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Music Hello everyone and welcome to history of the Second World War,

Episode 162, the early naval war part 12, the 1940 C change.

This week, a big thank you goes out to Trevor, Ellen, and Doug for choosing to support

the podcast by becoming members. You can find out more over at History of the Second

World War.com slash members. Last episode touched on some of the disappointing results of the

U-boat campaigns during the last months of 1939, with those disappointments

being almost entirely attributable to the fact that the Kriegs Marine was having a lot of

challenges keeping enough U-boats at sea and actively hunting for merchant shipping.

From London, the situation looked very different, though, especially for the more optimistic

British leaders, including

those at the Admiralty. By the end of 1939, the British clearly knew that the U-boat

attacks had not had the huge effect that they had at the height of the First World War.

And they also knew that after the huge numbers of September, the overall rate of attacks had

decreased in the last months of the year.

But they also had to contend with the fact that they did not know exactly how many U-boats

...