 45, could not be replicated at scale. The quality of commanders and crews declined rapidly, contributing to a steady fall in productivity. War weariness and disillusion was setting in as early as spring 1941 even among the aces. The most successful of these, Otto Kretschmer, disliked the term ‘Happy Time’ with which German propagandists christened U-Boat successes in winter 1940/41. He saw little cause for joy in a 50 per cent casualty rate and soon became a prisoner himself. As the war progressed, PTSD, to which Dönitz was rarely sympathetic, inevitably became an increasing issue too. Dönitz was even more brutal to any commander perceived to be less than totally loyal to the regime.

These positives in his account have won Moorhouse enthusiastic, if uncritical, endorsement from a stream of popular historian peers albeit few of these have established naval expertise. And, judged as a serious new contribution to the overall history of the U-Boat war, Wolfpack has limitations, certainly when weighed against Blair’s comprehensive account. Its deliberate episodic structure discourages analysis and inevitably leaves important gaps. The title might suggest a detailed appraisal of Dönitz’s core operational tactic, the overwhelming of convoy defences through simultaneous attack by multiple boats under centralised control. Yet Moorhouse devotes surprisingly little space to explaining why Dönitz’s vision, enthusiastically explored in early 1939 exercises, failed to deliver consistent and effective results in real combat. The majority of U-boat successes in the two ‘Happy time’ periods were non-convoy vessels. Quoting Blair, he states that, in the second half of the war, 99 per cent of convoyed ships arrived safely, implying that Dönitz had more success prior to American entry. In fact, Blair’s equivalent figure for the period to the end of 1941 was 98 per cent! Against this background, Moorhouse’s related argument that, with more U-boat resources, Dönitz’s might have achieved decisive impact when the British Empire was fighting alone is questionable. If Germany had pursued a 300 boat programme from c1937, Britain would have responded with a major escort programme and was better placed to bear the resulting economic burden. Hypotheticals aside, Moorhouse could also have stressed that Dönitz disregarded prescient pre-war warnings that the Wolfpack concept was potentially vulnerable to developments in radar and HF/DF, and heavily dependent on adequate air surveillance to enable U-Boats to find targets.

Moorhouse rightly emphasises the problems posed by defective torpedoes over the first 18 months of the war but does not explain why it took so long to resolve them – a consequence of poor Kriegsmarine leadership and dysfunctional organisation over which Dönitz admittedly had little influence. Nor does he address Dönitz’s failure to confront possible compromise of Enigma despite ample warning indicators. There is surprisingly little coverage of the crucial year 1942 when the German naval staff correctly assessed that success in a ‘tonnage war’ was already moving out of reach. Other fundamental questions might have been explored too in a new account tackling the German perspective. Could Dönitz have promoted options such as targeting convoy escorts or oil tankers with more consistency and determination? Why was the potential of the snorkel, a capability on which Moorhouse delivers a rather muddled explanation, not promoted earlier?  Could a reliable Type XXI have been introduced in strength much quicker – say by autumn 1943 – but would this have had any significant impact?

These omissions matter because they are central to the story Moorhouse seeks to tell. They also illuminate a core failing in Dönitz’s conduct of the U-Boat war. At his best an inspirational leader, he was also an authoritarian who did not encourage challenge. He ran the war with a tiny staff who could just about handle day to day operations but lacked bandwidth for re-appraising future strategy. The contrast with the elaborate, well-integrated and well-resourced British organisation directed by the Admiralty under strong political direction and embracing Bletchley Park, the Operational Intelligence Centre, Western Approaches and Coastal Commands was stark. Together these proved increasingly adept at absorbing intelligence and experience at sea to drive rapid organisational learning and innovation. U-Boat command was outthought and outfought and lost the technology battle.

There are also some significant errors. German naval investment was not running “more or less at full steam” in early 1939. It had plummeted over the previous two years, reflecting an overheated German economy faced with multiple armament programmes, which explains why the frontline U-boat force did not grow at all over the first 18 months of the war. The Germans did not penetrate British naval ciphers in spring 1940 through captures from the destroyer Hardy at Narvik. They were reading key ciphers before the war and significant coverage continued seamlessly and almost currently through the whole of its first year. Regrettably, Moorhouse also reinforces the myth that the breaking of naval Enigma was due to material acquired from U-110 in May 1941.mIn reality, the first major break came from seizures in the Lofotens raid two months earlier and current and continuous reading was primarily achieved through raids on the Arctic weather ships.  Extraordinarily, Moorhouse does not mention a central element in the intelligence story, the Atlantic U-Boat shift to a four rotor Enigma system in early 1942 which locked Bletchley out for most of that year. A cryptographic battle which until 1943 was more finely balanced than often claimed surely deserved greater accuracy and space. U-boats sank 10 ships not 16 from convoy PQ 17 nor did this disaster have any lasting impact on British commitment to Arctic supply as Moorhouse rather suggests.

As is becoming too common these days, the book lacks a bibliography. Some editing is surprising and inconsistent. Merchant vessels and German warships have their names in italics as is customary. British warships sometimes follow this practice but more often gain the prefix ‘HMS’.  Some references will jar on naval readers. Warships fire ‘artillery’ rather than ‘guns’ while a U-boat commander’s mention of “shooting the sun” for an astro fix is described as “quaint”.

Overall, if you want an accessible account of the human side of the German U-Boat story, this is the book for you.  But if you want serious and original historical analysis, look elsewhere.