World War-II’s ‘Banana’ lessons

The Second World War (WWII) led to huge advances in weaponry as well as the development of antibiotics, chemotherapy, radar, sonar, plastics, and other things. But one key battle was won by what we may call “jugaad” rather than technological superiority.

- DEVANGSHU DATTA

This was the long-running Battle of the Atlantic, which lasted from 1939-1945 —the entire length of WW-IL The equation was simple. Britain was deficient in food, oil, and other raw materials, and had to import from the United States. That meant convoys of merchant ships across the Atlantic. German submarines would attack these convoys.

German subs would find a convoy, stalk it, and gather “wolf-packs” consisting of many U-boats. Then the packs would launch concerted night attacks, surfacing to use torpedoes on merchantmen at close range and dive away to safety before escorting warships could counterattack.

This was effective. Tonnage losses exceeded replacement rates for many months. The Royal Navy (RN) tried increasing the number of escorts per convoy and running smaller convoys. But ships continued to be sunk in huge numbers. Also, smaller convoys meant less tonnage transported, and the RN simply didn’t have enough escorts to support them.

The RN finally evolved some effective tactics. Patrick Blackett was a former navy officer turned Cambridge don. He won the 1948 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on the transmutation of elements. But his suggestions relied on elementary mathematics, not nuclear physics.