The Luftwaffe's Perspective on the Battle of the Atlantic (Naval History Conference Jan 2026)

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:15]Hello everybody and welcome to this video which is kindly sponsored by Squarespace. And today I'm going to show you how to update a page with a giveaway. So as many of you will probably know by now, I'm going to be speaking on June the 6th that the Royal Army's in Leeds, but a very kind subscriber has offered to fund a number of tickets for people who couldn't otherwise attend. So how am I going to do this? as well. There's lots of different options, but I've chosen to temporarily add a form. Now, you don't need to send me a message for this. So, I'm just going to rename the form itself the giveaway form, but then I can just go into the form fields and choose which bits I want to include. So, I don't need the message, as I said, just need name, contact information, and a subject line.

[00:00:57]And in that subject line, you just put conference giveaway. and that'll put you into a pool of people who may therefore win one of the tickets that the kind subscribers made available. Entries close at the end of Wednesday the 3rd of June to give you time to book your travel. And as you can see, I didn't like the square button, so I've just gone and switched that to a nice rounded button. And you can configure all the styles as you saw in the style editor.

[00:01:22]Animals going to move the button more centralized. So if people are using their phone, it's going to be much easier to spot them off to the side. And that's it. Just save, exit. Nice and easily done and updated with Squarespace. See you there. So, if after all these little mini tutorials I've been doing, you think you could build a website for maybe ideally naval history purposes, but you never know, you might want to for some other reason, then head over to squarespace.com/kenfel.

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[00:01:51]So, thanks once again to Squarespace for sponsoring the video. And on with the main show. Well, earlier this year I held a naval history conference aboard HMS Belfast. And if you tuned in last month, you would have heard the opening presentation from Professor Andrew Lambert on iron bolts and how appearance and artwork factor into power protection as much as the ships themselves. But since another month has rolled on, it's time for the second talk of the conference. And this is delivered by the excellent Chris from Military Aviation History covering the Luftwaffer and their role in the war at sea. So enjoy.

[00:02:27]>> Asked me to present. Uh I thought this was going to be quite an easy job because I'll just look at the ven diagram of what's relevant to a British audience, what's relevant to me as an air power historian and what's relevant to the Navy. And I thought that ah I'll do something on the channel dash. And then I realized well I'm talking to a naval audience and the channel dash is probably something that you know better than me. So I thought, okay, so we know what sort of happened with the channel dash and we know what happened afterwards with increasing operations um aerial operations over the Atlantic. Uh what about the period before that? And that's what I'm really going to talk about today. So I'm going to go to a big picture overview of uh the Luftwuffer's operational strategic planning in terms of the Battle of the Atlantic and also cutting off that archery into Britain with shipping before the channel dash.

[00:03:14]So that's early 1942.

[00:03:17]Uh that of course goes into this sort of conceptual uh conversation of air power as powerful projection using speed and reach in order to hit targets for decisive effects. And I also want to use this an opportunity to dig a bit deeper and just have that radar versus guring conversation which yes this relationship between the creeks marina and the lu buff is overshadowed by that but there's a lot of layers to this as well throughout the conversation here as well. Oh, actually um very important if you're interested in subject and if you speak the crowd um there is an exception exceptional book called it's German from and that's really the must go to source on on this sort of subject. As I talk and go through the motions here I want you to remember four things. First of all, Germany when it starts rearming in 1933 onwards has a continental focus.

[00:04:20]So it's primarily concerned with free countries that is France obvious big military. Um Poland still a big military for a country like Germany that doesn't have an armed force that doesn't have an air force that barely has a navy as well at this point in time and Czechoslovakia even because Czechoslovakia in 1943 is still a big power compared to Germany in terms of military might. So there's a continental focus and it's about fast decisive campaigns to prevent the opening of a second front. It also has to create an air force out of nothing.

[00:04:52]And there the focus is building a balanced fleet of mainly medium bombers that allow it to carry out those continental operations. And the focus is really to use it also as a political tool of power projection to prevent other countries in going to war with Germany as Germany launches its initial campaigns. And there the sentence said by Guring to to his own planners is you know the when the furer asks me about planes he doesn't ask me what types we have but how many. So it's really the the the size of the fleet that matters rather than specifically what's in it.

