Relevant to WWII, oil tanker losses by the US alone were staggering. "A total of 129 tankers were lost in American waters in the first five months of 1942." (<https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/operation-drumbeat...>).
A consequence was the US government building the first long-distance oil pipelines, the "Big Inch" and "Little Big Inch" pipelines from east Texas to refineries on the Atlantic seaboard in New Jersey. They remain in use.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Inch>
I've also realised that both whales and large-scale commercial shipping rely on similar circumstances: the ability to on- and off-board cargo (or food) rapidly, widely-separated ports (or feeding grounds), and no significant predators (or war / piracy hazards). Whales are a remarkably recent evolutionary development, with the large great whales dating back only about 5 million years. Similarly, bulk shipping required not only global markets but cargos which could be handled in aggregate, whether liquids (as with petroleum), dry solids (mostly ores), or containerised miscellaneous cargo, the latter being premised on standardisation. Canals, safe shipping routes, and quayside cargo handling capacity were also prerequisites.
Then read The Last Stand of The Tin Can Sailors by the same author. Because it's an amazing book about some astonishing bravery in the face of overwhelming odds.
I once scuba dived on SS Thistlegorm, which was sunk by German aircraft while waiting to enter the Suez canal. It was quite eerie to see the trains and other vehicles still onboard.
Why? Because it was before the nuclear bomb and all the other desasters that followed which actually permanently raised our background radiation levels. And because these ships were and still are underwater, they have been largely unaffected by this.
It might not seem much but apparently the radiation difference is enough, so for things that go into your body (like after an operation) only this old steel is used.
Or so I was told by a friend working in medical.
Clicking through the years also shows very clearly the tides turning, the war contracting around the axis powers, and the amount of absolutely destruction.
Does anyone know to what degree modern ships tend to hug the coast on their trips? My understanding is that until relatively recently (maybe the last 500 years or so?) almost all sailing was coastal and it was mostly unheard of for anyone to venture out into open ocean. However, I don't know to what degree that's still the case. E.g. if a modern ship is traveling from from somewhere in Asia or Europe to South Africa do they plot a relatively direct route or do they tend to hug the coast?
> There is a clear inflection point around March 1943: From this point onward, the Allied forces sank more ships every month than they lost.
Any idea what what happened early 1943? Was there a specific event that changed the direction, or is the balance point of slow attrition?
I feel like we're 'sleepwalking towards war' today with China over Taiwan (many top military brass have said they expect a war later this decade), and to be brutally frank, it's kind of insane to me that the powers that be have decided a mountainous island and some computer chips are worth the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands or even millions of human lives. I hope sanity prevails.
https://www.facebook.com/p/Eastern-Search-Survey-10006355294...
ESS has mapped and imaged many ships off the eastern seaboard, some sunk by U-boats during WW1 and WW2. The images and data collected are excellent.
The FDR administration lied about it then, and I see from the map in the article that they have never corrected those lies.
But bored sailors will do anything, and what they did was fire upon a small plane (missing it). Which turned and strafed them, sinking their little boat and leaving my uncle with shrapnel in his butt for the rest of his life.
His tiny experience in a vast planet-wide panorama of violence. This mapping project is a heroic undertaking! My hat is off to the people involved.