Without the Allied victory in keeping shipping lanes open during the Battle of the Atlantic, Britain could not have fed her people or withstood Axis offensives in Europe and North Africa.
[4] Without Britain's survival and without Allied shipments of food, materiel and industrial equipment to the Soviet Union,[a] her military and economic power would likely not have rebounded in time for Russian soldiers to prevail at Stalingrad and Kursk.
[5][1][6][7][8] Allied operations in the Atlantic and Pacific war theaters were interconnected because they frequently competed for scarce naval resources for everything from aircraft carriers to transports and landing craft.
He unilaterally developed strategic military initiatives and exercised increasingly greater control over operational details, including movement of troops, units to be involved and commanders to be in charge.
Also, Italy joined the war the same month France fell and, with its strong navy, threatened British convoys in the Atlantic and Mediterranean with surface warships, submarines, and land-based aircraft.
[64] Such patrols evolved into escort duties, and by early 1941, American warships joined those from Britain and Canada, sharing responsibility for safe passage of convoys destined for the United Kingdom.
[g][65] In late May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, attempted to break out into the Atlantic with the principal objective of destroying British merchant shipping.
Nonetheless, Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from Ark Royal shadowed the Bismarck as it sailed for the German base at Brest on the French coast seeking the protection of land-based air cover it would have if it were able to out-race the pursuing warships.
In January 1942, a month after America had become a full combatant in the war, troop convoys to Britain were initiated to begin building up US Army forces for ultimate invasion of continental Europe.
Fearing that these submarines might be capable of launching V-1 rockets on East Coast cities, Americans hastily initiated Operation Teardrop to create warship barriers to intercept them.
The Axis powers sought to cut lanes to neutralize Malta, thereby protecting their own supply line to North Africa, and to extend territorial control to include Greece.
The Fall of France and establishment of the government at Vichy in June 1940 caused anxiety in Britain regarding which combatant, if any, would get the use of the warships of the French Navy then mostly anchored in North African ports.
Accordingly, in July 1940, British warships of the newly formed Force H including HMS Ark Royal sailed from Gibraltar and in [Operation Catapult attacked the French fleet at Mers El Kébir and Oran.
If Malta fell, Britain would be forced to support Egypt by shipments around the Cape of Good Hope and through the Suez Canal, which would lengthen the lifeline for supplies by thousands of miles and several weeks.
[170] On the last day of August, a significant British technological development, radio direction finding aka radar, was first used to alert the Ark Royal to approaching enemy aircraft.
[170] In late November 1940, while Force H was escorting a convoy carrying tanks and military stores from Gibraltar to Alexandria, a reconnaissance patrol from Ark Royal spotted an Italian fleet south of Sardinia that included two battleships and six cruisers .
Instead of passing the Straits of Gibraltar through the Mediterranean, Formidable traveled in relative safety around the Cape of Good Hope to Alexandria, Britain having eliminated by this time Italian naval opposition in the Red Sea.
In April 1942, as part of Operation Calendar, USS Wasp sailed with Force W of the British Home Fleet and transported 47 Supermarine Spitfire fighters to the Western Mediterranean.
Fortunately for Malta, Axis strength in Mediterranean was weakened in May as Germany transferred a significant number of its bombers away from Sicily in preparation for its launch of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia.
Again returning to the Mediterranean, Ark Royal aircraft supported convoys that helped keep Malta in the war and disrupting Axis shipping from Italy to Africa at the critical time that Germany's Afrika Korps was preparing for a campaign against Egypt.
Finally, entry of Japan into the war on the side of the Axis powers created the need for the Allies to divert warships from the Atlantic Theater to face their new crisis in the Pacific.
Indomitable sustained damage to her flight deck, leaving only Victorious remaining to provide fighter protection for the convoy, at least until she reached the turn-around point for most of the heavy escorts off Bizerte.
Not wanting this campaign to be repulsed as had happened in Norway, France, and Greece, and unable to mount a cross-Channel invasion, the Allies adopted Winston Churchill's proposal to approach Germany through Italy, described by him as the "soft underbelly" of the Axis.
[204][205] The invasion of French North Africa was by amphibious landings there at the same time as Britain's decisive victory over German forces at the other end of the Mediterranean in the Second Battle of El Alamein.
Code-named Operation Torch, the invasion of the French colonies involved coordinated landings of three separate task forces in western, central, and eastern target zones.
The Eastern Task Force, with 23,000 British and 10,000 American troops transported by the Royal Navy from the UK, landed at three attack sites centered around Algiers the capital of French Algeria.
Even with the loss of life and damage to Allied ships sustained during Operation Torch, naval historian Stephen Roskill concludes that rarely was so much gained during the war at such relatively small cost.
As land battles continued across North Africa, escort carriers regularly accompanied convoys that ferried aircraft to Casablanca as well as Gibraltar and on to Malta to support the Allied advance and to help establish air superiority.
Operation Dragoon was launched to secure Marseilles and Toulon as additional ports for supplying Allied troops in France and to protect the southern flank of General Patton's US Third Army that was to move rapidly eastward toward Germany.
[238] Following the successful landings, which included the Free French Army liberating Toulon and Marseilles, convoys from Italy, Corsica, North Africa and America were needed quickly to support the troops advance.