The Battle of The Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic was the most destructive, longest, and most complex naval battle of history, lasting throughout World War 2. It was a six year long battle that started on September 3rd, 1939 and ended on May 8th, 1945 and Canada played a very important role in this battle. This battle was a struggle between the Allied and the Axis, (with the Allied being countries including, Canada, Britain, Australia, etc, and the Axis being the alliance of Germany, Italy and Japan), for the control of the sea routes between America, Europe and Africa. This battle had been mainly triggered since Germany kept cutting off Britain’s supply. Britain had always relied on imports such as, oil, food, and other important industrial goods from other places to meet the needs of its growing population. Germany, (and later Italy), had saw this as an opportunity to use their naval forces and warships to try and cut off this vital supply to starve Britain. When the Germans started causing a lot of damage to these vital supply’s, Britain decided to act. They declared war on Germany, which meant that Canada would be pulled into the war. Although the Royal Canadian Navy wasn’t that powerful at the beginning of the war, by 1943 Canada’s Navy was making a very important contribution to the war effort, especially in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Germans did great damage, and they sunk many of the British merchant ships, (see appendix 1) and if this battle had not been declared, Britain would have been in a very bad situation. Britain was once the world’s largest ship-building nations, and they could easily replace the ships that were sunk but, soon they were not able to keep up with the damage that the German...

... middle of paper ...

...n May 8th, 1945, the Allied side had won. This battle had been a very violent won and there were deep losses for both sides. 24 The most important key to success of this Battle was the safe escort of 25 000 merchant ships under the escort of the Canadians. 25 These ships were so important because they carried over 165 million supplies for any country in the allied forces. Canada had been a bigger help to Britain than any other country in the Allied forces, 26 “By late 1942, the RCN supplied 48 percent of the escort warships in the North Atlantic and the United States navy a mere 2 percent ” (page 50, Harbon D. John). Without Canada’s contributions to this battle, it may not have been a successful one. In conclusion the Royal Canadian Navy and any other Canadian that participated in the war effort, had been very important contributions to the Battle of The Atlantic.