The Battle of the Atlantic ran from 1939 to 1945 — the longest continuous military campaign of the Second World War. Gibraltar's role was not peripheral: the Rock controlled the strait through which every Allied convoy entering the Mediterranean had to pass, and German U-boats operating from French Atlantic ports made that passage lethal. Over 3,500 Allied merchant and naval vessels were lost across the campaign's six years.
The title quotation draws from a Canadian poem by John McCrae's contemporary Wilfrid Campbell, though its specific attribution in this series has been contested by collectors since issue.
The Battle of the Atlantic ran from 1939 to 1945 — the longest continuous military campaign of the Second World War. Gibraltar's role was not peripheral: the Rock controlled the strait through which every Allied convoy entering the Mediterranean had to pass, and German U-boats operating from French Atlantic ports made that passage lethal. Over 3,500 Allied merchant and naval vessels were lost across the campaign's six years.
The title quotation draws from a Canadian poem by John McCrae's contemporary Wilfrid Campbell, though its specific attribution in this series has been contested by collectors since issue.