With the fall of France in 1940, Germany suddenly had the opportunity to strike at poorly guarded Allied
convoys. The Luftwaffe pressed into service the Fw-200 Condor, a plane that had originally been designed
as a civilian airliner and the first plane to fly non-stop from Berlin to New York in 1938. After various
modifications, the Fw-200 became the Luftwaffe's long-range maritime patrol and strike bomber. It was
devastatingly effective; a single attack by five Condors on a convoy in February 1941 resulted in the sinking
and damaging of 11 ships. Furthermore, the Condors passed on convoy sightings to the U-boats with
devastating effect.

By the summer of 1941, the threat posed by the Condor was so great that Winston Churchill dubbed them
"the scourge of the Atlantic." Losses to Condor attacks resulted in various crash efforts to find a solution to
the predator. One solution was the Hurricate, a modified Hurricane that was launched by catapult from a
converted merchant ship. But a more robust solution was required. This was delivered with the creation
of the escort carrier to provide continuous air cover over a threatened convoy. By 1941 the duel for
supremacy over the Atlantic began to turn in favor of the Allies and was furthered by the entry of the US into
the war. The Germans made a last ditch attempt to turn the tide by equipping Condors with anti-shipping
missiles, better defensive armament and airborne radar. But their numbers were too few to combat the
ever-increasing might of the Allies.

This volume highlights a classic duel between opposing tactics, doctrine and technology, with the Germans
attempting to field an airborne weapon that could intercept the Atlantic convoys, while the Allies attempted
to provide an effective defense umbrella over the ships carrying vital war-time supplies.

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