[00:05:26]However of course the Luftwafer initially has to go through various iterations in order to arrive at that very modern fleet that it has in 1949.

[00:05:34]There's also a power struggle between the Luftwaffer and the Creeks Marina about who is in charge of aircraft and it's the creeks marina that amounts the most fierce opposition to the idea that the Luftwaffer could be an independent branch and Guring never forgets this and that hangs sort of as a spectre over the relationship between those two branches and um perhaps somewhat surprising uh in retrospect and Britain doesn't really turn up in German strategic force as an adversary until November mber 1947 when Hitler says, "Well, we now strong enough to most likely tackle the immediate threats around us and go um with onwards with our offensive campaigns there. Uh so we'll probably have to worry about Britain in the future." So the Luftwriter starts planning to that only from 1938 onwards. So just keep those four things in mind as we go through this. Now I'm a bit of a nerd. Um, so I like to read through doctrine and that's sort of my first uh thing that I turn to when I try to understand what the lu prophet was actually trying to achieve on any sort of subject. And what we have here in the top right that is the draft from 1945. It's um basically means the conduct of an air war and that is the doctrine that they have. And in there it's written um that the luft basically has three overarching missions. One of them is supporting the operations of the navy and another one is to wage war against the centers of power of an adversary nation and that is if you want to see it sort of again as a ven diagram the military the economic and the political power of a nation and you you hit those uh decisively and then everything falls apart. That's that's sort of the thinking behind that. But of course the Luftwaffer also wages war and it understands this in the overall context of strategic operations together with the hair and it h if it has to with the with the navy. Then on the bottom right here, what we have is a document from the uh general staff college of the Luftwafer where it conducts of its educational track for all the officers uh going through the different ranks.

[00:07:41]And there the centers of powers are identified. And if we go sort of through that list on the top we have industry uh then we have energy then we have communications and infrastructure and so on and on the bottom we have uh shipping and ports. Now I'm looking at this and I'm not quite sure if this is listed as priorities but if you sort of look at this and you understand the luaf is a continental force you can kind of see where the priorities lay in that regard.

[00:08:10]Now having looked at doctrine, what do some of the fingers in Germany say about uh supporting Navy operations? And the chief of staff in 1945 basically says the exact same thing that I've already said that was spent in doctrine but with a bit more focus on actually supporting the operations of the Greeks marina rather than waging a war against ports and shipping. And that is the general inclination that the Luftwafer has even after 1946 when Beaver as the chief of staff of the Lufa ironically dies in an aircraft accident. Um and it goes forward and it's maintained by Guring and the Luftwer as a whole. So this is not about a projection into the Atlantic just yet. But there is some scope here to uh explore anti-shipping operations either by going out and destroying a fleet let's say the home fleet or by hitting the ports. So we've just heard about you know Copenhagen in 1905. If something like that would happen in 1940 or 1939 say um I think we can all safely assume that the lift rapper would have just said well let's go and sync them.

[00:09:19]Um and it would have considered that as supporting the operations of the creeks marina and also then enabled that maneuver of the creeks marina into the Atlantic. Uh and it ticks all the boxes and then it can go on to do its continental campaign.

[00:09:32]It's definitely not interested in any sort of long attritional air campaign.

[00:09:37]And this is a general issue with the Germans is that they're always thinking these short campaigns because they have the these fears of opening a second maybe a third front which they're definitely not going to win. So they need to knock adversaries out quickly.

[00:09:52]And even though Hitler changes his opinions multiple times, he himself has also said that in terms of Britain um you know a nutritional campaign only against shipping that's going to take one maybe two years to render any sort of results and Germany doesn't have that time.

[00:10:08]However, not everybody agrees. Uh there's a really fascinating meeting that it happens in 1938 between somebody called Kesla was Kesla. as a colonel in the Luf at the time and he's been identified by the Luftwr as potentially an upcoming chief of staff. So presumably a very talented um sort of officer and he's invited by uh by Guring to a meeting and uh he's given the option to become uh the Lufa in one of the most prestigious postings that exists that's right here in London. And what he's meant to do is come to London, have conversations with people in Britain and try to understand a little bit of strategy of Britain. Where are the vulnerable pinch points and how that sort of information then can be used by Germany to wage a war against Britain.

