It would be just as vital for Britain’s survival as a free nation as the Battle of Britain. Aircraft had a crucial part to play if the struggle was to be won. Unlike their counterparts in Fighter Command, Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm went into the contest woefully equipped, and although a procurement programme promised better days to come, it would be some time before they arrived. Coastal Command’s duties, as laid out in 1937, were ‘trade protection, reconnaissance and co-operation with the Royal Navy’. Of these, ‘trade protection’ would be the most important. The innocuous phrase disguised the enormity of what was at stake. ‘Dominating all our power to carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive, lay our mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports,’ observed Winston Churchill.1 What that meant was that unless Britain could keep the sea lanes to the Americas open, the war machine would sputter to a halt for lack of fuel and the population would start to starve.
