played a decisive role in scattering a wolfpack. This led Walker to formally advise that aircraft were ‘absolutely invaluable’ to the protection of convoys. Following Walker’s report, the Admiralty repeatedly requested an allocation of bombers to provide air support (at one point the First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound requested 2,000 warplanes12). The Air Ministry repeatedly refused. In part, this was because Churchill had long asserted his belief that the only ‘sure path’ to victory lay in ‘an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers… on the Nazi homeland’.13 Knowing
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