Why Royal Navy surface raiding is easy to overlook

The Duisburg operation complicates the usual moral and historical framing of commerce warfare. British public memory emphasizes protecting merchant shipping from German raiders, yet the Royal Navy also captured or destroyed large numbers of enemy merchant ships. Its cruisers, destroyers, and submarines could be exceptionally effective commerce raiders when British strategy required them to attack an enemy supply system. Force K corrects that familiar picture: the service that kept sea lanes open for Britain also prosecuted economic warfare against Axis shipping with methodical force.