Turns out it's really U-Boats that make things bad.
Ah, yes, the old “Let’s make enemy-caused disasters Top Secret - we wouldn’t want the enemy to know what they are doing!” Same thing FDR did with the facts of the U-boat decimation of our shipping upon our entry into WWII. The number of enemy submarines we sunk during the first nine months after Pearl Harbor was classified. Not that Hitler didn’t know the number of his own boats returning to port, of course - it was classified because FDR didn’t want to admit that the number was zero!FDR wasn’t too keen on publicizing the number of ships Hitler had sunk, either - that was not zero. I read the number, and was fascinated by it, and rechecked it once by getting the book and checking it. But I still can’t cite the number with confidence, because it was so high that I found it extremely difficult to believe. I want to say 700 ships. Seven. Hundred. Ships. We’re talking more than two and a half per day!
Of course we wouldn’t want that to get out! Good thing that Hitler didn't have that information! He might have decorated his submarine commanders or something! </sarcasm>
Turns out it's really U-Boats that make things bad.