Editing Battle of the Atlantic (section)

==Escort groups (March–May 1941)==
[[File:The battle of the Atlantic 1941 map.svg|thumb|Losses of merchant ships (blue) and U-boats (red) in 1941]]
The disastrous convoy battles of October 1940 forced a change in British tactics. The most important of these was the introduction of permanent escort groups to improve the coordination and effectiveness of ships and men in battle. British efforts were helped by a gradual increase in the number of escort vessels available as the old [[Town-class destroyer|ex-American destroyers]] and the new British- and Canadian-built {{sclass2|Flower|corvette|1}}s were now coming into service in numbers. Many of these ships became part of the huge expansion of the Royal Canadian Navy, which grew from a handful of destroyers at the outbreak of war to take an increasing share of convoy escort duty. Others of the new ships were crewed by Free French, Norwegian and Dutch, but these were a tiny minority of the total number, and directly under British command. By 1941 American public opinion had begun to swing against Germany, but the war was still essentially Great Britain and the Empire against Germany.

Initially, the new escort groups consisted of two or three destroyers and half a dozen corvettes. Since two or three of the group would usually be in dock repairing weather or battle damage, the groups typically sailed with about six ships. The training of the escorts also improved as the realities of the battle became obvious. A new base was set up at [[Tobermory, Mull|Tobermory]] in the [[Hebrides]] to prepare the new escort ships and their crews for the demands of battle under the strict regime of Vice-Admiral [[Gilbert O. Stephenson]].{{sfn|Roskill|1957|pp=358–359}}

In February 1941, the Admiralty moved the headquarters of Western Approaches Command from [[Plymouth]] to [[Liverpool]], where much closer contact with, and control of, the Atlantic convoys was possible. Greater cooperation with supporting aircraft was also achieved. In April, the Admiralty took over operational control of Coastal Command aircraft. Tactically, new short-wave radar sets that could detect surfaced U-boats and were suitable for both small ships and aircraft began to arrive during 1941.

The impact of these changes first began to be felt in the battles in early 1941. In early March, Prien in ''U-47'' failed to return from patrol. Two weeks later, in the battle of [[Convoy HX 112]], the newly formed 3rd Escort Group of four destroyers and two corvettes held off the U-boat pack. ''U-100'' was detected by the primitive radar on the destroyer {{HMS|Vanoc|H33|6}}, rammed and sunk. Shortly afterwards ''U-99'' was also caught and sunk, its crew captured. Dönitz had lost his three leading aces: Kretschmer, Prien, and Schepke.

Dönitz now moved his wolf packs further west, in order to catch the convoys before the anti-submarine escort joined. This new strategy was rewarded at the beginning of April when the pack found [[Convoy SC 26]] before its anti-submarine escort had joined. Ten ships were sunk, but another U-boat was lost.