In February 1917, German U-boats launched a savage unrestricted campaign against both Allied and neutral shipping. At its peak in April, 860,000 tons of Allied merchant shipping was sunk. Britain’s supremacy at sea was being severely challenged and with it the chances of victory in the wider war.

Taking up the challenge was Britain’s new First Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe, until the previous December C-in-C of the Grand Fleet – famously described by Churchill as the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. The battle he now faced was equally critical, although the timeline of defeat was a matter of days rather than hours – Britain’s food stocks were dangerously low with wheat reserves down to six weeks and sugar to only two, while wide-scale shortages were crippling the industrial economy.

Jellicoe outlined the gravity of the situation with total candor to Rear Admiral William Sims, USN, sent over before America officially declared war by Franklin Roosevelt, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The two men already knew each other from service together in China during the Boxer Rebellion, so Jellicoe’s plea for urgent American assistance was taken seriously by Sims. After the USA joined the war in April 1917, together they lobbied Washington for aid, addressing their needs directly to two reluctant Anglophobes at the head of the USN, Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels and Chief of Naval Operations, William Benson.

Clearly, a radical new approach to anti-submarine warfare was called for, and Convoy was the leading contender. There were many objections to protecting shipping in this way, some ideological but most practical – a workable system, for example, effectively required state control of both shipping and distribution networks, something inconceivable in normal circumstances. However, Convoy had powerful advocates, including the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, who later claimed he had personally forced its adoption on a reluctant Admiralty. This self-serving political myth cast Jellicoe as an opponent of Convoy: nothing could be further from the truth.

As both Jellicoe and Sims understood, the key requirement was a rapid increase in the number of destroyers for escort duties. America provided them, the first arriving in Queenstown, Ireland on 4 May and by June 46 were operating in European waters. This was the first step in an Anglo-American campaign that gradually brought the U-boat threat under control and led to its ultimate defeat.

This book takes a fresh look at the undersea war as a whole and all the complex factors bearing on the campaign, only one of which was convoy. Its analysis is original, and its conclusions thought-provoking – an important contribution to the naval history of the Great War.

