A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II

by Simon Parkin

boat’s last known position at its centre. As the weather worked against the convoy, so too it worked against the U-boats. Despite Gretton’s fear that the convoy was currently surrounded by a flock of attackers, only four of Starling’s U-boats had managed to rally to U-650. It was enough to unsettle Gretton. That evening, he listened in dismay as each member of the wolfpack made its evening report to BdU. The sound on the huff-duff was, as one report put it, like ‘a chattering of magpies’. Darkness fell and with it the likelihood of an attack rose. The air escort that ONS.5 had enjoyed from 24th April had been discontinued at midnight on the 27th, since, up until that point, there had been no Admiralty reports of U-boats in the vicinity. For now, Gretton and his handful of escort ships would face the U-boats alone.