Brian E. Walter, The Longest Campaign (Casemate, 2020)
Discerning readers of World War II know about the importance of the naval war in the Atlantic, a titanic struggle between German U-boats and the Allied navies protecting vital convoys. In this excellent survey, however, Brian Walter reveals that there was far more to naval operations around Britain and Europe’s coasts than guarding merchant ships and hunting submarines.
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Walter is quick to point out that in the beginning of the war there was no ‘Phoney War’ at sea to match that on land. Already, the British and Germans recognised the importance of Britain’s Atlantic supply lines, where U-boats hunted down convoys and the Royal Navy tried to fend them off. Walter highlights, however, that the Royal Navy was also involved in attempting to deter then counter the German invasion of Norway. Then came the successful evacuation of Dunkirk and prevention of a German assault on Britain. Germany seemed ascendant in its offensive operations, but in Spring 1941, that changed when the RN sank five U-boats and the German battleship Bismarck. Britain also cracked the German naval codes, and US assistance in the Atlantic began to pay off. Walter follows the back and forward struggle through 1942 and into 1943, when Allied improvements in technology, tactics, and numbers in the Atlantic started to pay off. By the end of that year, the Germans were firmly on the back foot. That trend continued into 1944, with the RN and RAF sinking German battleships to protect Arctic convoys, while the RAF also bombed industrial facilities to retard German production and maintenance. Both were heavily involved in the D-Day landings that the Germans did not have the maritime power to interdict. With the Allies driving across Europe, German naval options deteriorated under incessant attacks and catastrophic losses in ships and working ports. The German war effort at sea had all but collapsed by 1945 and the war’s end. Walter concludes that while most attention in the naval war has been on the Pacific and Mediterranean, it was the ‘long and gruelling slog’ of the Atlantic War that determined Allied victory. The British played the largest role in that, though Walter points out this was the Royal Navy’s swansong.
The Longest Campaign is an ambitious effort to present a comprehensive overview of the naval war effort in northern European waters and the Atlantic. Walter succeeds admirably, at least for this reader with a working knowledge of the period. I came away from this book with a better understanding of not only naval operations but also how they were integrated into the broader sweep of the European theatre. The text is a bit dry and dusty at times, with the inclusion of material better placed in the footnotes or appendices, but Walter livens up the text with some narrative detours into specific operations, such as the ‘channel dash’ by the Germans in February 1942. Overall, this is a survey that covers more than the basics while providing a solid platform for further reading.
