German U-Boats and Anti-Submarine Warfare

Race to the Bottom of the Atlantic

Lenny Stendig (© 2020)

Jan. 1, 2021
Antisubmarine Measures / Countermeasures –
The Technology Race to the Bottom of the Atlantic
The German effort to blockade Great Britain in WW II and force her out of the war came dangerously close to
succeeding; mainly due to Germany’s effective use of U-Boat submarines to attack Allied merchant ships that were Great
Britain’s critical lifeline. Success would have allowed Nazi Germany to eliminate England from the war and relieved
them of the need to continue fighting a two-front war against both England and Russia. They could have then focused
their efforts on defeating Russia in order to create Lebensraum (living space for the German people).

After the fall of France and Norway early in the war, the Germans gained ready access to the Atlantic Ocean for their
U-Boats from the coasts of these countries. These U-Boat bases enabled them to start sinking Allied merchant ships bound
for the UK at an alarming rate (see Figure 1 below). Indeed, Winston Churchill stated that the U-Boat blockade was his
biggest nightmare of the war:

“The U-boat attack was our worst evil. It would have been wise for the Germans to stake all upon it.”

Figure 1: The Battleground

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British fuel and food supplies were dwindling: With imports providing well over half the nation’s needs, reserve stocks
fell steadily; by January the following year, the reserves were almost exhausted. The Ministry of Food responded by
cutting the weekly allowance repeatedly until, by the spring of 1941, butchers frequently ran out of supplies. (Dimbleby,
2016, p. 127) Churchill made it a top priority to win the Battle of the Atlantic; he responded by issuing a directive: ‘The
next four months should enable us to defeat the attempt to strangle our food supplies and our connection with the United
States’, he wrote on 6 March 1941. Ordering an onslaught against the German submarine fleet, he instructed that the
U- boats were to be ‘hunted’ at sea and bombed in the building yards and in the docks… (Dimbleby, 2016, p. 127) But
the cost of this campaign in terms of lives, military resources, and money was tremendous: The Atlantic is littered with
783 U-Boats and ~3000 Allied merchant ships.

Both sides were determined to win the desperate see-saw battle in the Atlantic and both were prepared to sacrifice tens of
thousands of sailors in the process. This determination fueled the rapid advancement of submarine/anti-submarine warfare
(ASW) technology during the compressed period of WW II. This paper focuses on the technology battle between the
German U-Boats and Allied ASW efforts to counter them.

The first half of the war saw great U-Boat success and heavy Allied losses in the Atlantic; the period of mid-1940 was
dubbed the “The Happy Time” by German U-Boat captains. By late 1941, however, the British had adapted to U-Boat
warfare and convoy losses were minimized. A “Second Happy Time” commenced with the entry of the US into the war in
late 1941 – US merchant losses were staggering for over a year. The US had failed to absorb the hard-learned lessons
from the British.

A turning point was finally reached in May 1943 when the U-Boat hunters became the hunted (see Figure 2 below). The
cracking of the German Enigma code is given much credit for the Allies’ eventual victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.
While Enigma decryption was a factor, there were many other strategies, tactics, and technologies that also played a role
in the Allies’ reversal of U-Boat domination of the Atlantic.

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 FIGURE 2. Shipping/U-Boat Losses During THE Battle of the Atlantic (Clark, 2015, p. 28)

U-Boat Background
Early WW II U-Boats were an evolution of WW I designs, i.e., they were actually submergible boats rather than true
submarines. Time underwater was limited to a matter of several hours or a day or so before they needed to surface for
fresh air and to recharge their batteries with diesel engines. Their top speed of ~17.5 knots was obtained on the surface;
they slowed to only ~7.5 knots when submerged. The two workhorses of the German fleet were the medium-range
Type VII U-Boat (used to intercept convoys in the North Atlantic) and the long-range Type IX U-Boat (used to reach the
US East Coast (Operation Drumbeat) and for other intercontinental missions). They were equipped with powerful radios
using Enigma Encryption that could reach their commander, Admiral Doenitz, at headquarters in Europe.

