The previous Tenth Fleet was a special anti submarine organization formed during the Second World War to counter convoy and shipping losses from German U-boat wolf packs. During the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942 these amounted to more than half of all ships lost to the U-boats in the whole period of the war, most of which were sunk in the American defense zone. Tenth Fleet, with headquarters in Washington DC, was established under Commander in Chief United States Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King on 20 May 1943 to control United States antisubmarine operations in the Atlantic. Although the Tenth Fleet brought needed order to the American anti submarine effort, by this time Germany had lost the strategic initiative in the Battle of the Atlantic. Tenth Fleet was a unique organization within the United States Navy -- it never put to sea, it had no ships, and never had more than about 50 people in its organization. After the surrender of Germany in May 1945 Tenth Fleet was disbanded in June 1945.
The new 10th Fleet will have quite the historic legacy to live up to. Smart people are working the issue hard now.
2 comments:
Will they have the same mission at the WWII-era 10th Fleet: East Coast ASW operations? 10th Fleet operations in the early 1940's gave rise to one of my favorite maxims (I don't have a list like Maguire does).
Although Admiral Ernest King is not without controversy, as we tried to recover from Atlantic shipping losses, and faced with precious few resources, he said (or perhaps was inspired by TR):
"Do the best you can with what you have..." *(TR supposedly added "...where you are.." to that).'
Whoever said it: in my head it sticks as the fundamental answer to the 10th Fleet's response to a serious problem. And it also has broad applicability to life in general...
No, new mission is cyber warfare. Operating out of Virginia (Langley I think)
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