23. Black May broke the back of the German U-boat fleet
May, 1943, was the month in which the Allied Navies effectively defeated the U-boat threat. At the end of April and through the first week of May, a slow convoy of 43 ships and seven escorts was attacked by more than 30 U-boats. The allies lost 13 ships to the U-boat attacks which continued for week, but most of the attacks were unsuccessful. The combination of aerial observation and attack, depth charges, hedgehogs, and surface gunfire proved deadly for the Germans. The 13 ships sunk (63,000 tons) cost Doenitz 6 U-boats, with another 7 returned to port too damaged to rejoin the fight for some time.
During the month of May, in all actions, 43 U-boats were destroyed, 34 of them in the Atlantic. The same number of Allied ships were lost in the Atlantic, 34 ships. It was a loss of 135,000 tons, but it cost the Germans a full quarter of the available U-boat fleet. Doenitz withdrew his remaining boats from the North Atlantic, accepting defeat. German U-boat activity continued through the remainder of the war, but the concerted effort to defeat Great Britain by choking off its supplies was over. The Allies did not yet know it, but they had won the Battle of the Atlantic.