U-Boats could dive quickly – Within 30 seconds they could disappear from the surface and within another 30 seconds
could be at a depth of 120 feet. Off-duty crew members would rush to the bow to help hasten an emergency dive.
(Dangerous Missions: U-Boats - Full Episode (S1, E0) | The History Channel, 2020)

Despite the difficult living conditions, all U-Boat sailors were motivated volunteers. Submariners used cologne to mask
their body odor since water for bathing was scarce. Space was at such a premium that at the start of a new voyage, one of
the two bathrooms would be filled with food, thus forcing the crew to “eat their way” into the toilet over the first several
days. (Museum of Science and Industry Personnel, 2021, p. 7)

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 Allied Convoys
World War I experience had shown the British the necessity of
using convoys typically consisting of 30 – 70 merchant marine
supply ships accompanied by destroyer escorts in order to
neutralize the U-Boat menace. However, at the start of WW II the
British were lacking sufficient convoy naval escort ships that
could be used for anti-submarine warfare. An interim purchase of
50 outdated destroyers from the US bought some time while the
British started a crash construction program.

Destroyer escorts functioned as the “bodyguards” of the convoys.

As the war developed, they were fitted with increasingly
sophisticated U-Boat detection gear: sonar (active and passive),
radar, and radio detection finding gear (HF DF – High Frequency
Direction Finding). They carried a variety of anti-U-Boat
weaponry making them a formidable U-Boat opponent that also
improved throughout the war.

In WW II, the Queen Mary was used as a troop transport because it was one of the fastest ships on the seas at ~30 knots –
At one point before the war it held the record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic for a ship its size. It could transport a
full division, 15,000 soldiers, from the US to Great Britain.

Queen Mary Serving as a Fast Troop Transport in WW II, Getting Ready to Run the U-Boat Gauntlet in the Atlantic

Its speed enabled it to successfully evade German U-Boats which could only travel about half as fast. It therefore did not
need to travel in slow-moving convoys. The Queen Mary and its sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, transported 1.5 million
US and Canadian soldiers to Great Britain for the Normandy invasion. Hitler desperately wanted to undermine the
prestige of these ships and Allied morale; he (unsuccessfully) offered, “…an enormous bounty—$250,000 and an
Iron Cross—to any U-boat commander or bomber pilot who could sink one of the Queens.” (Anton,
2011)

Speed was a great defensive asset in transiting the Atlantic. The graph below shows how merchant ships that could outrun
a U-Boat (~7 knots submerged, ~17 knots surfaced) had a dramatically improved chance of survival: (Clark, 2015)
However, the ubiquitous Allied Liberty supply ship (~2700 were manufactured in the US during WW II) was rated at only
11 knots which made it vulnerable to a surfaced U-Boat traveling at 17 knots. In the terrible calculus of war, when a

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merchant ship was struck by a U-Boat, the rest of the convoy had orders to continue sailing; a trailing ship would try to
rescue any survivors.

Wolfpacks
Admiral Doenitz realized that sighting an Allied convoy was a great opportunity for his U-Boats. To take full advantage, a
U-Boat would radio this sighting to headquarters which would vector several other U-Boats in the area to the vicinity over
the course of the next several hours This patient assembly would be rewarded when the U-Boats would launch a
simultaneous, coordinated attack that would seek to overwhelm the escort ships. A favorite tactic would be for the
U-Boats to audaciously sneak inside the perimeter of the convoy at night under the cover of darkness. There they would
be invisible to both Allied radar and sonar, since they were then surrounded by many massive, noisy merchant ships. They
would approach stealthily on the surface in order to have enough speed to get into position. As soon the U-Boat fired its
torpedoes or deck gun to sink a ship, it would submerge and escape. The convoy escorts would typically search for the
submerged U-Boat outside the convoy perimeter in a fruitless search – It would be difficult for sonar to locate the U-Boat
amongst the noisy merchant ships of the convoy.

