Download or read book Battle of the Atlantic 1939 41 written by Mark Lardas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the start of World War II, few thought the U-boat would be as devastating as it proved to be. But convoys and sonar-equipped escorts proved inadequate to defend the Allies' merchantmen, and the RAF's only offensive weapon was the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. For RAF Coastal Command, the first two years of the war were the hardest. Although starved of resources, operating with outdated aircraft and often useless weaponry, they were still the only force that could take the fight to the U-boats. But in these two years, the RAF learned what it needed to win the Battle of the Atlantic. Gradually developing new tactics and technology, such as airborne radar, signals intelligence, and effective weaponry, the Allies ended 1941 in a position to defeat Dönitz's growing fleet of U-boats. This book, the first of two volumes, explains the fascinating history of how the RAF kept the convoys alive against the odds, and developed the force that would prevail in the climactic battles of 1942 and 1943.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Second World War Volume 2 Politics and Ideology written by Richard Bosworth and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-23 with total page 718 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War is often described as an extension of politics by violent means. With contributions from twenty-eight eminent historians, Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of the Second World War examines the relationship between ideology and politics in the war's origins, dynamics and consequences. Part I examines the ideologies of the combatants and shows how the war can be understood as a struggle of words, ideas and values with the rival powers expressing divergent claims to justice and controlling news from the front in order to sustain moral and influence international opinion. Part II looks at politics from the perspective of pre-war and wartime diplomacy as well as examining the way in which neutrals were treated and behaved. The volume concludes by assessing the impact of states, politics and ideology on the fate of individuals as occupied and liberated peoples, collaborators and resistors, and as British and French colonial subjects.

Download or read book The U Boat War in the Atlantic written by Bob Carruthers and published by Archive Media Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fascinating account, as told from the German perspective, of the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest-running, continuous military campaign in World War II, spanning from 1939 through to Germany's defeat in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, which was announced the day after the declaration of war, although it quickly grew to include Germany's counter-blockade. The name "Battle of the Atlantic," was coined by Winston Churchill in 1941 and he famously stated that the U-boats were the only thing that really frightened him. The U-boat war encompassed a campaign that began on the first day of the European war and lasted for six years, involved thousands of ships and stretched over thousands of square miles of ocean, in more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters. In the 68 months of World War II, 2,775 Allied merchant ships were sunk for the loss of 781 U-boats. This is the story of that massive encounter from the German perspective. Published in three volumes, this work was compiled under the supervision of the U.S. Navy Department and the British Admiralty by Fregattenkapitan G nther Hessler. The author, though without previous experience as a writer, had first hand experience of U-boat warfare having commanded a U-boat in 1940 and 1941. For the remainder of the war he was Staff Officer to the Flag Officer commanding U-boats. He had access to German war diaries and other relevant documents concerning U-boat command, and this work based on these many documents, tells the story entirely from the viewpoint of that command. For this reason this work is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of World War II from primary sources and will be of enduring interest to those engaged in attempting to unravel the true nature of submarine warfare in World War II.

Download or read book Bitter Ocean written by David Fairbank White and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-05-15 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative chronicle of the lesser-known World War II Battle of the Atlantic documents the costly battles fought by U.S., Canadian, British, and German forces for control over the Atlantic sea lanes, in an account that draws on archival research and veteran interviews to tally the casualties suffered on both sides of the conflict. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

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 Battle of the Atlantic 1 written by Mark Stille and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-11-21 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in a series of illustrated books exploring the longest and best-known naval campaign of World War II, focusing on the struggle between Allied naval and air forces and Hitler's U-boats. When fighting broke out in September 1939, neither the British Royal Navy nor the German Kriegsmarine were prepared for another war in the North Atlantic. Having defeated the U-boats in World War I, the Royal Navy was confident it would succeed again. This was quickly shown to be an illusion, as neither the scale of forces available nor their tactics were sufficient. The Germans were even less prepared, with only a small number of U-boats, most of which were left over from World War I. Respected naval historian Mark Stille examines the struggle between Allied naval and air forces and the German U-boats in the first 15 months of the war. The Germans attempted to win a tonnage war against Allied shipping, with well-trained and bold U-boat commanders enjoying some brilliant successes. However, the lack of U-boats and torpedo problems prevented the Germans from inflicting crippling losses, even though the British found it impossible to protect all shipping, primarily because of lack of convoy escorts. Featuring maps, diagrams, photographs and stunning battlescene artworks, this book vividly brings to life the weapons, personalities, and tactics of the opposing sides in a unique and engaging way.

