Download or read book Atlantic Convoys and Nazi Raiders written by Bruce A. Watson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-12-30 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November of 1940, the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer attacked British Convoy HX-84. The merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay, a converted passenger liner that was the convoy's only escort—armed only with antique 6-inch guns—charged the Nazi raider. While the Jervis Bay did not stand a chance of surviving the battle, her crew's fatalistic bravery inspired awe in all who witnessed the fight. Watson recounts how the Scheer's 11-inch guns turned the ship into a burning hulk in twenty-two minutes, but most of the convoy escaped. In November of 1940, the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer attacked British Convoy HX-84. The Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Jervis Bay, the only escort and mounting antique 6-inch guns, charged the Nazi raider. While the Jervis Bay did not stand a chance of surviving the battle, her crew's fatalistic bravery inspired awe in all who witnessed the fight. Watson describes how the Scheer's 11-inch guns turned the converted passenger liner into a burning hulk in twenty-two minutes, but most of the convoy escaped. How did this confrontation come to pass? Both the necessity of arming a passenger liner and pretending it was a warship, and the building of the Admiral Scheer and her sister ships for the express purpose of commerce raiding, find their roots in the events, political decisions, re-armament polices, war plans, naval traditions, and blunders that arose in pre-war Britain and Germany. But this event holds a significance beyond the battle itself. The sinking of the Jervis Bay symbolizes the end of an era in naval warfare. The Armed Merchant Cruisers of the Second World War inherited a long, sometimes noble and sometimes ignoble history. Long employed in blockade or patrol duty, armed merchant cruisers ventured out for the first time to escort convoys, a defensive duty for which they were eminently unsuited, and for which the Jervis Bay paid a fearful price.
Download or read book Big Guns in the Atlantic written by Angus Konstam and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-19 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the outbreak of World War II the German Kriegsmarine still had a relatively small U-boat arm. To reach Britain's convoy routes in the North Atlantic, these boats had to pass around the top of the British Isles - a long and dangerous voyage to their "hunting grounds". Germany's larger surface warships were much better suited to this kind of long-range operation. So, during late 1939 the armoured cruiser Deutschland, and later the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were used as commerce raiders, to strike at Allied convoys in the North Atlantic. These sorties met with mixed results, but for Germany's naval high command they showed that this kind of operation had potential. Then, the fall of France, Denmark and Norway in early 1940 dramatically altered the strategic situation. The Atlantic was now far easier to reach, and to escape from. During 1940, further moderately successful sorties were made by the cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper. By the end of the year, with British mercantile losses mounting to surface raiders and U-Boats, plans were developed for a much larger raid, first using both cruisers, and then the two battlecruisers. The climax of this was Operation Berlin, the Kriegsmarine's largest and most wide-ranging North Atlantic sortie so far. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau remained at sea for two months, destroying 22 Allied merchant ships, and severely disrupting Britain's lifeline convoys. So, when the operation ended, the German commander, Admiral Lütjens was ordered to repeat his success - this time with the brand new battleship Bismarck. The rest, as they say, is history. These earlier Atlantic raids demonstrated that German surface ships could be highly effective commerce raiders. For those willing to see though, they also demonstrated just how risky this strategy could be. Covering a fascinating and detailed analysis of the Kriegsmarine's Atlantic raids between 1939 and 1941, this book will appeal to readers interested in World War II and in particular in Germany's naval operations.
Download or read book The U S Atlantic Fleet and the Quasi war with Germany in the North Atlantic 1941 written by Alan R. Darling and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Battle for the North Atlantic written by John Bruning and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2013-06-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the North Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, running from 1939 until the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, though it reached its peak from mid-1940 through the end of 1943. The Battle of the North Atlantic pitted German U-boats and other warships of the German navy against Allied merchant shipping. Initially, convoys of merchant ships were protected for the most part by the British and Canadian navies and air forces. Starting in the early fall of 1941, before Pearl Harbor, these forces were aided by ships and aircraft of the United States. The Battle for the North Atlantic began on the first day of the European war and lasted for six years, involving thousands of ships and stretching over hundreds of miles of the vast ocean and seas in a succession of more than a hundred convoy battles and as many as a thousand single-ship encounters. Tactical advantage switched back and forth over the six years as new weapons, tactics, and countermeasures were developed by both sides. The Allies gradually gained the upper hand, driving the German surface raiders from the ocean by the end of 1942 and decisively defeating the U-boats in a series of convoy battles between March and May 1943.
Download or read book In Great Waters written by Spencer Dunmore and published by M&S. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II, Naval operations.
Download or read book German Commerce Raider vs British Cruiser written by Robert Forczyk and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, the Kriegsmarine armed a number of merchant vessels with concealed guns and torpedo tubes for surprise attacks against Allied shipping. To counter this deadly threat, the Royal Navy employed cruisers and their intelligence-gathering apparatus to find and destroy the disguised German commerce raiders. This Duel title covers the deadly game of cat and mouse, fought by these surface vessels during World War II.