[00:11:00]Now Kesler at this point turns around to um Guring and says well if we are at war with Britain we are going to lose because Britain has the empire and the commonwealth that means one/ird of the world is against us and behind all of that there's also America which means half of the world is against us. We are not equipped and we are not able to win a war like this at any point in time.

[00:11:24]As you may expect Guring didn't like that. Um so obas Kesler does not become the luafer ate here in London. He does not become the chief of staff. He does become a general at some point. He's also the commanding officer of FA Fiora Atlantic which then later on carries out the anti-shipping operations and then becomes an atachier in Japan towards the end of the war.

[00:11:46]So that gives you sort of an idea that not everybody agrees and there are people in the lof buffer that voice their concerns regarding this but they are definitely being drowned out by guring and also the general thinking uh the airmindedness of the lof buffer now having talked about that with what would the lu buffer actually conduct such an operation and as I said earlier Britain is identified as a potential target in 1946 7 1948. So the quicks marina starts pivoting to that. There's a Z plan that gets muffled in in many ways. Then the UTOS come into play. The Luftwaffer at the same time in August 1938 conducts a study and they look at this problem set and they say yeah we're not equipped for this in multiple regards. The first of all the medium bomber force just doesn't have the range and the payload to carry out these sort of operations.

[00:12:39]And all the long-range bombers have been cancelled for various reasons, but the majority the main reason of that is that Germany understands that it cannot maintain even construct and then maintain a large large long range bomber fleet at this point in time. There are soft pivots. So the Joker's 88 for example uh is meant to become diveing capable or rather glide bombing capable.

[00:13:02]Um and that is a clear sort of um signal that the anti-shipping operations are being considered in more detail, but it's only one little piece in the puzzle.

[00:13:16]And then one of the big problems, of course, is with this medium bomber force, as I said, range. So, Lu says, well, in order to have any sort of chance of hitting British shipping and ports, we need to have bases closer in.

[00:13:31]France is going to give us a massive trouble um because nobody in Germany expects that the the victory of 1940 will actually happen the way it happened in for a couple of weeks. So what we'll need is bases in Belgium and in the Netherlands. And in fact in November 1949 when the attack on France is canled for the first time, it is the lobbying of the Luftwuffer that then makes Germany add the Netherlands to the air invasion plans because the Netherlands was of course neutral before that. And that at least provides some sort of staging points in order to go out and hit British shipping.

[00:14:08]Now let's assume we have the bombers that can more or less do that. Let's assume where we have the bases that we more or less can do that. Then the Luf has the problem. They don't have any armor penetrating bombs. Uh they do have some mines and the torpedoes that they have don't really work. So the F5 torpedo has a 20% failure rate at this point in time. And it's also such an old design that most of the bombers can't actually use it because you have to fly very slow. And the only aircraft that can reasonably use it is a converted Hanko 111 that comes 115 with the floats. So it doesn't have the munitions. And this is a big problem anyway. So uh after the operations at Poland uh the Lufra is down to 50% of its ordinance stock piles um after just that operation. So it gives you sort of an idea of where the industrial capacity and the stock piles were at this point in time and why it was so important for Germany to wind quickly in the early stages of their campaigns.

[00:15:05]However, I just talked about the creeks marina having pited their production.

[00:15:09]What about the Luftwuffer? Now the Luftwaffer assumes that if it pivots to a force that could reasonably uh take on Britain and destroy it just plain air campaign because that is the aspiration of the L buffer. Then it will be ready by 1942 and will require more than 50 bomber wings. Uh 30 of those will be reserved against land targets and 13 of those will be reserved uh versus shipping. This is completely fanciful.

[00:15:35]Germany never has this sort of force.

