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It would be difficult to overemphasize the significance of the tiny British fortress of Gibraltar to the Allies in WWII. It was the look-out post by which sea traffic entering and exiting the Mediterranean could be monitored. Despite the difficulty, 62 U-boats were known to have attempted to enter the Mediterranean, some were successful, others were not so lucky.
The difficult passage of five hours was accomplished by "riding" the tidal currents. It was a tricky maneuver. Nine U-boats were detected and destroyed outright and several were badly damaged. Not surprisingly, entry into the Meditterranean was called the "mousetrap."
The story is told of a Russian submarine in the 1980s that, while testing its stealth tactics, tried to enter the strait unobserved by tail-gating under the hull of a large merchant vessel. Unknown to the Russian sub commander, upsurges of water pressure occur in the strait, one of which forced the nose of the Russian submarine up into the underside of the merchant ship's hull, causing much damage to the sub and the Russian commander's ego.
While that's cool, some feats of stealth are even more impressive. For example, during WWI, British subs sneaked into the Baltic Sea via a strait only half the width of the Strait of Gibraltar. The real gem, however, is when (different) British subs made their way up the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara.
On the other (less successful) hand of the spectrum is the Japanese attempt at using midget submarines during the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
On the other (less successful) hand of the spectrum is the Japanese attempt at using midget submarines during the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
There has been some recent speculation that one did penetrate deep into the harbor. In fact, one theory mentioned is that this sub fired a torpedo that hit the Arizona, and that it was this that actually sank the battleship, and not a Japanese bomb. The sub was said to have been sunk later. Would think that a torpedo hit would be easy to confirm or deny with an underwater hull exam, which certainly has been done on the Arizona.
Last edited by BlackShoe; 02-19-2011 at 08:49 AM..
The difficult passage of five hours was accomplished by "riding" the tidal currents.
Surface flow through the straight of Gibraltar is almost continuously eastward regardless of tide; a smaller westward flow of more saline water occurs at sill depth. This is due to the evaporation rate within the Mediterranean basin being higher than the combined inflow of all the rivers that empty into it. Consequently there is a large inflow at Gibraltar to replace the water in the Mediterranean lost to evaporation. The high evaporation rate of the Mediterranean also causes its salinity to be higher (≈38 º/ºº) than the incoming water from the Atlantic (≈35 º/ºº). This "tongue" of higher salinity water from the Mediterranean can be traced at sill depth (≈300 m) extending and spreading for many miles out into the Atlantic.
In the days of sail, it was very difficult for ships in the Mediterranean to tack through the straight and into the Atlantic because of the strong eastward flow. The ships often had to wait several days for favorable wind conditions. That is why the conquest of Gibraltar by the English in 1704 was such an important factor in subsequent European wars.
If I recall, the movie Das Boot has a scene in it where the sub. sucessfully makes this journey. It is worth seeing.
Sorry, not trying to be a snotty...but the submarine in Das Boot tries to make the journey but has to return to occupied France due to damage sustained in the crossing.
Just wondering, did the Germans ever consider building Uboats in Italian shipyards?
First off, one needs to look at the state of the U-boat fleet at the start of the war. Germany faced a serious deficit when it came to submarines and found itself far short of the two hundred U-boats which were believed necessary to wage an effective campaign against British shipping. The Kriegsmarine had hoped to construct, at a mininum, a dozen U-boats per month, but in the first ten months of the war could do no better than building three per month. By the last half of 1940, the number of builds per month had only increased to six. In October 1940, the total number of operable U-boats the Kriegsmarine possessed stood at thirty, and by December 1941, they had eighty-six. It wasn’t until August of 1942 that Germany finally reached the goal of having a fleet of over two hundred U-boats.
By contrast, when Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940, the Regia Marina had one of the largest submarine fleets in the world, with one hundred fifteen of these vessels ready for action. Though bigger and slower than their German counterparts, Italian submarines were at least comparable in terms of modernity and design to those of other world powers. This is why Germany turned to the Italians for assistance in trying to close the U-boat “numbers gap”. At the Kriegsmarine’s request, the Regia Marina agreed to transfer some of their submarines to the Atlantic with the understanding they would be under German operational command. In the first year of Italy’s involvement in the war, twenty-six Italian subs slipped past Gibraltar and made their way to their new base at Bordeaux. These subs operated in many of the same areas of the Atlantic as the U-boats, including off the East Coast of the United States as well as in the Caribbean. Between August 1940 and July 1943, the Italians alone sunk nearly six hundred thousand tons of Allied shipping.
Consider next how the Mediterranean factored into Hitler’s war plans, or more correctly, how it didn’t. After the signing of the “Rome-Berlin Axis Agreement” in October 1936, followed by the “Pact of Steel” in May 1939, Hitler made it quite clear to Mussolini that the Mediterranean fell squarely within the sphere of influence of Fascist Italy. This attitude did not markedly change once Italy began to actively participate in the war. Hitler was focused on the East, and despite the urging of people like Admiral Raeder and Marshal Goering to develop a comprehensive Mediterranean strategy, Hitler’s approach to the region remained a piecemeal and reactive one.
The first wave of U-boats sent into the Mediterranean were part of an effort to interdict British and French shipping passing through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Atlantic. The results were less than spectacular and led Admiral Doenitz to voice his strong opposition to taking any U-boats away from the Atlantic where he felt they were of greater value to the German war effort. After the fall of France, virtually all commercial shipping activity in the Mediterranean ceased, leaving warships and military convoys as the only available targets for Axis submarines. Though the loss of the battleship “HMS Barham”, and the carriers “HMS Ark Royal” and “HMS Eagle” to U-boat action can certainly be seen as great German successes, they did little to change the Axis military situation in the region for the better. Even after Italy withdrew from the war in September 1943, U-boats continued to be sent into the Med and operate out of German occupied Italian bases. Captured Italian subs were also pressed into service and the U-boat campaign in the Mediterranean did not end until Germany's surrender in May 1945. During the entire course of the war, of the sixty-two U-boats which were able to safely make the passage past Gibraltar, forty-eight were lost in action in the Mediterranean. And in spite of all the effort put forth by the German submariners, only ninety-five Allied merchant ships total were sent to the bottom of the sea, basically confirming Admiral Doenitz’s assessment of the Mediterranean as an undesirable theater of operation for U-boats.
So to sum up, the inadequacies of Italian war production, shortage of construction materials, and the size of the Italian submarine fleet already present in the Mediterranean, coupled with the general lack of significant shipping targets would have made the very notion of building U-boats in Italy not only impractical, but also a less than worthwhile endeavor.
Last edited by TonyT; 03-01-2011 at 03:20 AM..
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