Battle for the Atlantic

First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff General Sir Gwyn Jenkins delivered a speech at Admiralty House, Department of Naval Research.

Thank you for joining us, and my thanks to the Department for Naval Research for organising today’s symposium.

As we gather here at Admiralty House, the importance of sea power will not be lost on any of you.   

 That is because our history has been shaped by the sea.   

 Because our prosperity, security and influence have for centuries depended on our ability to master it, protect what moves across it, and deny its advantages to those who threaten us.   

 That’s why my speech today is focused on the Atlantic.   

 Not simply as a vast body of water, or a theatre of past conflict, but as a foundation of Britain’s security. 

Eighty years ago, Britain and her allies fought the longest campaign of the Second World War at sea. 

It was fought by sailors, merchant seamen, aircrew, dockyard workers, engineers, scientists and codebreakers… 

 By men and women who kept Britain alive as Europe fell under Nazi occupation.   

Convoys crossed a hostile ocean in atrocious weather, under air attack and constant U-boat threat.

They carried the food, fuel, raw materials, weapons and reinforcements on which our national survival depended.

In 1941, Churchill named this struggle the Battle of the Atlantic.  

 It was the prospect of losing this Battle – not the Blitz, not the threat to the Empire in the East – that truly frightened him.   

As Churchill observed later in his memoirs, Britain’s ability to “carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive,” rested fundamentally “on our mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports.” 

Churchill attached such significance to the Atlantic because he understood something important. 

  The sea is not peripheral to Britain – it is existential. 

If those maritime arteries had been severed during the War…

Our life support would have been switched off.