[00:15:37]And um just to add to that, uh most of these bomber wings were meant to fly the Hankko 177, which again, yes, there were quite a few of those built, but it never really worked out that way. And with the Hanko 177, as you all know, I'm sure, um there's a very sort of hot and cold relationship with that aircraft. And there's some fascinating uh discussions happening already in May 1942 where in in the air ministry mil basically says in one of meeting well we're building this plane but I don't really think we actually have a purpose for it. Why are we doing this? Um and they keep on building them. Um so yeah that sort of gives you an idea of where that particular plan went.

[00:16:20]Now let's talk a bit more practically about the cooperation between Luftwuffer and the Creeks Marina. In January 1939, there's a consensus that is developed between the two branches and that is the creeks marina will venture out in the Atlantic and it will conduct its anti-shipping operations there and the Luftwaffer will do the same in the coastal regions hitting shipping there, hit the ports or land installations that are closely tied to shipping organizations and also doing mining and an overall air campaign and an overall OCA campaign. So offensive counter air against the RAF. All of those things Luf has to do at the same time. Sure. Um but that's the consensus. The big problem there is this is a consensus in partitioning the area of operations. So the creeks marina gets the Atlantic and Lufa gets everything that is just west of Ireland in the coastal region of Ireland just to the west and then going east from that. While this partitions the operational areas, it's not actually a campaign and both branches are allowed or well there's there's never actually any sort of agreement on that either, but both branches can pursue this at their own time at their own intensity of their own choosing. Um, so yeah, that's not necessarily the uh ingredients for good cooperation and actually delivering some sort of strategic effect together as a joint operation.

[00:17:46]The Luftwuffer at this time and time also consistently changes the center of gravity that it has. It hits shipping, then it hits ports, then it hits the aircraft industry in Britain, then it hits the RAF, and finally it ends up hitting the cities, and then it conducts night bombings. So, it does have a certain effect at some points. So, in July 1940, it sinks about 40 ships um around the channel and and the eastern shores of uh England. Uh 75,000 tons, I believe it was altogether. and that does lock down shipping for about five days.

[00:18:17]Um, Britain basically says, "Well, let's not send out any ships for now." Um, reassess the situation and then a lot of these ships go out, venture out at night where the liftoff can't do anything. Um, and the effect basically fizzles out.

[00:18:30]And finally, um, there is actually between these sort of operations in the Atlantic and in the coastal waters of of Britain, there's no coordination, synchronization of efforts. And it's actually questionable whether that could have happened. Luftwafa and the crease marina they use different maps. They have different radio communication uh frequencies and they use different encryption types and there is no structures in place where the Luftwaffer people know what the crux marine is talking about if they tell them where ships are and vice versa. Um which is a problem as you can imagine. And at the same time the expectation of each branch for the other are completely different.

[00:19:11]So the creeks marina wants tactical command, not necessarily own the planes, but tactical command of reconnaissance aircraft. The liftoff sees that with suspicions because they say, well, this is going to be the first step in taking the aircraft away from us.

[00:19:26]The liftoff, on the other hand, it says, well, reconnaissance, what do you want to do with reconnaissance? If you have a plane over a ship, you may as well sink the ship. So they want to conduct strike operations. And that of course goes with the thinking of an independent branch.

[00:19:40]In order if you send something somewhere as an air power, you want to destroy where you uh something that where you're sending stuff.

[00:19:48]So again there there is no alignment there in terms of what each branch wants from the other.

[00:19:54]Now in July 1940 after the surprising uh victory of Germany in um in France, nobody's more surprised than most of the German generals. Um the first chafon are being positioned in France for anti-shipping operations. Now as I mentioned earlier there is no coordination. In fact what happens is that root uh that quite often the luftwafer says okay marina here have tactical command over various of our aircraft. By the way tomorrow we need them back because we're going to bomb something in Britain. Um and that happens continuously. So ll gives tactical command of various units to quicksplain only to take it back two days later for a week and then give them back and so on and so forth. So those are the sort of problems that happen there. Aircraft range is also a big problem. So there are two aircraft that reason has stand a reasonable chance to actually going out in the Atlantic.

[00:20:46]That's a Doria 26 and the FAWolf 200.

