Merchant shipping carries over 80 percent of the world’s trade.[1] As such, the protection of a nation’s shipping, and the destruction of the enemy’s, remains a key naval strategy. Captain Donald Macintyre, a hero of the Battle of the Atlantic for the Royal Navy during World War II, explained that “[t]he task of any navy in war has been accurately and simply described as to enable its country to use ships where and when she wants to and to prevent an enemy from using ships where and when he wants to.”[2]
While anti-submarine warfare was central to the Allied victory in the World Wars, the overall importance of the Battle of the Atlantic stands overlooked. Concerned that small submersibles operating in the Atlantic would isolate Britain from the rest of the free world, Sir Winston Churchill explained, “dominating all our power to carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive, lay our mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports. … The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.”[3] Later, the Tanker War of the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 1980s was fought in the age of the cruise missile and tactical data link. The Navy’s operations in the Arabian Gulf during the Tanker War represent its longest combat commitment since the Vietnam War, and the protection of merchant shipping in the contested sea space of the Gulf was the only completely maritime combat mission the Navy has fought since World War II. [4]
The fundamental lesson learned during World War II, and reinforced 40 years later in the Gulf, is that merchant protection will always be a critical mission for any navy in any era: the safe delivery of cargo often has national security implications. Additionally, two key principles from these experiences must be incorporated into planning and training. The first principle is that the geo-political aspects can become complicated before war is even declared. Second is that convoy escort is the critical factor for shipping protection.
Geopolitics and Legality
The American convoy battles during World War II began on precarious legal and political footing. Restrictions in the Neutrality Act meant “the United States was precluded from providing aid to any of the belligerents, even if they paid cash on the barrelhead.”[5] Through deft political maneuvering, President Roosevelt was able to aid the Allies while expanding the U.S. “security zone” in which the Navy would patrol for U-boats, warning the British of the enemy’s presence.[6] By the fall of 1941, the Navy, providing armed convoy escort to Iceland, found itself in an undeclared war against the German U-boats.[7] The addition of the Navy’s destroyers “put American ‘tin cans’ right on the front lines against the Atlantic engagement; the U.S., if not at war, had joined the battle for the civilized world.”[8]
While President Roosevelt had “rattlesnakes of the Atlantic”[9] to declare as a threat to global peace, leaders in the Gulf during 1987–88 had to contend with a more nuanced situation. The conflict began in 1980 when Iraq invaded Iran, and more than five years into the war both sides began attacking shipping “to hinder the commercial traffic, mostly oil shipments, of the enemy.”[10] During 1987, the peak year of belligerent attacks on merchant vessels in the Gulf, 181 ships were attacked.[11] In May 1987, the USS Stark (FFG-31) sailed into the combat zone and was hit by an Iraqi missile. Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger commented that at the time, the United States was “not at war, but certainly not at peace either.”[12] This calls to mind the dynamic of operations in a war zone during a time of neutrality, similar to what took place in the Atlantic before America’s official entry into World War II.
Shipping Protection
Convoy escort is the fundamental requirement to protecting seaborne logistics. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British parliament passed an act “giving the Admiralty power to enforce the convoy system for all ocean-going merchant ships.”[13] The British forgot the importance of convoying and initially executed a different system during World War I to address the U-boat menace. Ships patrolled a specific geographic area and “would cover an assigned square of ocean thirty miles on a side, which meant that lookouts were hoping to discover an object a couple of hundred feet long, lying close to the surface, somewhere in nine hundred square miles of sea.”[14] After convoys were instituted, losses dropped from one ship every two days during the spring of 1917 to one every fourteen days about a year later.[15]
In World War II, it was the U.S. Navy’s turn to be humbled. U-boats presided over a slaughter during the first half of 1942 in Operation Paukenschlag (Drumbeat). Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander-In-Chief, U.S. Fleet, “refused to institute convoys” and “kept merchant ships sailing independently, without guard, rather than imposing convoy.”[16] During seven months of operations along the U.S. East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, U-boats sank 285 ships, accounting for about 1.5 million tons of shipping.[17]Admiral King eventually instituted the Bucket Brigade, which by August 1942 was “a complete interlocking convoy system between Guantanamo, Cuba, and Key West, Florida, and New York.”[18] Looking back on the fight, King commented that “escort is not just one way of handling the submarine menace, it is the only way.”[19]
