When and why Germany Lost WW II
by Harald Zieger
April 12, 2025
Editor's Note: The U-110 was a German submarine. You may see references to images, but Mr. Zieger was not able to obtain permission to reproduce them on our website.
GERMANY LOST WW II ON MAY 9th,1941 WHY? BECAUSE OF U-110
Two ships of convoy O.B. 318, which was being escorted by the 3rd Escort Group, were torpedoed in position 60 20 N 33 40 W. from a position between Broadway and Aubretia.
Both ships were in contact almost immediately and attacked the German U-boat, Broadway at 1208, Aubretia shortly afterward. Bulldog was also in contact, and I could see that Aubretia's attack was effective. Bulldog had moved over to join in the hunt.
A conning tower was sighted at about 800 yards range on the port beam. Fire was immediately opened by 4.7-inch, 3-inch, and 2-pounder pompom and stripped Lewis guns. One 3-inch shell struck the conning tower, and men were seen to be abandoning the submarine. Fire was ceased by the heavier guns, but the men were sped on their way by small arms fire.
H.M.S. BROADWAY was then seen to be about to ram. The submarine turned her stern on to her, and Broadway only grazed the submarine and, in doing so, had her port forward fuel tank holed. She dropped a depth charge close to the submarine's bow. Oil covered the water.
H.M.S. Bulldog stopped within 100 yards of the submarine and sent away an armed whaler's crew. No sign of a white flag was seen, and two men appeared to be manning the submarine's forward gun. Fire was again opened by a Lewis gun, and two or three men were hit. My object was to keep the crew rattled. They already appeared dazed and uncertain about what to do.
By the time the whaler was alongside the submarine, the whole crew appeared to have jumped into the water. There was a moderate sea running, and waves were breaking over the U. boat's deck. The officer in charge of the whaler, appreciating the necessity of speed, ran his boat hard on board the submarine, and a wave carried it on to the deck, where it was smashed.
The crew found that the conning tower hatch was closed. They opened it and went below without delay. (Their orders were to seize all books and anything that looked important. Shortly afterward, they signaled that the U-boat had been abandoned and appeared to be afloat and in no danger of sinking. I therefore decided to take her in tow and passed her a 3-1/2" wire.
Meanwhile, the telegraphist went to the W/T office, just forward of the control room on the starboard side. This was in perfect condition, apparently with no attempt to destroy any books or apparatus. Here were found C.B.'s Signal Logs, Pay Books, and general correspondence, as if this room had been used as the ship's office.
Also, the coding machine (ENIGMA 3) was found here, plugged in, and as though in actual use when abandoned. The general appearance of this machine being that of a typewriter, the telegraphist pressed the keys and, finding the results peculiar, sent it up the hatch.
This W/T office seemed far less complicated than our own-sets were more compact and did not seem to have the usual excess of switches, plug holes, knobs, 'tallys', etc. on the outside.
The standard U-boat hydrophone, the GHG (Group Listening Apparatus), was installed in U-boats from 1935 onwards. It consisted of two sets of hydrophones mounted on each side of the bows, covering two arcs of 140 degrees on the sides of the U-boat.
Because the hydrophones could not be rotated, triangulation was most effective when the sound sources were on the sides, with accuracy deteriorating as the sources moved to the front or rear of the boat. Consisting of 24 hydrophones, the GHG could pick up lone vessels up to 20 kilometers and convoys up to 100 kilometers away. The detection range, however, was also dependent on sea conditions.
The eyes and ears of the U-Boot: The Hydrophone room
Here are some of my impressions of the Uboat. She was new and a fine ship, both in the strength of the hull, in the fittings and instruments, and in the general interior construction. Absolutely nothing "Ersatz" about her. Excellent A.A. armament abaft the conning tower, consisting of a Buford and Oerlikon-type gun. The deck around the forward gun was wood.
Spotlessly clean throughout. Ward-Room finished off in light varnished woodwork, and all cupboards were numbered with corresponding keys. No signs of a safe, and there was only one cupboard for which I could not find the key; this cupboard was over the captain's desk, so I broke into it, and it revealed a medicine chest.
In the W/T Room, there were several sets of writing paper and envelopes, well-printed and illustrated reading books, cards, dice, and the usual art studies. Bunks were one on top of another, both in officers' and crew’s spaces. An S.R. Equipment unit was running throughout the boat, with a very compact S.R.E. receiver (3 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot) in the W/T office, the dial of which bore the names of about 200 stations.
The reason why no attempt was made to destroy any books or material is obviously that they thought the U-boat was certain to sink at once, the necessary demolition switches or other devices had been set; this was corroborated by statements from prisoners who had no idea that the U-boat had been boarded.
As I had nobody who could work on the U-boat in any way, I considered it best to withdraw all men from on board her. She seemed to have some starboard wheel on, and it was only with difficulty that she could be turned to port on the homeward course.
I had ordered Aubretia to pick up all German survivors.
This was eventually done, however, and she rode quite easily slightly on the starboard quarter and heading slightly to starboard of my course. When she was towing nicely at 4 knots, I ordered all watertight doors and hatches closed and for the crew to rejoin Bulldog in Broadway's boat.
Suddenly, at 1100, the U-Boot began to sink by the stern. Very shortly, her bow was standing vertically out of the water. She slowly sank, and the wire was cut. The prize must have been working slightly in the heavy sea, and this may have aggravated any damage caused by depth charges or contact with Broadway.