[00:20:49]The Focal Wolf 400 is not a military aircraft and um that's been identified very early on, but it's the only aircraft that we have that can actually go that far. Um you're hitting a range of about 25° west. Um so reasonably okay, but there is a lot of technical difficulties. In order to extend the range of the Dornia 26, for example, the Germans introduced uh catapult launchers. And on the first catapult launch, you know, because you can obviously add more fuel and more weight to the aircraft. Um, but what happens is the first catapult launch, the engines um seize or get destroyed, I don't know.

[00:21:29]Um, as as the aircraft launches and it crashes and so the Dorne 26 is out of the picture and the Focal Wolf 200s, uh, here one major problem is the crews are untrained for maritime operations.

[00:21:43]Luftwrera has a monopoly on air crew training and they didn't consider maritime operations. So navigation over open waters nobody's trained for that.

[00:21:53]Yes, there are some ex clicks marina officers in the luftwafa but they are not sufficient in order to make this happen. And on top of that, with the Fog Wolf 200, the crews aren't night flying trained, which means that they have to go out in the morning and they have to come back before nightfalls because they can't land the planes otherwise. Uh, it's too much of a risk really. So again, the window of time that a plane is out there in the Atlantic is incredibly shortened by sort of these training deficiencies.

[00:22:25]Now, there are results of course and I've put some of those down there. So you can see the liftoff actually sinks quite a number of ships between August to February as August 1942 or February 1941. Um not as many as the new boats think at this time. But there is success and one would reasonably assume now that this success is then seen as an indication that if a joint effort were to materialize that could produce additional results. Not so with the Luftwaf and the Creeks Marina. Uh because Hitler momentarily provides the Creeks Marina with additional aircraft and additional command authority over them. Basically Guring is on on holiday and he can't um contest this move.

[00:23:09]Guring gets very very very angry and he basically goes up to Raider and we have the protocols of this meeting. Um they're fascinating reading reading really but basically Guring says yeah sure you can have the planes. I'll take away all the air crew. I'll take away all your fuel. I'll take away all your munitions. You won't get any sport parts. Have fun with the planes.

[00:23:32]That that's that's basically the choice that Radar has at this point. And because Raider is somebody who by his own acknowledgement doesn't want to challenge Hitler, he also doesn't really like challenging Guring. Um eventually says, "Okay, fair enough. Uh the Lufa gets their planes back." Now Guran does all of this not out of a sort of um in aspiration to have the Luftwaffer really be the the branch that conducts air uh and shipping operations but just so the Navy doesn't have the planes and that he doesn't lose those um which is incredible if you think about it but there's that spectre again between the um between the relationship between those branches because Ging remembers that it was the Crics Marina who didn't want the Luftwaffer to be created.

[00:24:17]beyond that and I'm I have to look at my notes quickly here. Um yeah, tactical and operational problems between the the 2000s and the fix marina. This may be the last point that I want to highlight here. Uh there are 23 attempts between um February 1941.

[00:24:37]Sorry, no. Um yes uh yeah February 1941 until July 1941 in getting Ubot to a target that was spotted by a fog of 200s or vice versa. Now, so there were some attempts there.

[00:24:53]One was successful.

[00:24:56]And if you look at sort of the margin of error that the Luftwaf crew specifically have on their sighting reports, it's sometimes more than 200 300 km of where uh of where they say the ships are, where where the actual ships then are.

[00:25:10]So these sort of problems keep marring the relationship between the two branches. And then of course as flea flu Atlantic is created and Guring retains command of his aircraft the focus shifts for the Lufr again because the Baltics are kicking off and then in May 1941 Lufr gets ready for what? Operation Babarasa.

[00:25:36]So all the planes that could theoretically have been rendered to this operation with Hanker 111s who theoretically have the range to go all the way into the Irish Sea, an area that the RAF has not yet have the mass to defend alongside an joint operation of of bombing the UK from the channel region.

[00:25:55]Um provides, you know, scope for additional anti-shipping operations, but it just doesn't happen. And that's sort of where it ends then with the uh the channel dash uh and why eventually um you know the the relationship between these branches yes it gets better in part uh but it never really is fully resolved.

[00:26:15]So if you have any questions at this point please let me know.