This week, Brian Walter, author of The Longest Campaign, shines the spotlight on not one individual, but the collective seamen and airman who served during WWII’s Atlantic Campaign.
Who do you think is history’s most unsung hero and why?
While history is replete with countless examples of men and women who performed laudable deeds, the unsung heroes I am highlighting are the common British, Canadian and Allied seamen and airmen who fought in World War II’s Atlantic campaign. While arguably less ostentatious than the concurrent conflicts underway in the Pacific and Mediterranean, the Atlantic campaign represented World War II’s premier maritime contest and an essential catalyst for the entire Allied war effort in Europe.
So high were the stakes and crucial the contributions made by Britain’s maritime services, that I consider the successful resolution of this conflict to be the finest hour in Britain’s long and momentous maritime heritage. While many great leaders participated in this success, it was the common seamen and airmen who dutifully endured the hardships and performed the day-to-day operations that brought about this victory. In doing so, they invariably performed long and tedious duty under often difficult and dangerous conditions, but never failed to meet the needs of the nation or the overall war effort.
What position/recognition/accolades do you think they deserved and why?
The six-year long Atlantic struggle was the most important campaign waged by the Western Allies during World War II. During this epic contest Britain’s maritime services, along with their Allied counterparts, fulfilled five primary roles: helping to dissuade invasion in the summer of 1940, sustaining vital seaborne lines of communication, facilitating a debilitating blockade against Germany, providing logistical support to the Soviet Union and satisfying the needs of the army in both Africa and Europe.
The successful execution of these roles laid the foundation for the entire Allied war effort and was absolutely essential to the ultimate Allied victory. There could not have been an Africa campaign, a Southern Europe campaign, a strategic bombing campaign, a Normandy campaign or a Northwest Europe campaign without prior and ongoing success in the maritime realm. In fact, it was only through this maritime success that the Western Alliance was even able to exist.
This is true for the simple reason that Britain would have fallen or at least been rendered impotent had it lost control of its vital sea-lanes. Thereafter, even if the United States still got involved in the European conflict (which is debateable), it would have been exceedingly difficult for the Americans to wage a conventional war against Germany without Britain as a partner. And then, they would still have to get their resources across the Atlantic, which again would require success in the maritime realm. So critical was the Atlantic campaign that it should be the starting point for any review of maritime combat during World War II and the war in Europe.
How do you think history would have been different if they had not been involved in WWII?
Without victory in the Atlantic, there would have been no Western Alliance, and the Soviet Union would have faced the full brunt of the European Axis alone. Whether the Soviets could have survived under these conditions is a matter of conjecture, but even if they could, this would have almost certainly increased the duration of the war and greatly added to the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used in Europe. Of course, this scenario would have also likely meant the Nazi occupation of Britain and the great trials and tribulations this would have brought to the British people.
Fortunately, this did not happen, and the Western Allies were able to make immense contributions to the defeat of Germany. It was the West that primarily destroyed German air power. It was the West that almost exclusively destroyed German naval power. It was the West that conducted the strategic bombing campaign that impeded German industrial output and forced the Germans to switch substantial resources to defensive applications. It was the West that strangled the German oil industry thus depriving German forces of vital fuel. It was the West that drove Italy out of the war. It was the west that forced Germany into a multi-front conflict. It was the West that provided substantial materiel support to the Soviet Union.
Finally, it was the West that conquered most of Germany and destroyed a sizable portion of the German army. None of these contributions would have been remotely possible without maritime victory in the Atlantic theatre. In turn, it was the common seamen and airmen, my unsung heroes, who were the ultimate architects of this victory. In all cases, they performed their jobs, and overwhelmingly, they performed their jobs well.
The Longest Campaign
By Brian Walter
The Longest Campaign is a complete, balanced and detailed account of the activities, results and relevance of Britain’s maritime effort in the Atlantic and off northwest Europe throughout World War II. It looks at the entire breadth of the maritime conflict, exploring the contributions of all participants including the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and British merchant marine and their Commonwealth equivalents. It puts the maritime conflict in the context of the overall war effort and shows how the various operations and campaigns were intertwined. Finally it provides unique analysis of the effectiveness of the British maritime effort and role it played in bringing about the final Allied victory.
9781612008561 | Hardback | Casemate | £25.00| April 2020
SPECIAL OFFER: £20.00
Available to order through Casemate UK
Author: Brian E. Walter is a retired army officer from a combat arms branch with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Political Science and International Relations. A Distinguished Military Graduate and recipient of the Excellence in Military History Award from the U.S. Army Center for Military History and the Association of the United States Army, he has been a student of the British military during the Second World War for more than 30 years. He currently resides in his home state of Minnesota in the United States where he continues to write on a number of military and historical subjects.
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