Her loss was a bitter blow as it was felt that, having survived so many shocks, particularly Broadway's depth charge close to her bow, she should be able to stand the 400-mile tow to Iceland.
The U-110 capture on 9 May 1941 allowed a Royal Navy boarding party to recover a Kriegsmarine Enigma machine plus signal logs and codebooks from the damaged U-boat before it sank.
That seizure enabled the Allies to read German naval Enigma traffic (“Ultra”)—especially the short-signal and weather short-code systems used by U-boats—at a time when cryptanalytic success depended heavily on captured keying material.
How that influenced U.S. war materiel reaching the Soviet Union
1) It improved convoy survivability when the Naval Enigma was readable
When the Allies could read U-boat-related naval Enigma, they could route convoys around wolfpacks, prioritize escort forces, and cue reconnaissance—reducing sinkings and preserving tonnage.
This effect was most direct for shipments exposed to German submarines, such as the North Atlantic traffic and the Arctic convoys to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.
Early Arctic convoy results were comparatively good. The Imperial War Museums notes that the first PQ convoys (PQ 1–10) “ran smoothly,” with only one ship lost early on. Similarly, the NAVY summarizes very low early losses through early 1942.
It would be an overclaim to attribute those outcomes solely to U-110/Ultra (weather, German force allocation, escorts, air cover, and operational choices also mattered), but U-110’s haul was one of the key enablers that made actionable routing intelligence feasible at all in 1941. “Immense pains were taken to ensure that the prisoners saw no evidence of a "pinch":
Thanks to this precaution, radio security and the disappearance of U110 at high sea left Dönitz and his staff, in fact, with no suspicion of what had happened.
The benefit was interrupted right when Arctic losses worsened.
On 1 February 1942, German U-boats introduced the 4rotor naval Enigma (M4) for key U-boat networks (“Shark/Triton”), leaving Bletchley Park effectively blind to that traffic for months.
This blackout coincided with the period when Arctic convoys began facing much heavier, better-coordinated German opposition, culminating in disasters like PQ-17 (July 1942).
On March 11, 1941, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act. The law authorized the President to provide assistance to any country the President deemed vital to the interests of the United States. To administer the act, the Division of Defense Aid Reports was established within the Office for Emergency Management in May 1941. Initially, most Lend-Lease aid went to Great
Britain. Shortly after Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized extending Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
On total U.S. Lend-Lease volume, the effect was indirect and bounded
A large share of U.S. aid to the USSR moved via routes less exposed to U-boats than the North Atlantic/Barents Sea:
40 eastbound convoys to northern Russia, mainly Murmansk/Kola Inlet and Arkhangelsk/Archangel. 37 westbound return convoys from northern Russia. A total of 78 convoys operated within the Arctic convoy system, including the overall to-and-from campaign.
For the outbound Arctic Convoys (PQ/JW) to Murmansk, Kola Inlet, and Arkhangelsk, the commonly cited total is 720 merchant vessels that successfully reached Soviet ports (i.e., made it to port as “arrivals"). Additionally, some records mention 5 merchant ships that arrived but were later lost in the Kola Inlet or port area—so 725 ships reached Soviet waters or the destination area, but only 720 are counted as “reached port safely" (Warfare History Network).
Landed tonnage (all Arctic convoys combined): Institutional total used by the UK Royal Navy: approximately 4 million tons of supplies delivered to the Soviet war effort via the Arctic convoys (1941– 1945). (Royal Navy)
What the USSR received under U.S. Lend-Lease (by major category)
Combat matériel (finished weapons and ammunition) a) Aircraft: 13,300 airplanes.
- Tanks: 6,800 tanks.
- Explosives: 312,000 tons (mainly TNT)
- Artillery/AFVs and small arms (selected items):
1,800 self-propelled guns; 8,300 “other guns” (including AA); plus large quantities of small arms. (GovInfo)
Mobility (the category that most directly affects “usable against the German Army” day-to-day)
Motor vehicles: 406,000 motor vehicles.
Operational impact:
“These vehicles on some fronts carried more than half the supplies moving up to the Soviet troops.” (GovInfo)
This is the logistics-to-firepower conversion: trucks move ammunition, fuel, bridging gear, rations, spare parts, medical supplies, and artillery towing. If you want “what was usable against the German Army,” vehicles are often the highest-leverage category because they increase tempo, sustainment, and operational reach. The source itself ties vehicles to the Red Army’s long advance from Stalingrad through Poland to Berlin.
Rail transportation (strategic sustainment across vast distances)
- 1,500 locomotives.
- 9,800 flat cars; 1,000 dump cars; 100 tank cars.
- 540,000 tons of railroad rails; 116,000 tons of wheels and axles. (GovInfo)
How this translated to fighting power
Rail is the backbone for moving mass on the Eastern Front: fuel, ammunition, replacement formations, heavy equipment, and reconstruction materials. The report explicitly ties these rail deliveries to restoring transport capacity across areas devastated by
German operations. (GovInfo)
Communications (command and control at scale) a) 397,000 field telephones.
b) More than 1,050,000 miles of field telephone cable
How this translated to fighting power? It enabled sustained, wired comms for artillery control, logistics coordination, and operational command across extended supply lines (the report explicitly frames it that way). (GovInfo)
If one compares the numbers of transferred good through the different routes the reason for AH original strategic attack directions become more clear
