Behind the Lines introduction Behind the front lines of World War II 1939 1945 both the Allies and the Axis powers sought ways to gain any advantage they could over the enemy These efforts meant that virtually everyone in combatant countries was eventually directly involved in the war in one way or another War at Sea and in the Air Once the Germans had conquered most of mainland Europe they turned their attention to Britain When they were defeated in the Battle of Britain in 1940 they instead set out to use U-boats submarines to prevent the British receiving supplies from North America Eventually that would force Britain into surrendering in order to avoid starvation The Battle of the Atlantic is the name given to the long struggle by the Allies to keep the sea lanes open The battle was the longest of the war it lasted over fi ve years and cost thousands of lives The Allies meanwhile planned to bomb U S students learn to decipher Japanese codes at an Aeronautical Radio School in 1943 4 ___
introduction A victorious German U-boat submarine crew celebrate as they return to port from the Atlantic Ocean Germany into surrender with a massive air campaign German cities were destroyed and German civilians killed in raids that often involved more than 1,000 bombers at a time Technology at War The sea and air wars like all aspects of the war refl ected new technology World War II marked one of the most intense periods of technological development in history as scientists on both sides tried to improve weaponry transportation communications and medical care They also put huge efforts into encoding messages for security and on breaking the codes of the enemy That quest to gain intelligence about the enemy was closely allied to the use of espionage or spies to gather information 5 ___
Behind the Lines war in the atlantic Britain relied on supplies from overseas especially from the United States Keeping the sea lanes open was essential if Britain was to survive prime minister British British Winston Churchill once wrote The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril U-boats were German submarines Underseeboote or undersea-boats that preyed on transatlantic shipping If Germany gained control of the Atlantic it could starve Britain into surrender and gain control of all of Europe The Longest Battle Begins When Britain entered World War II in 1939 the Royal Navy was the largest navy in the world It had far more warships than the German navy the Kriegsmarine The Germans knew they could not take on the British fl eet in battle Two German U-boats undergo training exercises in the Baltic Sea 6
war in the atlantic Crewmen on a German cruiser watch an Allied merchant ship sink after they have attacked it Instead the Kriegsmarine commander Grand Admiral Erich Raeder decided to sink merchant vessels carrying supplies to Britain Many of the vessels came from North America Raeder deployed warships far out in the Atlantic to intercept them while U-boats patrolled the British coast The Germans also laid mines in Britain’s coastal waters and used long-range maritime aircraft to search for targets POCKET BATTLESHIPS Introduced into service by Germany in the 1930s pocket battleships were fast heavily armed commerce raiders that could overtake and sink merchant ships outgun enemy cruisers and outrun full-size battleships The three German pocket battleships were initially highly effective but the Allies then improved their tactics which removed the German advantage key weapons 7