WATU Wargaming Unit

In early 1942 the British set up a naval wargaming unit, WATU (Western Approaches Tactical Unit), consisting mainly of
very bright, college-aged, young women with a strong aptitude for math (but generally no naval experience). They
analyzed the details of every attack on convoys and noticed that ships in the interior of the convoy were frequently being
targeted. This team deduced that the U-Boats must be infiltrating the convoy perimeter from the rear and would also be
escaping to the rear of the convoy. They then developed an effective set of countermeasures. Convoy lookouts were told
to be watchful for U-Boats slipping into the convoy from the rear, on the surface, at night. (Typically, lookouts had not
focused their attention to the rear of their ships.) Additionally, British destroyer escorts implemented a new triangular
search pattern using sonar at the rear of the convoy after an interior convoy ship was sunk to locate the attacking U-Boat

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(see the figure below). (Strong, 2017, pp. 9-10) After this initial success, WATU was eagerly used by naval commanders
to analyze convoy battles as they were unfolding to understand what new tactics and technology the U-Boats were using.
For example, after receiving a report that U-Boats failed to attack a stationary destroyer, WATU was able to deduce that
the Germans were now using a new acoustic torpedo that homed in on the sound of a ship’s propeller. (Strong, 2017, p.
20) A decoy countermeasure, Foxer, was then developed by the Allies that could be towed behind a ship to divert the
acoustic torpedo.

Sonar (ASDIC)
WW II saw the rapid development of sonar by the Allies and the Germans, both active (sending out an audible ping and
measuring the return echo) and passive (listening for enemy vessels without revealing one’s location). U-Boats could use
their passive sonar to detect noisy convoys at up to 100 km. Active sonar was useful at short-range but U-Boats seldom
used it for fear of revealing their position. Destroyers, on-the-other-hand, would aggressively use active sonar to locate a
U-Boat that had just submerged.

Once located, the destroyer would attack with depth charges. However, depth charges were notoriously ineffective at
destroying U-Boats (though they would cause them to run away which could allow the convoy to proceed unhindered).
Only 26 U-Boats were destroyed with depth charges during the entire war. (Miller, 2000) Depth charges had to be
launched from the rear of a ship (to avoid it exploding underneath the destroyer) which meant that the ship’s forward-
looking sonar was no longer effective at locating the U-Boat at the moment of launching. Also, depth charges required
guess work to set the detonation depth – They had to explode within ~15 feet of a U-Boat to sink it. The Allies developed
forward-launched mortars called the Hedge Hog and the Squid to overcome these issues. These weapons could now be
launched while sonar contact was maintained. The Allies coupled the Squid underwater mortar with the Type 147 ASDIC
sonar to automatically set the depth at which these underwater projectiles would explode. The Squid became the most

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lethal weapon for attacking submerged U-Boats with a ~40% success rate versus depth charges (~4-7%) and Hedge Hog
underwater mortars (~8-25%). (Hartcup, 2000, pp. 74-75)

Initially U-Boats used evasive tactics that took advantage of the fact that ASDIC sonar would lose contact when the
destroyer closed to ~300 yards of the U-Boat. The U-Boat would then execute a sharp turn, dive deep (700+ feet), and try
to hide underneath an underwater thermal that would disrupt the sonar signals. The Germans also found another
potentially effective solution, coating the U-Boat hull with a rubber coating to dampen interior noise and to interfere with
sonar reflections. While effective, the Germans were not able to find a suitable adhesive for the rubber by war’s end.
(Hartcup, 2000, p. 68) Ultimately, the Germans needed a faster, quieter U-Boat that could stay submerged during an
attack to conceal its position. These requirements were fed into the development of the Type XXI stealth U-Boat
described below. At night, U-Boats were safer on the surface because they could not be detected by sonar (and this
enabled them to recharge their batteries by running their diesel engines). However, the invention of portable Allied radar
devices soon changed this situation.

