Air Power and the Battle of the Atlantic: Very Long Range Aircraft and the Delay in Closing the Atlantic ’Air Gap’

The prioritization of strategic bombing over trade defense by the British Air Ministry, Bomber Command, and Winston Churchill did not delay the acquisition of Very Long Range aircraft to close the Atlantic “air gap” until May 1943. The Royal Air Force’s Coastal Command possessed enough aircraft to provide air cover in the mid-Atlantic sooner than it did. The Admiralty and Coastal Command were slow to identify the need for land-based air cover in the mid-Atlantic because the U-boat threat did not develop there until mid-1942, because they expected escort carriers to provide a solution, and for technical and doctrinal reasons.