They Called It "Impossible" — Until His Weapon Sank 47 U-Boats
WW2 Dusty Archives
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Spring 1941. A Canadian scientist crashes Winston Churchill's lunch to demonstrate a weapon the British military had rejected three times over 30 years. Within three years, one American destroyer would use it to sink six Japanese submarines in twelve days—a record never matched in naval history.
This is the story of Charles Goodeve and the Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar. The weapon that transformed the Battle of the Atlantic from a losing fight into an Allied victory.
Before the Hedgehog, it took 60 depth charge attacks to sink a single U-boat. After Goodeve's invention, it took just 5 attacks. A tenfold improvement that saved thousands of merchant sailors and shortened the war by months.
The British Admiralty told him his idea was impossible. They said even "God Almighty Himself" couldn't get it approved. He built it anyway—and gave the Allies the deadliest submarine killer of World War II.
From a Manitoba prairie town to the depths of the Atlantic, this is how one stubborn chemist outfought both German U-boats and British bureaucracy.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING:
• "The Wheezers and Dodgers" by Gerald Pawle (firsthand account from Goodeve's department)
• Naval Museum of Manitoba - Sir Charles Goodeve archives
• USS England action reports (declassified)
• Imperial War Museum - Hedgehog weapon files
• Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge - Goodeve papers
20 Comments
And a pat on the back of Winston Churchill, well done skipping that lunch, but after all we was a naval officer, and not stupid…
During an exercise where we station kept with a sub for days we were using our lowest power ping. One midwatch our watch supervisor decided to try the Aspect mode. It changed to rapid short pings and a nice beam image of the sub developed on the paper recorder. It took about two minutes for the sub to raise its UHF radio mast and tell us to knock it off. It was cool to see, now we know what that setting does. It also proves that if a sailor doesn’t know what a switch or button does, they are likely to try it.
I maintained the ASROC launch computer. I put a sign on the computer - If you can’t fix it, don’t touch it.
Still, it's easy to criticise after the fact.
Who TF are they??
They Called It "Impossible" — Until His Weapon Sank 47 U-Boats
WW2 Dusty Archives
526,164 views
Spring 1941. A Canadian scientist crashes Winston Churchill's lunch to demonstrate a weapon the British military had rejected three times over 30 years. Within three years, one American destroyer would use it to sink six Japanese submarines in twelve days—a record never matched in naval history.
This is the story of Charles Goodeve and the Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar. The weapon that transformed the Battle of the Atlantic from a losing fight into an Allied victory.
Before the Hedgehog, it took 60 depth charge attacks to sink a single U-boat. After Goodeve's invention, it took just 5 attacks. A tenfold improvement that saved thousands of merchant sailors and shortened the war by months.
The British Admiralty told him his idea was impossible. They said even "God Almighty Himself" couldn't get it approved. He built it anyway—and gave the Allies the deadliest submarine killer of World War II.
From a Manitoba prairie town to the depths of the Atlantic, this is how one stubborn chemist outfought both German U-boats and British bureaucracy.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING:
• "The Wheezers and Dodgers" by Gerald Pawle (firsthand account from Goodeve's department)
• Naval Museum of Manitoba - Sir Charles Goodeve archives
• USS England action reports (declassified)
• Imperial War Museum - Hedgehog weapon files
• Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge - Goodeve papers
In those days pre computer, a computer was a job title for someone who did math for a project. It gives me a real kick that my little mom played a roll in ww2 american anti sub warfare