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As much as the U.S. Army’s role in the Pacific War somewhat unjustly fades behind that of the Navy and Marines, the Navy’s role in the victory in Europe is too-often overlooked. Samuel Eliot Morrison tried to rectify that somewhat in his multivolume histories of the U.S. Navy in World War II, but there is precious little grist available to us amateur historians to learn more about the US Navy’s Atlantic fight.
One of the most critical of those fights was the Battle of the Atlantic, the six year effort to thwart Germany’s plan to win the European war by severing the Allies’ transatlantic supply line. Our hindsight makes it easy to forget that the matter was often in doubt, especially after German U-Boats were organized in Wolf Packs, began operating off the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and shredded convoys like the infamous PQ-17. Indeed, the U.S. applied the same strategy to Japan with huge success.
Navy Task Force 24 was the U.S. unit charged with the safe conduct of merchant convoys from U.S. ports to a point where British escorts could assume escort duties. The official account of the Admirals who commanded that unit, Commander Task Force 24, is thus a critical primary source for anyone with an interest in that period.
As with many such government-produced documents, the narrative can be a bit dry, more of a chronology than a thematically-organized work, and it is focused heavily on administrative matters rather than operations themselves. Nonetheless, this is essential background, and anyone familiar with or interested in the conduct of the war in the Atlantic will find the work enlightening.
Related articles
- Merchant Navy sailors remembered (bbc.co.uk)
- WWII Shipwrecks Swimming in Marine Life (livescience.com)