Anti-Submarine Warfare Aircraft

The Allies used very long-range aircraft (VLR) to escort convoys and search for U-Boats that would be based around the
Atlantic in northeast Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the western British Isles, and eventually the islands of the Azores in the
mid-Atlantic. Success in miniaturizing radar sets allowed them to install radar on these planes which could effectively
spot a surfaced U-Boat. The planes would alert destroyer escorts and then swoop in to attack with depth charges, strafing
runs, and acoustic-homing torpedoes. U-Boats were no longer safe on the surface, especially in daytime. U-Boats resorted
to surfacing at night to recharge their batteries, since even if picked up on aircraft radar they would generally have time to
dive before being located in the darkness.

British VLR Aircraft Escorting a Convoy Across the Atlantic

However, the Allies developed powerful search lights, Leigh

Lights, that were mounted under the wings of the VLR. These
lights were connected to the radar unit. Now the plane could
close on a surfaced U-Boat at night that had been picked up by
radar and wait until the last second in its bomb run to switch on
the powerful Leigh Lights – The radar would immediately have
the lights pointing directly at the surfaced U-Boat which could
be attacked before it could dive. Radar was also installed on
destroyer escorts to allow them to detect surfaced U-Boats as
well.

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In the game of measure/countermeasure, the Germans developed a radar warning receiver, Metox, that could detect the
Allied radar and give them time to dive. In the spring of 1943, the Allies countered by developing a new, shorter
wavelength S-band radar that Metox could not detect. Later that year, the Germans developed an S-band radar detector.
The Allies then developed an even shorter wavelength X-band radar that was starting to be deployed by the beginning of
1944. And once again, several months later the Germans had developed an X-band detector. Out of desperation, in
mid-1943 the Germans even developed APHRODITE, a decoy balloon with the radar signature of a U-Boat.

Once Allied ship production was in full swing, they were able to deploy dedicated Hunter/Killer Carrier Groups whose
sole mission was to sink U-Boats in the middle of the Atlantic. Shore-based VLR aircraft could now be supplemented
with carrier-based ASW (anti-submarine warfare) planes that were able to provide continuous air cover for convoys
transiting the North Atlantic.

It was now no longer safe for a U-Boat to loiter on the surface. The Germans started to retrofit their U-Boats with a
snorkel, an air tube that allowed them to sail continuously at periscope depth so they could run their diesel engines and
receive fresh air. (However, early snorkels had operational problems that could make their use painful for the crew.) By
staying submerged even at a shallow depth, the U-Boat was hidden from radar, almost… The short wavelength radars
developed by the Allies late in the war had the ability to detect a snorkel, though with difficulty (e.g. ocean waves
interfered). The Allies also experimented with sonar buoys for this purpose. (Thorndike, 1946, pp. 158-160) And as the
countermeasure game continued, the Germans developed radar absorbing stealth coatings for their U-Boat snorkels and
began deploying these coatings in late 1944/1945. (Thorndike, 1946, pp. 158-160)

Radio Interception
The Achilles heel for the U-Boats turned out to be Admiral Doenitz’s insistence on daily radio contact with his U-Boat
fleet to coordinate wolfpacks, re-supply, and receive weather reports. The Allies were able to exploit these high-power
transmissions in two ways: Direction Finding (DF) and Enigma Decryption.

The Allies made aggressive use of HF DF (High frequency Direction Finding) technology to locate U-Boats during their
radio transmissions. They had listening stations located around the perimeter of the North Atlantic – They would listen to
every U-Boat transmission and immediately have all stations that detected the transmissions call in their findings to a
central office. This office would quickly triangulate the U-Boat’s location and either dispatch the nearest destroyers or
warn a convoy to change direction to avoid waiting U-Boats. In the spring of 1941 HF DF detectors were installed on
destroyer escorts so they could directly locate transmitting U-Boats.

