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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185 - Adrian Carton de Wiart
184 - My Road to Mandalay
183 - The Waffen-SS
182 - The British Parachute Regiment
181 - Britain's Coast at War
180 - US Navy Demolition Divers
179 - Bitter Peleliu
178 - Battles of Rzhev Salient
177 - Japan's Pacific War
176 - Colditz
175 - Dünkirchen, 1940
174 - The Pacific, August 1945
173 - The Maritime Struggle in the Mediterranean and Middle East
172 - The Battle of Stalingrad
171 - Tom, Dick and Harry
170 - The German Battle of the Bulge
169 - The U-Boat War
168 - Operation Foxley
167 - John Basilone
166 - Rodolfo Graziani
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