Background
As western Atlantic coastal convoys brought an end to the second happy time, Befehlshaber der U-Boote (BdU) shifted focus to the mid-Atlantic to avoid aircraft patrols. Although convoy routing was less predictable in the mid-ocean, BdU anticipated the increased numbers of U-boats being produced would be able to effectively search with the advantage of intelligence gained through B-Dienst decryption of British Naval Cypher Number 3. Only 20 percent of the 180 trans-Atlantic convoys sailing from the end of July 1942 until the end of April 1943, lost ships to U-boat attack. On 2 February U-456 sank three ships from convoy HX 224. A survivor of one of the sunken ships was picked up by U-632 and told his rescuers a slower convoy was following behind HX-224.
Read more about this topic: Convoy SC 118
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