The Germans countered HF DF detectors by using high-speed transmissions that they thought were too fast to be detected.
However, a Polish engineer working with the Allies had come up with a solution: Instead of having the HF DF operators

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listen for the signals, he would display them on a CRT video display which could detect even a short burst of
transmissions. (Hartcup, 2000, pp. 48-49)

In addition to HF DF interception, the Allies famously figured out how to decrypt German Enigma radio traffic. What is
perhaps less commonly known is that Germans had also succeeded in deciphering the British Naval code. A
cat-and-mouse game ensued in which the Germans would intercept British traffic detailing the route of a convoy. When
Admiral Doenitz would broadcast this information to a forming U-Boat wolfpack, the British would intercept these
Enigma messages and re-route the convoy away from the waiting U-Boats. Ironically, in the latter half of 1943 the British
decrypted an Enigma message that finally tipped them off to the fact that the Germans had broken their Naval Code.

In May 1941, the British captured a U-Boat and retrieved its Enigma Machine and importantly the associated code books
– This information allowed them to decipher Enigma. Eventually Doenitz became suspicious after an Allied ambush of
three assembled U-Boats in late 1941. In early 1942 he demanded a higher level of Enigma encryption (a fourth encoding
wheel). The Allies invented the first programmable computer, Colossus, to help them decrypt the upgraded Enigma in
March 1943. They got a lucky break when a U-Boat accidentally sent a message in 3-wheel mode (which the Allies
already knew how to decipher) and then immediately re-transmitted the same message in 4-wheel mode. Since the Allies
already knew the exact contents of this message from the 3-wheel transmission, the second transmission could serve as a
“Rosetta Stone” for deciphering the 4-wheel Enigma code. They were again fortunate with another retrieval of an Enigma
code book from a captured U-Boat, U-559. Two brave British sailors died in this successful recovery effort when the
damaged U-Boat sank suddenly.

Type XXI U-Boat - Next-Gen Stealth Submarine

The ultimate German countermeasure was the Type XXI U-Boat – It was a radical departure from the traditional Type VII
and Type IX models and could be considered a next-generation “stealth” submarine. It represented the culmination of
German experience in submarine warfare from a variety of perspectives. Rather than being a submersible boat like its
predecessors were, the Type XXI was designed to be a true submarine that was designed to “live underwater” without
requiring frequent surfacing. Its advanced design included: a streamlined hull for quiet running (i.e., significantly lower
passive sonar signature), greater underwater endurance (i.e., 72 vs. 45 hours at 5 knots), much faster underwater
performance (i.e., 16 vs 7 knots). In fact, its maximum submerged speed exceeded many Allied merchant vessels.

Greater depth allowed the Type XXI to better escape depth charge attacks. The ability to operate deeper gave the Type
XXI more time to evade a depth charge attack. Increased underwater endurance and increased submerged speed plus silent
“creep motors” allowed the Type XXI to better evade attacking enemy forces.

A snorkel was included in the design to eliminate the need for frequent surfacing and thus detection by radar or visual
sighting. And using the snorkel would allow the Type XXI to cruise near its top speed without draining its batteries.

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The streamlined design eliminated protruding objects including deck guns and railings. Extendable structures were
integrated into the design so they could be fully retracted: the snorkel, DF loop aerial, and radar antenna. The external
radar detection gear was integrated into the top of the snorkel to minimize protrusions. The snorkel itself was coated with
a “stealth” radar absorbing material. (The Operations Evaluation Group - A History of Naval Operations Analysis, 1984)
The Type XXI’s magnetic signature was minimized in order to evade magnetic mines.

