The convoy HG-76 sailed from Gibraltar to Britain in December 1941. The Royal Navy commander in charge was 'Johnnie' Walker, an anti-submarine expert who had developed new, aggressive U-boat hunting tactics. Accompanying the escorts was HMS Audacity, the Royal Navy's first escort carrier - a new type of warship purpose-built to defend convoys from enemy aircraft and U-boats.
Aware of the departure of HG-76, a wolfpack of U-boats was sent against it, and the Luftwaffe was heavily committed to, in a rare example of German inter-service cooperation. German intelligence agents in Gibraltar and Spain also knew every detail of HG-76 before it sailed, seemingly stacking the odds in favour of the Kriegsmarine.
Joining me on this episode is Angus Konstam.
Angus is a naval historian and author of The Convoy: HG-76: Taking the Fight to Hitler's U-boats
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30 - Lucky 666: The Impossible Mission
29 - Selling Hitler
28 - Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina
27 - Anthropoid: Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
26 - Operation Agreement
25 - MacArthur
24 - Stug Revisited and the Plasch Palatka
23 - Military Internees and the Irish Free State
22 - 1941: Fighting the Shadow War
21 - WWII Tank Hunting
20 - The Castaway’s War
19 - The Winter Fortress
18 - The Nazi Hunters
17 - Shooting Up: Drug use in WWII
16 - The De Havilland Mosquito
15 - The British Resistance: Auxiliary Units
14 - The Java Sea Campaign
13 - Gliders
12 - Assault Gun: The German StuG
11 - The Forgotten Victor: Richard O'Connor
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