Comments by "Nicholas Conder" (@nicholasconder4703) on "How important was the Battle of the Atlantic? (U-boat bases, Norway, Britain, France, and more!)" video.

I think you mean the eastern ports along the Channel and North Sea.
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@DraigBlackCat And this also ignores the fact that some of the major British ports, Southhampton, Portsmouth and London, could only be reached by sailing through the Channel. This would make all that shipping prime targets for the Luftwaffe and Schnellboots. So that means that a large chunk of shipping had to be diverted to ports that were never designed or built to support that amount of shipping.
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My parents told me the same thing, having experienced it first-hand themselves.
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@richardvernon317 I concur. This is something that is frequently overlooked when discussing the issue of shipping to Britain during WW2. The time it took to "wipe" ships to degauss them and the problem of continually having to sweep lanes through freshly lain minefields added to the delays in getting ships into port. This also meant that, in order not to get a backlog of ships (thereby creating a target rich environment), all shipping had to be planned and routed so very little or no time was spent sitting around outside the harbours. This is another reason for the reduction in imports, and another source for "inefficiency" in the system. Thanks for mentioning it.
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