It carried a large complement of 23 torpedoes that could be quickly fired in three six torpedo salvoes within just 20
minutes. Fast torpedo reloading was accomplished with a new electric reloading system. Acoustic torpedoes would allow
submerged attacks without revealing the U-Boat’s position with a protruding periscope.

The Germans came close to deploying 100+ Type XXI U-Boats. However, as the war ended only two had been deployed
on combat patrol due to heavy Allied bombing. (Miller, 2000, pp. 66-69) If the Germans had succeeded in a large scale
deployment, the Allies would have had to initiate another round of serious countermeasures to deal with this stealth
submarine that could hide from both radar (by staying continually submerged) and sonar (by running deep at a slow speed
for days to evade convoy escorts). 1

Hitler (and Doenitz) regarded the Type XXI as strategically critical to reversing Germany’s fortunes as the war neared an
end. Hitler insisted on continuing the Northern Offensive in Russia even when it was militarily hopeless because he
determined that Germany needed that area of the Baltic Sea for sea trials of the new Type XXI U-Boats being readied for
deployment. (Sheffield, 2011)

1
The Germans even considered the possibility of nuclear-powered submarines. When Albert Speer realized that the atomic bomb
would not be developed in a timely manner in the autumn of 1942, he authorized the development of an ‘energy-producing uranium
motor for propelling machinery’ which interested the navy for its submarines. (Cornwell, 2003, p. 318)

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Conclusion
The tables below summarize the savage see-saw technology battle that was waged between the Germans and the Allies
during the Battle of the Atlantic. The dramatic turning point occurred in May 1943 when a confluence of factors came
together allowing the Allies to switch roles from Hunted to Hunter and start killing U-Boats at an unprecedented rate. The
Allies were able to maintain their advantage (superior
technology, industrial production, tactics) until the end
of the war in May 1945 as merchant ship losses
plummeted and U-Boat sinkings spiked. However, the
Germans came dangerously close to regaining the
advantage had they been able to field their next-gen
Type XXI U-Boat before the war’s end. Even if the
Germans had managed to prolong the war with the
Type XXI it would have ultimately been ephemeral –
If Germany had still been fighting and posed a threat
in August 1945 her cities would likely have been
targeted with the atomic bomb. (Wellerstein, 2013)

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 Virtual Attrition
The main goal of the Allies was to break the U-Boat blockade so that weapons, supplies, and troops could get through to
Great Britain. Killing U-Boats was incidental to this goal. Getting a convoy through by avoiding U-Boats was a success.
Getting a convoy through by driving off marauding U-Boats with destroyer escorts and VLR aircraft was a success. Of
course, sinking U-Boats was a success that diminished the number of U-Boats available to challenge future convoys.
However, sinking a U-Boat could have an additional benefit: it could also reduce the efficiency of the remaining U-Boats.

Sinking U-Boats frequently brought about a change in U-Boat tactics that made them more cautious in their approach and
required more time-consuming maneuvering. This concern with evading Allied detection took away from time spent
actually attacking merchant shipping, amounting to “virtual attrition” of the U-Boat force i.e. “it is often more cost-
effective to force an adversary to delay operations, decrease operational tempo, or dedicate significant resources to
defense than to attempt to destroy a large fraction of an opposing force.” (Clark, 2015, p. 3) For example, needing to
spend more time submerged (to avoid radar detection) meant that U-Boats could only travel at a fraction of their
maximum surface speed. And slower speeds necessarily meant fewer attacks on merchant shipping.

