Comments by "Dennis Weidner" (@dennisweidner288) on "How important was the Battle of the Atlantic? (U-boat bases, Norway, Britain, France, and more!)" video.

John Hargreaves A lot of the post-War problem was due to the Labour Party that the British people elected (May 1945). And it was not just-food. While the German Economic Miracle was remaking Western Europe, British industry was in the doldrums. One of the countless examples that Socialism does not work.
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The U.S. Navy was a little busy in the Pacific at the time, so not so mn escorts, but Liberty Ships, radars, and long-range aircraft were a vital contribution.
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AFGuidesHD Not but the Americans Liberty Shio program solved the shipping program. And the United States built escorts,, jeep carriers, and long-range aircraft not to mention radars that played key roles in winning the Nzttle if the Ztlznbtuic.
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@Warmaker01 Quite right. But the Battle of the Atlantic was fought out before American destroyers were available in numbers. The British made do with Corvettes, produced in numbers by the Canadians. The Corvettes were not suited for the North Atlantic, but the Canadian sailors made them work. The American contribution in 1942-43 was primarily Liberty Ships, airpower, long-range aircraft, and radars.
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@jthunders The whole point of the Battle of the Atlantic was to save Britain and keep Britain's lifelines to America and Canada open. The U-boat threat was basically defeated by mid-1943. Doenitz withdrew the U-boats from the Atlantic. It was then that D-Day began to become feasible. The needed supplies were certainly a factor in waiting until June 1944. It was an important reason, but hardly the only reason: 1. The U.S. Army basically did not yet exist in 1942. There was only a limited draft in 1940 and the second one in 1941 just before Pearl Harbor. But the U.S. Army was still very small, without modern weapons, and ill-trained. 2. The British and Americans did not yet have air superiority over the beaches. That was not achieved until Big Week (February 1944). 3. The U.S. Army had no experience. That did not begin until Torch (November 1942). And Kasserine showed that the Army was not yet ready to take on the Germans in France even in 1943. 4. The needed landing craft and Mullberry had not yet been delivered. In particular the LSTs. 5. The Red Army had not yet bled the Germans sufficiently in the Ostkrieg, but I am not sure that was a factor in Eisenhowers' thinking. It was on the British side.
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@jthunders I didn't even know that there was a historian in the family. Except for family, I never met another Weidner.
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@EllieMaes-Grandad Yes and no. High fuel prices were a form of rationing.
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Another comment. This is a very good video, Collingham's work is very important. But you make a serious error when you speak of the War in the West tying up Allied divisions. [9:30] This was not why the war in the West was important. With Barbarossa, German manpower was primarily committed to the Ostkrieg, even after D-Day--over 80 percent. There were two primary reasons why the War in the West was important: 1. I made it impossible for Germany to import oil (which you mention, but Russian authors do not). 2. Germany had to devote its industry primarily to fighting the War in the West. The Battle of the Atlantic, and even more the Air War required huge industrial commitments. As a result, the Ostheer was poorly supplied and supported--trudging east with horse-drawn carts. The Ostheer was the decisive camping of the War, yet because of the War un the West, Germany was not able to bring one of its major assets--its industrial war machine to fully to bear on the Red Army (which you do not mention and Russian authors also ignore).
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A good discussion here, but some notes. 1. Britain got very limited food from Australia and New Zealand during the War, for obvious reasons. I would have taken enormous amounts of shipping to get food to Britain from down under. 2. Shipping was not just central to feeding Britain, it was central to the entire Allied war effort. 3. I know you can't mention everything, but 20 seconds on the Ameican Liberty Ship program which solved the shipping program seems in order. 4. The primary contribution of the War in the West was not in tying down German manpower, it did NOT do this. For most of the War, France was an R&R posting, not a battlefield. What the War in the West did it did was force the Reich to divert its industrial power primarily to the West rather than to the all-important Osrkrieg. . This is why the Ostheer went east on foot with horse-drawn carts. (80 percent of the Osheeer was unmotorized industry, despite the impression given by Goebbel's films.) As you point out, God knows what they would have done had they been motorized.
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