War+at+Sea

[|U-Boats Video]
media type="youtube" key="RCrzaC4aLPg?fs=1" height="385" width="640"

media type="file" key="The War at Sea.mp3" width="240" height="20"

The War at Sea
On June 27, 1918, a German U-boat (submarine, from the German unterseeboot) torpedoed the clearly marked hospital ship Llandovery Castle off the Irish coast. All 14 Canadian army nurses and most of the 244 men aboard perished. Worst of all, the survivors reported that they had been machine-gunned in their lifeboats. Canadians were outraged by the news. The German navy claimed that the ship was really carrying munitions from Halifax to England.

 Nurse Clare Gass had already seen and heard too much in this long, terrible war. Her diary entry for July 6, 1918, was very short:

 News of the sinking of our Hospital Ship Lan-dovery Castle reached us today. All the Sisters are lost.  The War Diary of Clare Gass, 1915-1918, p. 197

 Before 1914, both Britain and Germany had built up their navies. Germany had invested heavily in U-boats, which were smaller and much less costly to build than battleships. In January 1917, Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare, meaning that any Allied or neutral ship approaching Britain would be sunk without warning. The aim was to stop food imports and weapons from reaching Britain. More than a thousand ships were torpedoed by U-boats, including the Llandovery Castle and many ships of Canada's merchant marine. This unrestricted submarine warfare had a significant impact on the war.

 To protect themselves from German submarines, Allied boats began to cross the Atlantic in a convoy, which meant that a group of supply ships travelled together under the protection of an escort, such as a Canadian navy battle cruiser or a specially disguised ship called a Q-ship. (The reason behind this name is unknown.) These innocent-looking supply ships actually had a navy crew, hidden guns, and depth charges to blow U-boats out of the water.

 Meanwhile, Britain used its battleships to enforce a naval blockade. This blockade prevented any trading ships from entering German-controlled ports. Basic food shortages soon developed in Germany, making it impossible to feed either the army or the civilians.

Questions
1. How successful were the following?  a)Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare  b) Britain's naval blockade

 2. Based on what you have read, discuss which of the armed forces (army, navy, or air force) you would have preferred to be in, and why. Would your answer change if you were to enlist in today's forces? Why?