Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War (61 page)

By mid-1943, an aircraft like this Vickers Wellington bomber had been transformed into an acoustical machine with enormous weaponry for the destruction of U-boats.

The sloop HMS
Mermaid,
which possessed all of its high-angle armament and detection equipment by 1944.

The Hedgehog, a 24-barreled mortar, was mounted on the forecastle of the British escort vessel HMS
Westcott.

USS
Bogue:
This cheaply produced warship provided additional air cover not only for the critical North Atlantic battles of 1943, but also for escorting the massive U.S. troop flows to North Africa and the Mediterranean. Many
Bogue
-class ships were transferred to the Royal Navy under the provisions of the Lend-Lease program.

Captain. F. J. Walker was the most successful anti–U-boat commander in the battle of the Atlantic, seen here directing a sister warship in its attack on a German submarine.

The Leigh Light, used for exposing U-boats on the water’s surface at night. Here it is fitted onto an RAF Coastal Command Liberator aircraft.

The role of long-range American, British, and Canadian patrol aircraft over the Atlantic waters was absolutely critical to the Allied victory in the West. Allied aircraft actually sank more U-boats than did warships. The PBY Catalina above is returning to its base in Gibraltar, crossing Europa Point on the north shore of Morrocco.

USS
Wasp
loading Spitfires in the Clyde, April 1942.

In April 1942 the U.S. Navy loaned their carrier, USS
Wasp,
to assist the British in their desperate need to fly Spitfires to the beleagured island of Malta. In early 1943, the British Admiralty loaned the new fast carrier HMS
Victorious
to Admiral Halsey’s Southwest Pacific Fleet as a partner to the USS
Saratoga.
At that time, the
Saratoga
was the only American carrier operating in the Pacific. This illustration shows the
Victorious
joining its American partner in Noumea Bay, New Caledonia, Southwest Pacific, May 1943.

USS
Essex
leaving Norfolk, Virginia, laden with aircraft for the Pacific War, May 1943.

HMS
Anson:
Another brand-new British battleship steams out to join the fray. By 1943, only the American and British Navies were launching heavy warships.

The spring thaw made the going tough for both sides on the Eastern front, in this case for a German motorcycle unit.