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

by Simon Parkin

While it made sense that coordinated assaults would be more effective than lone-wolf attacks, there was an equally logical concern that the radio signals necessary to organise the U-boats into a pack could, if intercepted by British technology, forfeit any element of surprise and aid detection of the vessels by the enemy. Moreover, Grand Admiral Raeder, commander-in-chief of the German navy, wanted to invest in a surface fleet of warships to rival that of the Royal Navy, and diverted funds away from the U-boat construction plan toward surface vessels. Finally, Hermann Goering, Hitler’s closest ally and confidant, a former First World War fighter-pilot ace, favoured the Luftwaffe, not only because of personal bias but also because planes could be built more quickly than U-boats and, therefore, could be seen to be having a more immediate effect.