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First, I don't know why Allied land-based air cover from Greenland are missing from both maps?

As soon as USA warplanes combat patrolled from Greenland, why didn't merchant ships sail such route as my green line? Why not turn north, follow the coast off modern Labrador, turn east across Labrador Sea, pass the southernmost tip of Greenland, before entering the limit of land-based air cover from Iceland? Then combat patrols from Greenland can protect these merchants! Why sail so south, into the Black Pit without air cover?

I know, my green route uses more fuel, and takes longer. And the more north, the more ice, and the slower shipping speeds. But better slow than sunk? Also, more ice can hinder German U-boats from attacking!

bibliography - Top map is on page 237. Bottom Map.

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  • Re your very first question: I imagine that no Greenland-based air cover is indicated on your maps because no convoy air cover was provided from Greenland in the first place, for the reason detailed in the two existing answers. Commented yesterday

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There's probably a bit of hard-headed operations research going on.

To wit:

In the mid-Atlantic region, convoys lost only 4% of their tonnage, compared to 20% by independent ships.

So you are passing ships through at 96% of their theoretical efficiency (note: this is overall casualty rates, 1942 loss rates were higher but still relatively low outside of mass casualty events for specific unlucky convoys)

  • your proposed route is, at a guess, at least 50% longer, in even worse weather areas, quite possibly reducing air cover effectiveness as noted by the other answer. So your efficiency would drop to 66-75% and that's assuming no losses whatsoever. Allied air assets being nowhere as efficient vs U-boats at the start, without advanced radars, as later on, when the gap was also being closed anyway.

It sounds awful, and I don't mean to belittle the grievous losses by merchant sailors in WW2.

There were 243,000 mariners that served in the war. And 9,521 perished while serving—a higher proportion of those killed than any other branch of the US military. Roughly four percent of those who served were killed, a higher casualty rate than that of any of the American military services during World War II.

But during an existential war your idea would not receive much consideration, IMHO. Those were acceptable and manageable losses, while throttling the efficiency of your merchant fleet overall would not have been.

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    Note that while a 4% casualty rate was high for the American military services, the casualty rates where much higher for the European and the Russian military. I seem to remember rates in the range of 1/4 to 1/3 for both Russia and Germany. Commented yesterday
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    @quarague Famously it was at 75%, mostly MIA/KIA, not wounded for U-Boat crews. And still 20% for the US submariners nps.gov/articles/000/submarines-in-world-war-ii.htm Commented yesterday
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    It’s also far from obvious that hugging Greenland would even have reduced overall risk at all. At best, that portion of the route would have had reduced risk from Axis attacks. But the added length and worse weather conditions carry their own non-negligible extra risks in return, and the rest of the route would still have been under Axis harrassment threat. Commented yesterday
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    It seems possible that there would be dangers from this route of the more mundane kind too: Icebergs. At some point you'd get more ships taken out by those than by subs. Commented yesterday
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The fact that there were some airbases in Greenland does not imply that an effective air cover from Greenland was available. A regular functioning of air cover requires large amount of supplies and infrastructure. These supplies can be only brought to Greenland by ships, and we obtain a vicious circle.

Probably for this reason the air cover from Greenland is not shown on the maps.

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    Weather would also be an excellent reason for spotty aerial coverage out of Greenland. Commented Apr 27 at 16:47
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Not an expert, but I'm going to point out something obvious (maybe not obvious enough?): Icebergs.

Southeast Greenland, unlike the southwest coast, is mostly covered in glaciers and has no ports, settlements, or airports other than temporary military bases. Those glaciers exit into the sea, of course, and the currents along the coast carry them mostly south. We're not talking about the gulf stream but the land-hugging currents that run in the opposite direction. The result is usually a big blob of icebergs off the southeastern tip of the land.

Remember, the Titanic sank at the southern part of those convoy routes. You're talking about shifting them a few hundred miles straight north.

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