Sub Hunters

- Blurb -

1943 was the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic, when the balance of forces, technologies and tactics turned irrevocably against Germany' s U-boats. The victory thus obtained not only secured Britain' s transatlantic lifeline to the United States, but in so doing enabled the vast build up in military forces in Britain necessary to launch D-Day in June 1944. The Allied battle to defeat the U-boat menace was a combined effort by the naval and air forces of several Allied nations, and this is the story of one part of that effort during the decisive mid-war period. Nos 10 and 461 Squadrons of the Royal Australian Air Force flew Sunderland flying boats from bases in Wales and Devon as part of RAF Coastal Command; these two sister squadrons flew long-range daylight missions over the eastern Atlantic, patrolling Britain' s southwest approaches. They hunted and killed U-boats transiting between their mid-Atlantic hunting grounds and their bases in Bordeaux, and fought furious air battles over the heaving seas of the Bay of Biscay, against Luftwaffe Ju88 long-range fighters tasked specifically with shooting them down. These two Australian squadrons established a combat record second to none.