While Royal and U.S. Navies were able to utilize the convoy system to achieve victory over the U-boat threat, an initial hurdle to victory was sheer numbers. The number of Royal Navy destroyers had been reduced by over 200 ships since the end of World War I, and “even when rearmament began, destroyers were low on the list of new vessels, partly because the Admiralty preferred to put what funds it had into larger ships.”[20] Part of the solution was a deal negotiated by President Roosevelt to deliver four stacker World War I-era destroyers to the Royal Navy. The corvette was another way to meet demand, and were the ultimate stopgap that Prime Minister Winston Churchill called “cheap and nasties.”[21] While small and slow, the “[s]tubby, blunt corvettes probably did more chasing, dogging, penning, cornering, bombing down of U-boats across the sea than any other class of ship in the king’s lineup.”[22]
By 1943, the number of escort ships had been increased by two escorts per convoy, from an average of 5.5 to 7.5.[23] Just as important, the increased escort numbers allowed for the formation of support groups, “which could be sent to reinforce the regular escorts when a convoy was threatened or was passing through a concentration of U-boats.”[24] The effect of a robust, highly trained convoy system is clear: In 1942, the Allies suffered 1,006 merchant losses, totaling 5,471,222 tons of shipping, to the destruction of only 35 U-boats.[25] In 1943, at the height of the campaign, merchant ship losses decreased to 285 ships, totaling only 1,659,601 tons. Meanwhile, the Allies inflicted a devastating 150 U-boat losses on the Germans.[26]
Forty years later in the Gulf, the United States Navy employed its World War II convoy escort skills. In 1987, the United States undertook the convoy escort mission, dubbed Operation Earnest Will (OEW). A number of factors led to the Navy’s deployment to the Gulf, such as “concern over a Soviet opening in the Gulf” (Kuwait had been courting the Soviet Union to provide protection for their tankers) and “rebuilding U.S. credibility and propping up Kuwait in the face of Iranian intimidation.”[27]
The first convoy began on July 22, 1987, with an escort group composed of a cruiser (USS Fox [CG-33]), destroyer (USS Kidd [DDG-993]), and frigate (USS Crommelin [FFG-37]), protecting the merchants Bridgeton (Al Rekkah) and Gas Prince from the Gulf of Oman, via the Strait of Hormuz, to Kuwait.[28] Several months into the campaign, 10 convoys had proceeded through the Gulf; this success continued through the end of OEW, with Bridgeton—having struck a mine—
the only ship to suffer damage.[29] The Navy ultimately carried out 136 convoys, shepherding 270 ships through the Gulf in 1987–88.[30] Historian Craig L. Symonds observes, “what was important in all this was the nation’s initial decision to accept responsibility for the control and direction of Gulf traffic.”[31] Deterrence alone was a significant factor in the success of OEW.
Dedicated Escort Vessels and Crews
The Navy’s experience in OEW illustrates that convoy presence alone greatly promotes the safety of merchant vessels. When vessels are safe, commerce continues and war materiel and personnel are delivered to the battle zone. While this may be a comforting thought, however, the Navy cannot rely simply on deterrence and bluff alone.
Pure numbers will always play an important role in convoy battles. Consider that the first convoy in OEW involved a cruiser, a destroyer, and a frigate. Two of the three vessel types on that escort mission are now considered major combatants in the post-battleship and heavy-cruiser era. With these platforms otherwise engaged, what will become of the escort mission? A small, capable escort ship, similar to the corvette, and strictly devoted to convoy, needs to be developed. The relatively larger numbers of corvette-type ships can provide the dedicated escort, and support group functions, that achieved success in World War II.
The next obvious question is what design will this class of ship be? A thorough discussion of the littoral combat ship (LCS) is beyond the scope of this article. However, there are enough issues in the LCS program that it is unlikely to become the escort needed, at least any time in the near future.[32] While the Navy’s future frigate program could prove to be a success, its planned employment appears to focus on supporting strike groups, with convoy protection as a secondary role.[33]
Success will most likely be found by having a small, corvette-type ship based off an existing, easy-to-reproduce design. It will require a gun that has actual stopping power (5 inch or 76 mm) with a focus on anti-submarine rockets and surface-to-air missiles instead of over-the-horizon strike weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are better left for larger combatants. The missiles could be placed aft in 61-cell vertical launch systems, similar to a World War II escort’s array of depth charges on the fantail, where they can provide an umbrella over a convoy during an anti-ship cruise missile environment, or ASROCs for submarine threats.
