Anti-Submarine Warfare in World War I: British Naval Aviation and the Defeat of the U-Boats (Cass Series: Naval Policy and History) - Softcover

Abbatiello, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415512735 ISBN 13: 9780415512732

Publisher: Routledge, 2011

Synopsis

Investigating the employment of British aircraft against German submarines during the final years of the First World War, this new book places anti-submarine campaigns from the air in the wider history of the First World War. The Royal Naval Air Service invested heavily in aircraft of all types-aeroplanes, seaplanes, airships, and kite balloons-in order to counter the German U-boats. Under the Royal Air Force, the air campaign against U-boats continued uninterrupted. Aircraft bombed German U-boat bases in Flanders, conducted area and 'hunting' patrols around the coasts of Britain, and escorted merchant convoys to safety. Despite the fact that aircraft acting alone destroyed only one U-boat during the war, the overall contribution of naval aviation to foiling U-boat attacks was significant. Only five merchant vessels succumbed to submarine attack when convoyed by a combined air and surface escort during World War I. This book examines aircraft and weapons technology, aircrew training, and the aircraft production issues that shaped this campaign.Then, a close examination of anti-submarine operations-bombing, patrols, and escort-yields a significantly different judgment from existing interpretations of these operations. This study is the first to take an objective look at the writing and publication of the naval and air official histories as they told the story of naval aviation during the Great War. The author also examines the German view of aircraft effectiveness, through German actions, prisoner interrogations, official histories, and memoirs, to provide a comparative judgment. The conclusion closes with a brief narrative of post-war air anti-submarine developments and a summary of findings. Overall, the author concludes that despite the challenges of organization, training, and production the employment of aircraft against U-boats was largely successful during the Great War. This book will be of interest to historians of naval and air power history, as well as s

About this title

From the Author:

In this book I sought to examine the role of British aircraft in defeating Germany’s Unrestricted Submarine Campaign of 1917-1918. Aircraft made tremendous contributions to convoy protection, patrol schemes, and mine barrage enforcement. British bombers attacked German U-boat bases at varying levels of intensity throughout the war. There were, however, a number of associated issues that I thought required a closer look. How were naval aviators trained and organized? What was the impact of the establishment of the RAF on air anti-submarine warfare (ASW), since almost all Royal Naval Air Service units and personnel became part of the new independent air force in April 1918? Did aircraft production have an impact on operations? What kinds of technologies did the British develop for the air ASW mission? What did British post-war historians, official or otherwise, say about the effort and how did the Germans view the effectiveness of aircraft?

My focus is therefore different than most previous historians who have looked at this campaign. The existing literature – in both naval and aviation histories of WW1 – tend to over-generalize some of the major issues of the British efforts to use aircraft against U-boats in the Great War. Most previous historians have viewed this campaign as a sideshow in survey accounts of the war. Perhaps the more successful use of air ASW in the Second World War simply overshadowed the earlier campaign. In today’s military and political environment, where counterinsurgency operations and asymmetric warfare have gained a great deal of importance, a discussion of using new technology (aircraft) to counter new asymmetric threats (submarines) during WW1 might provide an especially valuable set of lessons learned.

-John Abbatiello-

About the Author:

Department of History, US Air Force Academy

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0415512735
• ISBN 13: 9780415512732
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256