The plan was simple, and proven. Since the beginning of the war, merchant ships had been ferrying food, fuel and supplies into Britain, an island nation that, without these imports, would go hungry. Sailors knew from the experience of the First World War that the safest way to cross the Atlantic Ocean was to move in convoys, finding safety in numbers. The Royal Navy sent warships to protect them. The ‘escorts’, as these ships were known, carried nothing but men and weapons. They encircled the convoy as it plodded its heavy-laden course, and, like sheepdogs facing down wolves threatening a
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