Finally, the crews need to be trained in the dedicated mission area of escort. Warfare specialization, such as was instituted by the Royal Navy, will allow sailors to focus on doctrine development and team-building exercises with their squadron so that individual escort elements all know their roles. Fertile ground for these groups could be found in the reserve component: reservists would supplement a cadre of active-duty crew and could spend their two weeks of annual active time underway.
Conclusion
To ignore the convoy escort mission as a critical piece of war planning is to ignore the lessons learned from history. The U.S. economy, and the economies of U.S. allies, must continue during a time of war. People will need to eat, raw materials will need to be delivered for industry, and logistics will need to travel safely to their destinations. The ground forces and land-based aviation assets required to carry out a protracted campaign will also need safe passage. To achieve these goals, the Navy should bear in mind the lessons of the past. First, the service may find itself in a complicated political situation before hostilities even officially start for the United States. Second, well-trained convoy escort groups in sufficient numbers are the only way to achieve success in convoy battles. It is the Navy’s job, and solely the Navy’s, to ensure these lessons are not forgotten.
John Berosky is a former Surface Warfare Officer and current active duty Judge Advocate who has had a lifetime passion for naval history. He thanks his wife Katelin for inspiring him to write this.
Endnotes
[1] “Introduction to IMO,” International Maritime Organization, www.imo.org/en/About/Pages/Default.aspx.
[2] Donald Macintyre, The Battle of the Atlantic (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England: Pen and Sword Books Ltd, 2006), 11.
[3] Macintyre, The Battle of the Atlantic, 12.
[4] Compare chronologies for Earnest Will with Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Richard A. Mobley’s, “Fighting Iran: Intelligence Support During Operation Earnest Will, 1987–88,” Studies in Intelligence 60, no. 3 (2016): 3, June 2, 2018, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi- studies/studies/vol-60-no-3/mobley-fighting-iran.html; “U.S. Navy in Desert Shield/Desert Storm: Appendix A: Chronology” Naval History and Heritage Command, www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/us-navy-in-desert- shield-desert-storm/august-1990.html.
[5] Jean Edward Smith, FDR (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008), 436.
[6] Smith, FDR, 490–491.
[7] Smith, FDR, 502.
[8] David Fairbank White, Bitter Ocean: The Battle of the Atlantic 1939–1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2007), 132–133.
[9] Richard Snow, A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Battle of World War II (New York: Scribner, 2010), 136.
[10] Lee Allen Zatarain, America’s First Clash With Iran: The Tanker War, 1987–88 (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2013), 1; and Harold Lee Wise, Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf, 1987–1988 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 7.
[11] Ronald O’Rourke, “Gulf Ops,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings 115, no. 5/1,035 (May 1989): 43 (Table 1), www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1989-05/gulf-ops.
[12] Wise, Inside the Danger Zone, xii.
[13] Macintyre, The Battle of the Atlantic, 14.
[14] Snow, A Measureless Peril, 131.
[15] Snow, A Measureless Peril, 132.
[16] White, Bitter Ocean, 149.
[17] White, Bitter Ocean, 150.
[18] White, Bitter Ocean, 150.
[19] Bowling, “Escort-of-Convoy,” 56.
[20] Snow, A Measureless Peril, 88.
[21] White, Bitter Ocean, 96.
[22] White, Bitter Ocean, 96.
[23] Macintyre, The Battle of the Atlantic, 150.
[24] Macintyre, The Battle of the Atlantic, 150.
[25] Ibid., Appendix A, 291–292.
[26] Ibid., Appendix A, 292–293.
[27] Zatarain, America’s First Clash With Iran, 56.
[28] Symonds, Decision at Sea, 248–249.
[29] O’Rourke, “Gulf Ops,” 49.
[30] Symonds, Decision at Sea, 252.
[31] Symonds, Decision at Sea, 252.
[32] Jared Keller, “The Navy Basically Just Admitted That The Littoral Combat Ship Is A Floating Garbage Pile,” https://taskandpurpose.com/navy-littoral-combat-ship-problems.
[33] United States Navy, “RFI:FFG(X)- US Navy Guided Missile Frigate Replacement Program, posted July 10, 2017, www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cdf24447b8015337e910d330a87518c6&tab=core&tab mode=list&print_preview=1.
