DURING the past year the combat operations of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet
have been concerned primarily with antisubmarine activities, in coordina-
tion with the sea frontier commands. Escort systems in certain trans-
Atlantic convoy routes are also the responsibility of the Commander in Chief, U.S.
Atlantic Fleet. As was announced in the monthly statements of the President and the
Prime Minister, the antisubmarine war has been on a fairly low scale during the past
year. The German submarine force apparently has been engaged in "licking its
wounds" after the rough handling it received in 1943. Its operations were badly
interfered with by the invasion of the Continent in June, which knocked out the many
u-boat bases on the French coast and forced the Germans to use bases less conveni-
ently located in Norway and the Baltic. It is assumed that the long period of relative
quiescence has been employed for building more effective types of submarines. The
possibility of a renewed outbreak of submarine activity must, therefore, be guarded
against. The remarks in my previous report as to the necessity for complete secrecy
concerning our antisubmarine methods still hold. I consider it of the greatest impor-
tance that the material and technique we have developed for dealing with the sub-
marine menace be kept to ourselves until the conclusion of the war, to the end that the
Japanese may not be able to apply our antisubmarine methods against our submarines
operating in the Pacific.

An important duty of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet has been the maintenance of what
might be called a general reserve of battleships, cruisers and other ships needed to
make up a balanced task force. While possibility of a breakout of what was left of
the German surface fleet remained, this force was held in readiness to deal with
surface raids on Atlantic commerce. From time to time, particularly during the land-
ings in northern and southern France, these ships were assigned first to the invasion
of Normandy and then to the Eighth Fleet for the invasion of southern France. With
the successful accomplishment of these operations, the need for heavy surface ships in
the Atlantic area was reduced, and a large part of this general reserve has been
shifted to the Pacific Fleet.

One of the little publicized but valuable tasks of the Atlantic Fleet has been to
train for service elsewhere the large number of ships and landing craft built on the
Atlantic coast. This has enabled the best use to be made of the facilities on the east
coast, and has prevented overcrowding of the congested harbors on the Pacific coast.

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