The painting is called “Sub at Sea” by Adolf Bock. It is a u-boat in the Atlantic in WWII. U-boats like this one sank 175 warships and 2,825 merchant ships in the Battle of the Atlantic. The most successful u-boat commander was Otto Kretschmer who sank 47 ships in 15 patrols before being captured. For a while, it looked like the u-boats, operating in their famous wolf packs, might knock Great Britain out of the war. However, the Allies developed countermeasures that made it likely that this sub was eventually sunk.
“Sub at Sea” by Adolf Bock – Library of Congress
Sonar could locate submerged subs. HUFF-DUFF (high frequency directional finding) picked up u-boat transmissions. Long-range aircraft made it dangerous to travel on the surface. Subs needed to travel on the surface to recharge batteries, get fresh air, and because it was faster. Escort carriers accompanying convoys could keep the subs submerged thus slowing them down. But most importantly, a German Enigma machine was captured on a sub before it was scuttled (the movie “U-571” Hollywoodizes this, but it was the British that captured the sub) and the British broke the German naval code and could pinpoint the wolf packs and reroute convoys (see the movie “The Imitation Game”). Being in the u-boat service was glamorous and voluntary and the men were treated very well ashore, but it had a very high mortality rate (see the excellent “Das Boot”). 781 u-boats rest on the bottom of the Atlantic with their crews.
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