ABSTRACT
The German admiralty did not begin serious planning for a naval war against Britain until the winter of 1938 when, in a series of war games, it was revealed that there were too few U-boats for an effective submarine offensive. Admiral Dönitz's proposals for a large increase in the number of U-boats were rejected by Admiral Raeder, the Commander-in-Chief of the German navy. For the first four months of 1941 Germany's synthetic oil plants were designated the primary target. This had been singled out as the weakest point of the German war economy, and Portal promised that 855 sorties per month for four months would result in the destruction of the seventeen major synthetic oil plants. Bomber Command's first major raid under Harris's command was against Lübeck on 28-29 March. The most successful raid of all was against the Renault works at Billancourt, outside Paris, on the night of 3-4 March.