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But who won this war of “virtual attrition”? With the grievous loss of merchant shipping during the early stages of the
Battle of the Atlantic, the Germans had created an existential threat to Great Britain. Admiral Doenitz and his U-Boat fleet
therefore succeeded in forcing the Allies to devote a vast amount of resources to the defense of merchant shipping in
exchange for a relatively modest investment in the German U-Boat fleet. Estimates include 800,000 Allied sailors and
airmen assigned to duty in the Battle of the Atlantic versus 39,000 U-Boat submariners. And for every U-Boat, the Allies
were forced to deploy 30+ warships for anti-submarine warfare. (Gordon, 1981, p. 136)

Admiral Doenitz played his U-Boat force like a master chess player, able to match his opponent move-for-move in the
technology race described above. Even when he found his U-Boat force out-matched by the wave of Allied
countermeasures beginning in May 1943, he continued to desperately adapt in order to continue tying down Allied forces,
thereby preventing these resources from being able to be used to directly attack Germany. This impact on the Allies was
acknowledged by the US Navy in a post-mortem analysis of the Battle of the Atlantic in 1946: “…the Allies were forced
to maintain a large and costly antisubmarine effort which diverted their attention from other phases of the war. In these
terms the U-boat war was a profitable one for the enemy, even though the U-boats were ultimately defeated.” (Thorndike,
1946, p. 80) The greatly superior industrial and population base of the US allowed it to endure this cost.

However, Admiral Doenitz had one more strategic move left to play: The Type XXI stealth submarine. This next-
generation U-Boat incorporated every lesson the Germans had learned about how to overcome Allied anti-submarine
warfare tactics. Despite desperate German efforts to deploy this U-Boat in force late in the war, the “clock ran out” in
May 1945. After the war, the US Navy acknowledged their narrow escape: “Their only chance for regaining the upper
hand was the new high submerged speed U-boat, Type XXI, but due to production difficulties and the general German
collapse none of them made an operational patrol against the Allies.” (Thorndike, 1946, p. 82)

Legacy of the Type XXI U-Boat

Type XXI U-Boats were captured by the Allied countries at the end of the war and valued for their advanced design
elements – The design was copied by the US, Soviet Union, British, and others – It became the de-facto standard for
submarine design in the Cold War era. Ultimately the US (and Great Britain) did have to confront the Type XXI: the
USSR variant of the Type XXI when the Cold War started. In the end, Hitler's most advanced U-Boat technology
therefore fell into the hands of his enemies, including the hated Russians.

The final irony has occurred in current times; Hitler's Holocaust galvanized international opinion in support of the
establishment of a Jewish state in Israel after the war. Over the last few decades Israel has purchased several advanced
diesel-electric submarines from Germany for the Israeli Navy to carry nuclear weapons. (Sieff, 1998) Hitler was
determined that Germany annihilate the Jews, even at the cost of losing WW II (Spielvogel, 2020, p. 357) – Instead
modern-day Germany has supplied the Jewish state with the ultimate means to protect itself, based in part on the

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technology developed by Hitler's U-Boat force (e.g. AIP - air independent propulsion). (Germany Submarine
Capabilities, 2019) (Miller, 2000, pp. 73, 78)

Admiral Doenitz – Leader of the U-Boat Fleet

Admiral Doenitz was a brilliant, devoted leader, first of the U-Boat fleet and later promoted by Hitler to head the entire
German Navy. He was an inspiration to his men. All submariners in the U-Boat force were volunteers and were lionized
by Nazi propaganda. They were elite, highly motivated sailors. In the end, 75% of them died in their U-Boats, the highest
death rate of any German military branch.

Doenitz skillfully maneuvered his numerically inferior U-Boat fleet into a menace that required the Allies to devote
enormous resources to fight. He kept the threat viable by continually deploying advanced technologies, including
successful development of wolfpack tactics, radar detection, sonar countermeasures, stealth U-Boat designs, and acoustic
torpedoes.

