In World War I the convoy system was not instituted until May 1917, whilst in World War II convoys were quickly organised soon after war was declared in September 1939. The British had already experimented with local systems. Edwards, Bernard. Convoy System: 1940-1945 After the fall of France on 17 July 1940, only Britain and her Commonwealth allies were left to challenge the Axis (Germany and Italy). In the First World War, the development of the submarine ushered in a new era of naval warfare. The convoy system was merchant vessels (ships) that traveled in large groups and were guarded by circling destroyers and cruisers. The arrival of the first convoy carrying the soldiers and Marines of the American Expeditionary Force at Saint-Nazaire, France, on 26 June 1917 surprised the world and provided much-needed encouragement to the allies. Gradually however, the convoy system was adopted largely due to political will. This discussion appeared on WW1-L in November 1998 (with an addendum from MARHST-L, August 1999). As this photograph illustrates, it worked by providing escort vessels for individual ships. With the German occupation of Western Europe, Britain was completely dependent upon supplies and resources shipped from North America. Convoy system. Today, after two world wars and a century of witnessing military operations around the world, Americans might take this large troop movement for granted. The road to Russia: Arctic convoys 1942 (Leo Cooper Books, 2002) Forczyk, Robert. Convoys were to serve a totally different purpose during World War I—the protection of British merchant shipping against German surface raiders and submarines. It is of interest to compare the number of British Merchant ships sunk by U Boats in both conflicts. The convoy—a group of merchantmen or troopships travelling together with a naval escort—was revived during World War I (1914–18), after having been discarded at the start of the Age of Steam.Although convoys were used by the Royal Navy in 1914 to escort troopships from the … Photograph taken from aboard USS Rambler.. The earliest convoys in the First World War had been to provide escorts for troop ships but the first regular British convoy was from the Hook of Holland to Harwich, which ran from July 1916 with 1,861 sailings and only 7 losses before the end of the war. 2. It is an excellent summary of the factors behind the so-called delay in introducting convoys into British shipping, which finally occurred in 1918. Why was the convoy system necessary? Previously, the enemy employed surface ships to attack, but now they came from below the ocean surface. An transatlantic convoy approaching Brest on 1 November 1918. In response to the damage wrought on Allied shipping by the German campaign of 'unrestricted submarine warfare', the Royal Navy introduced a convoy system in June 1917. When losses began to rise alarmingly and several voices were raised in favour of introducing the traditional convoy system, the opposition arguments were: 1. Although the convoy system was not adopted in World War I until losses of British merchant ships became catastrophic in 1917, it then quickly proved effective. The debate on instituting the convoy system began within the Royal Navy just as the United States entered the war. Convoys would require vast numbers of escort vessels better employed in search-and-kill patrol operations. The allied convoy system, 1939-1945: its Organization, Defence and Operation (Naval Institute Press, 2000) Kaplan, Philip, and Jack Currie. Convoys with the delays entailed in collecting the vessels in port, in organizing merchantmen skippers and… World War II. RAF aerial photograph of a convoy of five ships, 16 August 1918. Fw 200 Condor Vs Atlantic Convoy, 1941-1943 (Osprey Publishing, 2010) Hague, Arnold. Extension of the convoy system proved to be slow, with the relatively ineffective patrol systems continuing at the same time.

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