Battle of the Atlantic
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II to defeat the Germans in 1945. The British Royal Navy repeated the blockade of Germany of World War II, and Germany repeated its attempt to blockade Britain by using U-boat s. The German Navy also tried to use surface warships in the Atlantic Ocean, but lost them in various battles.
Written for younger readers
Battle of the Atlantic, in simpler words
This version comes from Wikijunior, a set of books written for children aged 8 to 11. It is shorter and uses plainer language than the article above.
From Wikijunior: World War II
Britain is quite a small island and during the war it couldn’t produce all the food for its people or all the guns, tanks and other equipment it needed for its army. So, Britain needed to ship the things it needed from other countries. Once Germany had conquered France and much of the rest of western Europe, Britain relied heavily on the United States and other countries outside of Europe for supplies.
The Atlantic Ocean is the world’s second largest ocean and it separates Great Britain from North America. Thousands of ships would cross the Atlantic during the war bringing in vital war equipment and food.If Germany was to make Britain surrender, it needed to stop the ships. Ships also crossed the Atlantic to take supplies from the United States and Britain to the Soviet Union.
The Battle of the Atlantic is the name given to the war fought between ships, submarines and airplanes between 1939 and 1945 - the longest battle of the war. The battle was at its most fierce between the middle of 1940 and the end of 1943. After this, the allies better weapons and code breaking skills meant the Germans could no longer sink enough ships to win.
In the beginning it was Britain and Canada against the Germans. Then, from the middle of 1940 the Italians joined the German side. From September 1941 the United States joined the Allies, although they had given help before this date without officially being at war with Germany.
The allies lost 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships, with over 30,000 sailors killed. The Germans lost 783 submarines and over 28,000 sailors.
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Battle of the Atlantic” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact. The simpler version is adapted from Wikijunior on Wikibooks.
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