Comments by "Ben Wilson" (@benwilson6145) on "How important was the Battle of the Atlantic? (U-boat bases, Norway, Britain, France, and more!)" video.

@EllieMaes-Grandad Yes, rationing makes it passable for the resource to be shared fairly, totally against the Tory where its how much money you have that counts.
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The British Merchant Navy in 1939 was over a third of the words tonnage. You just cannot expand the number of ships, you need shipbuilding, and Britain was expanding the Royal Navy using the resources. You also need the men, they were also being stolen by Royal Navy. Convoys are a loss of shipping, you lose ship tonnage while the convoys formed, they the sailed at the speed of the slowest ship, again a tonnage loss,. This is compounded by the fact the ships all arrive at the same time overwhelming the Ports. The use of ships to carry war supplies also reduces the tonnage available. All of this without a single ship being lost. The communist in the trade unions at shipbuilding, and ports slowed down the work until Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a de facto German ally.
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I do not have figures about the amounts but from some basic research of the Merchant Shipping Movement Cards I see two destinations shown . Southend and Methil. Neither of these are big ports, but it seems that they were waypoints for the Thames and East Coast Ports. A look at WW@ wreck locations show many hundred in the North Sea. Videos of the London Blitz showing raids on the docks show them full of ships. Another forgotten point is up to the end of the General Cargo ship era in the late 70's it was usual even in Ports like London for half the cargo to arrive and depart on barges. Britain had a large canal network. In the 30's and during WW2 a large number of Oil Pipelines were laid throughout Southern Scotland and England.
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