He was devoted to Hitler and rushed to support him after the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944. (Karl Doenitz, n.d.):

“What would have become of our country today if the Fuehrer had not united us under National-Socialism? Split into
parties, beset with the spreading poison of Jewry and vulnerable to it, and lacking, as a defense, our present
uncompromising world outlook…” (Spike Media, 2020)

Hitler admired Doenitz so much that he designated him as his successor, which happened in the final week of the war
after Hitler shot himself. As a committed follower of Hitler, elite officer, and anti-Semite, Admiral Doenitz dedicated
himself to the Nazi regime waging a war of annihilation against civilians. He served ten years in prison for war crimes
after WW II. But his real punishment was perhaps the loss of his two sons who both volunteered to fight in the Battle of
the Atlantic: one in a U-Boat sinking and the other in a patrol boat sinking. They were no doubt inspired to serve by their
father’s devotion to this most evil cause…

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Appendix – Tribute
This section is dedicated to my family members who were directly impacted by WW II. Two served the US military
during the war: my father Joseph (Joe) Stendig and my mother’s brother, Leonard (Lenny) Miller. Both were eager to
enlist to join the fighting. My mother-in-law, Ida Neumann, miraculously survived a year in German concentration camps.

Lenny Miller asked his father for special permission to enlist at age 17; his mother, Minnie, refused to sign the form for
fear of losing her son. Lenny was a medic serving with Patton’s 3rd Army. He might very well have been one of the
soldiers transported to Great Britain by the Queen Mary. He was killed in September 1944 when his unit assaulted the
German stronghold of Metz in Eastern France. I was named after him.

Joe Stendig turned 18 on Aug. 2, 1945. He applied to enlist with either the Navy or the Merchant Marine (which was
considered military duty then) – He was determined to go with whichever branch accepted him first. He thus joined the
Merchant Marine and served as a Petty Officer on an oil tanker. His deployment came just after the war ended.

Ida Hartmann spent the last year of the war in the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp for the crime of being Jewish. Ida
witnessed Dr. Mengele send her younger sister, Helen, to the gas chambers when she became ill. She was liberated from
Auschwitz at the end of the war by the Russian army. She eventually moved to Israel to raise her family in the Jewish
state.

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 In Tribute to Leonard Miller

Leonard Miller was a medic in

Patton’s Third Army, he died
fighting the Germans at Metz,
France – September 1944
I am named after him (Leonard
Miller Stendig).

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 In Tribute to Joseph Stendig - Merchant Seamen Survival Training If Hit by U-Boat

Petty Officer Joe Stendig

Enlisted for Oil Tanker Duty – 1945
Allied Oil Tankers Were a Big Prize for U-Boats Father of the author, Leonard Miller Stendig

Page 18 © 2020 Lenny Stendig

 In Tribute to Ida Hartmann Neumann – Survivor of Auschwitz

Ida Hartmann married another Holocaust survivor, Paul Neumann, and lived in communist Cluj, Romania until 1964
when she was able to immigrate to Israel with her two children. She is pictured above in Israel with her two children,
Mihaly and Judith. Ida was my mother-in-law.

Page 19 © 2020 Lenny Stendig

References
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Clark, J. S. (2015). What It Takes to Win: SucceedingiIn 21st Century Battle Network Competitions. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency–Strategic Technology Office (DARPA-STO). Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Cornwell, J. (2003). Hitler's Scientists. New York: Penguin Group.
Dangerous Missions: U-Boats - Full Episode (S1, E0) | The History Channel. (2020, May 14). Retrieved from YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDHMnOlqSvU&t=1652s
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and Industry: https://www.msichicago.org/explore/whats-here/exhibits/u-505-submarine/educators/
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20a%20fight%20for%20Britain's,him%20during%20World%20War%20Two.
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The Operations Evaluation Group - A History of Naval Operations Analysis. (1984). Annapolis, Maryland: US Naval Institute.

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Thorndike, C. S. (1946). OEG Report No. 51 - Antisubmarine Warfare in World War II. Washington DC: Operations Evaluation
Group - Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Retrieved from https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/ASW-
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Wellerstein, A. (2013, October 4). Would the atomic bomb have been used against Germany? Retrieved from The Nuclear Secrecy
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Page 21 © 2020 Lenny Stendig