Major Naval blunders of WW2; kept secret

[Bgile]

Happy New Year to Gary, and everyone else!

[lwd]

.... The Germans were close to a victory in several episodes of the war and the allied powers were definetely worried about that.

There are two matters here.
1) There were times when the allies were definitely worried but the situation wasn't nearly as bad as they thought it was. The BOB for instance is one of those.
2) The other is what is meant by "close". I don't see that the British were ever at the point where they were saying if things don't change we'll have to give up in the next week or the next month or the next several months. If those don't apply then I don't consider it close.

[RF]

The other is what is meant by "close". I don't see that the British were ever at the point where they were saying if things don't change we'll have to give up in the next week or the next month or the next several months.

The only time it happened was in the first four weeks of Churchill's premiership - and the culprits were Chamberlain and Halifax, who wanted to intercede with Mussolini to stop the war, at the time it was thought that the BEF bottled up at Dunkirk would not be able to escape, leaving Britain with no Army. Once Operation Dynamo succeeded Churchill was in undisputed charge.