Seventy Years Ago: May 19, 1943 - Battle of The Atlantic Turning Point

By May 19, 1942, the Allies had begun to turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic. German submarines were achieving less and less in their effort to interrupt the flow of goods from America to England. Not only had Allied equipment and procedures improved to the point that escort ships were able to defend against submarines more effectively, aircraft were able to detect and attack submarines at greater distance from land.

Here is an account of one successful effort against submarine wolf packs.

A key element in increased Allied success was the effective use of communications intelligence, including code breaking and high frequency direction finding. By this time, all of the technical means of detecting and tracking submarines had improved to the point that German submarine operations had become very hazardous.

A significant organizational change occurred on May 20, with formation of the U.S. 10th Fleet, essentially a paper organization headquartered in Washington, DC.

Tenth Fleet's mission was to destroy enemy submarines, protect coastal merchant shipping, centralize control and routing of convoys, and to coordinate and supervise all USN anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training, anti-submarine intelligence, and coordination with Allied nations. The fleet was active from May 1943 to June 1945.

Tenth Fleet had no ships of its own, but used Commander-in-Chief Atlantic's ships operationally; CinCLANT issued orders to escort groups originating in the United States and organized and operated hunter-killer groups built around the growing fleet of small Escort Aircraft Carriers.  Tenth Fleet never put to sea, had no ships, and never had more than about 50 people in its organization. The fleet was disbanded after the surrender of Germany.