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Foreword
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Dramatis Personae
• Key Dates in the U-Boat War
• Phases of the Submarine War
• Abbeviations and Definitions
• Introduction
• 1. War in an Industrial Age
  • Trade Dependency
  • Sea and Land Power
  • Blockade as an Instrument of Economic War
  • The Legal Framework of the War at Sea
  • Protection of Trade or Battle Fleet Engagement
• 2. Fisher’s Apprentice: Crafting the Tactics and Weapons of War
  • The Advent of the Submarine as a Weapon of War
  • Submarine Development in the Royal Navy
  • Anti-Submarine Warfare in the Early Royal Navy
  • The Submarine at the Outbreak of War
• 3. Operational Command: Jellicoe as Commander-In-Chief Grand Fleet
  • The Execution of Pre-planned Orders
  • Economic War by Executive Order
  • The Blockade in Operation
  • The Unseen Threat of Germany’s U-boats
  • HMS Birmingham Claims the First U-boat
  • HMS Pathfinder – The First Successful Submarine Torpedo Attack
  • Scapa Flow’s Undefended Refuge
  • The Shock Wave of a Triple Sinking – HMS Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue
  • The Loss of HMS Hawke
  • The Loss of HMS Audacious
  • Glitra – The First Attack on Merchant Shipping
  • Testing the Waters – The Tirpitz Interview
  • Jellicoe’s Initial Reappraisal of the U-boat Threat
  • The Loss of HMS Formidable
  • 1915, Neutrality Challenged
  • The Complexity of German Naval Command
  • The Politics of the Submarine Debate
  • Putting Intelligence to Work
  • Breaking the German Naval Codes
  • D/F, Directionals and Intercepts
  • The Missing Piece – Intelligence Analysis
  • The Dogger Bank Action
  • Political Indecision Leads to Unilateral Naval Action
  • The U-boat Counter-blockade
  • The False Flag Issue
  • Running the Dover Barrage
  • The Polite Pirate – Otto Weddigen’s death
  • Increased Sinkings in the Strait
  • The Sinking of the rms Lusitania
  • Looking for Answers
  • A Second Diplomatic Crisis: The Arabic Sinking and the Pledge
  • The Increasing Threat in the Mediterranean
  • ss Persia and the Clan Macfarlane Sunk by Valentiner
  • Q-ship Tactics – The Loss of Fürbringer’s U.40
  • The Nicosian Incident and Baralong
  • Q-ship Tactics – Baralong and U.41
  • Mounting Shipping Losses
  • The Pitfalls of Blockade
  • The Renewed U-boat Campaign
  • One or Two U-boat Wars?
  • More Diplomatic Strains and the Sussex
  • The Depth Charge Makes its First Kill
  • Rich Pickings in the Mediterranean
  • The Exploits of Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière
  • The U-boat’s New Naval Role
  • 31 May 1916: Jutland
  • The Loss of HMS Hampshire
  • The Execution of Captain Fryatt
  • U-boats Come to America – the Voyages of the Deutschland
  • U.53’s Provocative Mission to Newport
  • Conditions Aboard a Wartime German Submarine
  • Scheer’s August North Sea U-boat Trap
  • Increasing German Support for Lifting Restrictions in 1917
  • A British Propaganda Victory – the Loss of U.20
  • The German Army Comes on Board
• 4. Tools and Tactics of the New Submarine War
  • A Perpetual Debate: The Lure of the Offensive
  • The Search for Solutions
  • The Ineffectiveness of Early Allied ASW
  • Dismal Results at the Admiralty
  • Initial Tactics
  • Mine Deterrence
  • Anti-Submarine Barrage
  • Anti-Submarine Barrage – Dover
  • Anti-Submarine Barrage – Shetlands to Norway
  • Anti-Submarine Barrage – Otranto
  • Q-ships: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
  • The Armed Merchantman
  • The Destroyer
  • The Hunter-Killer Submarine
  • Submarine Detection
  • The Depth Charge
  • Anti-Submarine Warfare from the Air
• 5. Strategic Command, Part 1: Jellicoe as First Sea Lord
  • Jellicoe Takes Over as First Sea Lord
  • The New First Sea Lord’s Increasing Concerns
  • The New Admiralty Focus under Jellicoe
  • January 1917: Restrictions Lifted, the Pleß Conference
  • Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (USW) Resumed
  • The High Seas Fleet’s New, Supporting Role
  • The Sinking of the Alnwick Castle
  • A New Ferocity to the Submarine War
  • U.83 Sunk by the Q-ship Farnborough
  • Despite Few U-boats, a Rising Allied Toll
  • The Zimmermann Telegram – America’s Final Rush to War
  • America Enters the War
  • Jellicoe and Sims: Friendship and Partnership
  • The First American Naval Units Arrive
  • The Ambiguity of American Support
  • Decreasing Support for Submarine War in Germany
  • Continued Successes in the Mediterranean
  • Targeting Oilers, Colliers and Hospital Ships
  • The Exploits of the Prize
  • The Fate of the Tulip
  • Exploits of the Q-ship Pargust
  • The Sinking of the Clan Davidson
  • UC-71 and Dunraven: The Duel
  • The Death of William Sanders
  • Changes in the Submarine War Strategy
  • The Theatre of U-boat Operations Widens
  • The Q-ship Stonecrop
  • The Surface Threat to Convoys
  • The USN Draws its First Blood …
  • … and Suffers its First Casualties
  • The First American Destroyer U-boat Victim
• 6. Strategic Command, Part 2: the Convoy Controversy
  • Convoy in British Maritime History
  • The Context of Convoy in 1917
  • Key Issues in the Convoy Debate
  • Timing is Everything
  • Calculating the Resources Needed
  • Convoy at the Stroke of a Pen?
  • Did Concentration Offer U-boats More Opportunities?
  • If Convoy at Sea Worked, Would Land-based Logistics Keep Pace?
  • What Contemporary Sources of Learning About Convoys Existed?
  • The Political Battle for Convoys
  • The Strains of the Anglo-American Partnership
  • The Americans and Convoy: Sims Versus Washington
  • Testing the Convoys
  • Convoy Organisation, Training and Tactics
  • The North Atlantic Convoys
  • The Atlantic Convoys – Gibraltar, Dakar and Sierra Leone
  • Convoys in the Mediterranean
  • British Coastal Convoys
  • How Successful was the Convoy System?
  • The Continuing Appeal of Sub-Hunting Flotillas
• 7. After Supreme Command: from the Hot Seat to a Cold Shoulder
  • Preparations to Remove Jellicoe
  • The London Naval Conference
  • The Dismissal of Sir John Jellicoe
  • Changes at the Top – Britain
  • And Changes at Dover
  • 1918: The Continued U-boat Menace
  • U.155’s Opening Cruises
  • Death in the Strait of Dover
  • Hospital Ship Attacks: the Glenart Castle & Llandovery Castle
  • The Zeebrügge Raid
  • The High Seas Fleet’s Last Sortie
  • Continued Long-range Submarine Operations
  • The Black Months – April and May 1918
  • The Voyage of the U.151
  • The Continued U-boat Assault on America
  • Changes in Germany’s Naval Command
  • The Final Days – Unrest and Recall
  • Plan Z: Hipper’s Abortive November Sortie
  • Beatty’s Plan ZZ: The Final Surrender
• 8. Measuring Success and Learning Lessons
  • A Strategy Without Metrics
  • Submarine Sinkings
  • German Submarine Production
  • Rate of Ship Sinkings and Damage
  • Cargo Capacity
  • Merchant Ship Replacement and Build Costs
  • Insurance Rates
  • Food stocks – Victory Through Starvation
  • Germany Initiates Rationing
  • Decreased Reliance on Imports
  • The War’s Continuing Impact
  • Alternative Source of Supply – The Black Market
  • The Lost Lessons of the First Submarine War
  • Anti-Submarine Wars 1917–1942
• 9. Was Jellicoe the Right Man for the Job?
  • The Nature of the Man
  • A Sailor at Heart
  • A Fighting Admiral
  • The Test of Supreme Command
  • Jellicoe’s Contribution to ASW and Trade Protection
  • Developing an Effective ASW Portfolio
  • Jellicoe and Convoy
  • Did the Allies Actually Defeat the U-Boat?
  • Jellicoe’s Legacy
• Appendices
  • Appendix A: German Submarine Types, Tactics and Performance
  • Appendix B: Methods of Destruction
  • Appendix C: The German Navy, 1900–1918
  • Appendix D: Submarine Attacks, 1 Jan 1916–25 Jan 1917
  • Appendix E: Increases in Naval Munitions Production, 1917
  • Appendix F: Mercantile Shipping Production, 1917–1918 (Grt)
  • Appendix G: Naval Shipping Forecast and Delivery, Jul–Nov 1917
  • Appendix H: Naval Shipping (Pre-Dreadnoughts and Armoured Cruisers) Sunk by Submarines
  • Appendix I: Naval Shipping (Smaller Ships) Sunk by Submarines
  • Appendix J: The Admiralty Prize Fund
• Notes
• Bibliography