Sub Hunters

Book excerpt: • Excellent photographs from the Australian War Memorial collection • Dramatic air battles over a turbulent sea, hundreds of miles from land and without hope of rescue • Striking U-boat ‘kills’ as concrete proof of operational successes • Beautifully illustrated with many rare and unpublished photographs • Of interest to aviation and military historians, modellers, gamers and flight simulator enthusiasts 1943 was the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic when forces, technologies and tactics turned against Germany’s U-boats. The victory not only secured Britain’s trans-Atlantic lifeline to the United States, but also enabled the vast build-up in military forces in Britain necessary to launch D-Day in 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 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 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 Bay of Biscay against Luftwaffe Ju 88 long-range fighters tasked specifically with shooting them down. These two Australian squadrons established a combat record.