The convoys route around Ireland
The fall of France and the German acquisition of bases along the French coast forced British shipping to route from Liverpool and Scotland around the north coast of Ireland, which swiftly became a U-boat hunting ground. There are more liners on the seabed off Malin Head than anywhere else in the world, the victims of two World Wars, and Churchill wrote later that the U-boat threat worried him more than anything else.
The big difference between the two World Wars was the neutrality of Eire, which to this day refers to the 1939-1945 conflict as the Emergency. Saorstat Eireann, the Irish Free State, took no part in the war, and the thousands of Irishmen who enlisted and fought so bravely were blacklisted when they returned home, although earlier this year the Irish Government apologised to their families. Airmen who landed in Eire were interned, although Britons and Americans were released, usually with their aircraft if they were serviceable. The bodies of Service aircrew were retrieved by the Irish Army for handover with full military honours at the Border.
With Eire territory off limits, Northern Ireland became the key platform for the Battle of the Atlantic, Churchill saying later that he had always considered the U-boats as the greatest danger facing the country. British and Canadian escort vessels would turn around at the vast Londonderry naval base, and the RAF would patrol the convoy routes as far as aircraft range permitted. Air Marshal Harris would not release Lancasters and Halifaxes to Coastal Command, so there was a large gap in the middle of the Atlantic.
In the early days Coastal Command’s resources were limited, and Bomber Command concentrated on Germany. In 1940 Ansons and even Tiger Moths operated from Limavady, Ballykelly and Aldergrove airfields in Northern Ireland. However, U-boat commanders would dive at the first sight or sound of an aircraft, which even if unarmed might bring down the wrath of a patrolling destroyer. They would be severely restricted at three knots when submerged, against up to 15 knots on the surface. The flying boat bases on Lough Erne opened in 1941.
Later came war-weary Whitleys and Wellingtons, Hudsons, and eventually the U-boats’ nemesis, the Liberator, which closed the Atlantic gap. From Ballykelly, where the runway was extended over a railway level crossing to obtain the necessary length for the Libs, 120 Sqn became the top-scoring anti-sub squadron, working with the vast naval base at Londonderry some 20 miles away. But the early crews faced the weather and the Kriegsmarine in obsolescent aircraft with few aids to navigation.