Tenth Fleet is Born

Tenth Fleet was a unique organization within the United States Navy; never before or since WW II did an organization like Tenth Fleet exist. Under the personal command of the Navy’s top sailor, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, this fleet, created expressly to fight the U-boats, never put to sea (it had no ships) and never had more than about 50 people in its organization, all of whom fought the U-boats with remarkable results from their desks in the old Navy Department building on Constitution Ave. in Washington DC. Tenth Fleet did not exist at the start of the war between Germany and the United States, and had its origins largely in the Allied disaster which took place off the east coast of the United States in 1942. In May of 1943, Tenth Fleet had control over all aspects of the US Navy’s battle against the U-boats in the Atlantic but by the end of June 1945 no longer existed.