Download or read book Beware Raiders written by Bernard Edwards and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-07-19 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A British naval historian recounts the victories and defeats of two of the most infamous German Navy vessels during World War II. Bernard Edwards’s Beware Raiders! tells the fascinating story of two German ships and the havoc they caused amongst Allied shipping in World War II. One was the eight-inch gun cruiser Admiral Hipper—named for World War I’s German fleet Admiral Franz von Hipper—fast, powerful, and Navy-manned. The other was a converted merchant man, Hansa Line’s Kandelfels armed with a few old scavenged guns manned largely by reservists, and sailing under the nom de guerre Pinguin. The difference between the pride of the Third Reich’s Kriegsmarine’s fleet and the converted cruiser was even more evident in their commanders. Edwards emphasizes the striking contrast between the conduct of Ernst Kruder, captain of the Pinguin, who attempted to cause as little loss of life as possible, and the callous Iron Cross–decorated Wilhelm Meisel of the Admiral Hipper, who had scant regard for the lives of the men whose ships he had sunk. Contrary to all expectations, as Edwards reveals in his thrilling accounts of the missions performed by each ship, the amateur man-of-war reaped a rich harvest and went out in a blaze of glory. The purpose-built battlecruiser, on the other hand, was hard-pressed even to make her mark on the war and ended her days in ignominy.
Download or read book Phantom Raider written by Director Institute of Experimental Pathology Ulrich Mohr and published by . This book was released on 2005-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two year cruise of Atlantis was to be the longest in the history of the Second World War, but after her destruction in the South Atlantic, shattered by the guns of HMS Devonshire, naval records simply referred to her as Ship Sixteen. However, Atlantis had the highest score of all German raiders – twice as much tonnage as the famed Graf Spee. She was a Phantom Raider, on of the Ghost Fleet, which terrorized merchant shipping in the Indian and Atlantic oceans. Twenty-one ships were sunk by her hidden guns yet the survivors she picked up had no hatred for their captors. Instead many of those interviewed had ungrudging admiration for the Germany officers and crew who captured them. Here is a fascinating story of the war at sea when Germany was the hunter, and of a ship whose exploits might never have been known but for the tenacious probing of the author, A. V. Sellwood, and the willingness of the Atlantis captain’s ADC, Ulrich Mohr, to recall those incredible 622 days at sea.
Download or read book To Die Gallantly written by Timothy J Runyan and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 1994-06-13 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Atlantic was the single most important campaign of the war. Allied success in Europe depended on massive movements of ships, men and materiel across the Atlantic from the Americas. In spite of an unprecedented Allied shipbuilding effort, German U-boats were causing severe damage to this vital supply line. In order to defeat Nazi Germany, the Allies had to eliminate the deadly U-boat threat. In this volume commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the campaign, historians from both sides of the ocean offer new insights into Germany's Atlantic offensive and the Allied victory over it.
Download or read book Hitler s Fatal Miscalculation written by Klaus H. Schmider and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hitler's decision to declare war on the United States has baffled generations of historians. In this revisionist new history of those fateful months, Klaus H. Schmider seeks to uncover the chain of events which would incite the German leader to declare war on the United States in December 1941. He provides new insights not just on the problems afflicting German strategy, foreign policy and war production but, crucially, how they were perceived at the time at the top levels of the Third Reich. Schmider sees the declaration of war on the United States not as an admission of defeat or a gesture of solidarity with Japan, but as an opportunistic gamble by the German leader. This move may have appeared an excellent bet at the time, but would ultimately doom the Third Reich.
Download or read book The Good Shepherd written by and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book To Die Gallantly written by Timothy J Runyan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: German U-boats, known as "iron coffins", terrorized Allied ships during World War II and were responsible for thousands of deaths. This volume, published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic, brings together historians from both sides of the ocean to discuss this important campaign. As well as offering new insights into both familiar and more neglected aspects, the book reflects the human dimension of the conflict, paying tribute to the whole spectrum of personnel involved - planners and strategists, spies and code-breakers, naval officers and crews, merchant sailors, and civilians.
Download or read book Decision in the Atlantic written by Marcus Faulkner and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of the Second World War. This volume highlights the scale and complexity of this bitterly contested campaign, one that encompassed far more than just attacks by German U-boats on Allied shipping. The team of leading scholars assembled in this study situates the German assault on seaborne trade within the wider Allied war effort and provides a new understanding of its place within the Second World War. Individual chapters offer original perspectives on a range of neglected or previously overlooked subjects: how Allied grand strategy shaped the war at sea; the choices facing Churchill and other Allied leaders and the tensions over the allocation of scarce resources between theaters; how the battle spread beyond the Atlantic Ocean in both military and economic terms; the management of Britain's merchant shipping repair yards; the defense of British coastal waters against German surface raiders; the contribution of air power to trade defense; antisubmarine escort training; the role of special intelligence; and the war against the U-boats in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.
Download or read book Critical Convoy Battles of WWII written by Jürgen Rohwer and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Remarkable...a feat of historical reconstruction."—Paul Kennedy, New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous campaign of World War II, climaxed in 1943, when Germany came closest to interrupting Allied supply lines and perhaps winning the war. In March of that year, German U-boats scored their last great triumph, destroying nearly 150,000 tons of supplies and fuel. • Blow-by-blow account of the largest convoy battle of the war • Analyzes the tactics, technology, and intelligence of both sides
Download or read book Battle of the Atlantic written by Bernard Ireland and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Drawing on a wealth of source material and knowledge of the extent to which ULTRA intelligence influenced the conduct of the campaign, the Author comes up with not only a compelling narrative but radical conclusions. Using no more statistical data than necessary, he puts forward convincing arguments that the situation was never as parlous nor the struggle so evenly balanced as was perceived at the time and has consistently been described since."--Jacket.
Download or read book Naval Investigation written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Naval Affairs and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 1908 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book False Flags written by Stephen Robinson and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-31 with total page 790 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: False Flags tells the epic story of German raider voyages during the early years of World War II. In 1940 the raiders Orion, Komet, Pinguin and Kormoran left Germany and waged a 'pirate war' across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans as well as the Arctic and Antarctic - part of Germany's strategy to attack the British Empire's maritime trade.
