Abstract
The outbreak of war in 1939 was looked upon by many at the time as a logical continuation, and culmination, of the earlier ‘German’ war. Not surprisingly then the initial operations and strategy of the Allies harkened back to the First World War. Much as had been the case in 1914, the Royal and French Navies blockaded Germany, swept her trade from the seas, kept a wary eye on the Italians, safeguarded the movement of men and material to the Western Front and checked the Germans’ campaign against Allied shipping. Outside Europe, it is true, the strategic situation was different. It was the Japanese who complicated planning in 1939, and it was their hostility which represented such a marked difference from the situation in 1914–18. Japan was now openly hostile and expansionist, although for the time being she was preoccupied with a debilitating and costly war in China and her sea power was held in check by the Americans. Britain was committed to a strategy of containment and continental war alongside the French, trusting in the Italians to remain neutral and hoping that the Japanese could be put off or appeased. Otherwise, in the European scene the naval strategy and pattern of operations in 1939 were a logical continuation of 1918.1
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Notes
S.W. Roskill, The Strategy of Sea Power: Its Development and Application (London, 1962) p. 150, and
P. M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 1976) p. 300.
For the definitive account of the development of Asdic see Willem Hackmann’s recent Seek & Strike: Sonar, Antisubmarine Warfare and Royal Navy 1914–54 (London, 1984).
See Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon and F. E. McMurtrie, Modern Naval Strategy (London, 1940) pp. 148–9 which asumes that submarines were limited to attacking from submerged positions
and S. W. Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars, volume II (London, 1977) p. 393.
as quoted in D. M. Schurman, The Education of a Navy: The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867–1914 (London, 1965) p. 165.
A. J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, volume 5 (London, 1970) pp. 141–2.
For the most recent work on the state of Coastal Command in the early years of the Second World War, see W. A. B. Douglas, The Creation of a National Air Force: The Official History of Royal Canadian Air Force, volume II (Toronto, 1986) pp. 468–72.
G. Till, Air Power and the Royal Navy 1914–1945 (London, 1979) pp. 75–7 and pp. 88–9.
There are several standard sources on US carrier development both before and during the war, including Clark Reynolds, The Fast Carriers: The Forging of an Air Navy (New York, 1969)
and James H. and William H. Belote, Titans of the Seas: The Development and Operations of American Carriers Task Forces During World War II (New York, 1975).
Norman Friedman’s Carrier Airpower (NewYork, 1981) does an excellent job of blending technological change, doctrinal development and national peculiarities for the inter-war years.
S. E. Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, volume I (Boston, 1954) pp. 241–2, and Douglas, The Creation of a National Air Force, p. 516 and p. 546.
R. G. Albion, in Rowena Reid (ed.), Makers of Naval Policy (Annapolis, 1980) p. 550.
J. R. M. Butler (ed.), Grand Strategy, volume II, September 1939–June 1941 (London, 1957).
R. H. Spector, The Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York, 1985), pp. 66–7, and Albion, Matters of Naval Policy, p. 552.
Thomas B. Buell, Master of Sea Power: A Biography of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King (Boston, 1980) p. 137.
See D. F. Bittner’s excellent The Lion and the White Falcon: Britain and Iceland in the World War II Era (Hamden, CT, 1983) especially ch1apter 5.
J. R. M. Butler, Grand Strategy, III, pt II, chapter 5, and Patrick Abbazia Mr. Roosevelt’s Navy (Annapolis, 1975) pp. 217–22.
See C. P. Stacey, Arms, Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada 1939–1945 (Ottawa, 1970) Part VI, Military Cooperation with the United States, and
Col. S. W. Dziuban, Military Relations Between the United States and Canada, 1939–1945 (Washington, DC, 1959) pp. 27–9.
See S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea (London, 1954–61).
Churchill’s pernicious influence on naval affairs is well recognised; see S. W. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals (London, 1977), pp. 116–47, and
P. Gretton, Former Naval Person: Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy (London, 1968) pp. 282–3.
The Canadian naval side is explored in depth in M. Milner, North Atlantic Run: The Royal Canadian Navy and the Battle for the Conveys (Toronto, 1985) chapter 3, while the air side and a more thorough examination of German operations can be found in Douglas, The Creation of a National Air Force, chapter 12.
The struggle for independence — from both the British and the Americans — and the battle to establish a firm position for the Navy in the Canadian defence firmament are recurrment themes in Canadian historiography. See the seminal chapter by W. A. B. Douglas, ‘Conflict and Innovation in the Royal Canadian Navy, 1939–1945’, in G. Jordan (ed.), Naval Strategy in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1977) and
W. Lund’s ‘The Royal Canadian Navy’s Quest for Autonomy in the North West Atlantic’, in J. A. Boutilier (ed.), The RCN in Retrospect 1910–1968 (Vancouver, 1982).
For an excellent summary of strategic dilemmas see Maurice Matloff’s ‘Allied Strategy in Europe, 1939–1945’, in P. Paret (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, 1986) pp. 677–702.
C. B. A. Behrens, Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War (London, 1955) pp. 284 and 290, and Appendix XXVII, p. 292.
Ibid., chapter 14 and R. M. Leighton, ‘U.S. Merchant Shipping and the British Import Crisis’, in K. R. Greenfield (ed.) Command Decisions (Washington, DC, 1960) pp. 199–223.
See W. G. F. Jackson, Overlord: Normandy 1944 (London, 1978).
for the Australian perspective see D. M. Horner’s High Command: Australia and Allied Strategy 1939–1945 (Canberra, 1982).
and Morison’s, The Two Ocean Navy (New York, 1963) pp. 15–20.
For details of the new warships see Paul H. Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War II (Garden City, NY, 1965).
See D. Brown, Carrier Operations in World War II, volume I, The Royal Navy (London, 1973) pp. 104–5
For a thorough discussion of the air capabilities of major Powers in the Second World War see R. J. Overy’s The Air War 1939–1945 (New York, 1980).
L. Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing (New York, 1982) chapter 10.
See also Clay Blair Jr’s Silent Victory; The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (New York, 1975).
S. E. Ambrose, ‘Seapower in World Wars I and if’, in B. M. Simpson (ed.), War, Strategy and Maritime Power (New Brunswick, NJ, 1977).
The potential importance of carriers to the Arctic convoys was a particular issue with the late Admiral B. B. Schofield, RN; see his British Sea Power (London, 1967) p. 197.
See Richard Humble’s Fraser of North Cape: The Life of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fraser (1888–1981) (London, 1983) chapters 20–3 which covers his period in command of the British Pacific Fleet.
Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond, Statesmen and Sea Power (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946); see especially his chapter IX, and
Barry Hunt’s biography of Richmond, Sailor-Scholar: Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond (1871–1946), (Waterloo, 1982).
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© 1989 John B. Hattendorf and Robert S. Jordan
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Milner, M. (1989). Anglo-American Naval Co-operation in the Second World War, 1939–45. In: Hattendorf, J.B., Jordan, R.S. (eds) Maritime Strategy and the Balance of Power. St Antony's. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09392-2_12
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