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 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II, Naval operations.

Download or read book The U Boat War in the Atlantic 1939 1941 written by Bob Carruthers and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First in the trilogy that covers WWII submarine warfare in the Atlantic from the German perspective—edited by the Emmy Award-winning historian and author. The U-Boat war is a unique visual record of Hitler’s infamous submarine fleet and a grim account of those that lived, worked and risked their lives stalking the depths of the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas. This book analyzes the development of the U-boat, the recruitment and training, and reveals how the crews tried to destroy essential Allied supplies across the Atlantic and bring Britain to its knees. Using some 250 rare and unpublished photographs together with detailed captions and accompanying text, the book provides an outstanding insight into the various operations and the claustrophobic existence of the crew, where they lived in cramped and often deplorable conditions. It depicts how this potent force became one of the most dominant German fighting units during World War Two and became such a worry to Allied shipping that even Winston Churchill himself claimed that the “U-boat peril” was the only thing that ever really frightened him during the war. On their defeat hung the outcome of the war, and through courageous and determined resistance against overwhelming odds, the Allies eventually inflicted such catastrophic damage on the U-boats that the losses were too great to continue. Of the 38,000 men that went to sea onboard these deadly vessels, only 8,000 were to survive to tell the tale.

Download or read book Battle of the Atlantic 1942 45 written by Mark Lardas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illustrated study explores, in detail, the climactic events of the Battle of the Atlantic, and how air power proved to be the Allies' most important submarine-killer in one of the most bitterly fought naval campaigns of World War II. As 1942 opened, both Nazi Germany and the Allies were ready for the climactic battles of the Atlantic to begin. Germany had 91 operational U-boats, and over 150 in training or trials. Production for 1942–44 was planned to exceed 200 boats annually. Karl Dönitz, running the Kriegsmarine's U-boat arm, would finally have the numbers needed to run the tonnage war he wanted against the Allies. Meanwhile, the British had, at last, assembled the solution to the U-boat peril. Its weapons and detection systems had improved to the stage that maritime patrol aircraft could launch deadly attacks on U-boats day and night. Airborne radar, Leigh lights, Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD), and the Fido homing torpedo all turned the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft into a submarine-killer, while shore and ship-based technologies such as high-frequency direction finding and signals intelligence could now help aircraft find enemy U-boats. Following its entry into the war in 1941, the United States had also thrown its industrial muscle behind the campaign, supplying VLR Liberator bombers to the RAF and escort carriers to the Royal Navy. The US Navy also operated anti-submarine patrol blimps and VLR aircraft in the southern and western Atlantic, and sent its own escort carriers to guard convoys. This book, the second of two volumes, explores the climactic events of the Battle of the Atlantic, and reveals how air power – both maritime patrol aircraft, and carrier aircraft – ultimately proved to be the Allies' most important weapon in one of the most bitterly fought naval campaigns of World War II.

Download or read book Battle for the North Atlantic written by John R. Bruning and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVFrom 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, Allied ships and planes fought U-boats and other German warships to protect merchant shipping on the unforgiving North Atlantic./div

Download or read book Those Angry Days written by Lynne Olson and published by Random House Incorporated. This book was released on 2013 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the crisis period leading up to America's entry in World War II, describing the nation's polarized interventionist and isolation factions as represented by the government, in the press and on the streets, in an account that explores the forefront roles of British-supporter President Roosevelt and isolationist Charles Lindbergh. (This book was previously featured in Forecast.)

Download or read book Air Power and Armies written by Sir John Cotesworth Slessor and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2009-08-31 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of Sir John Cotesworth Slessor (1897–1979), one of Great Britain's most influential airmen Sir John Slessor played a significant role in building the World War II Anglo-American air power partnership as an air planner on the Royal Air Force Staff, the British Chiefs of Staff, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. He coordinated allied strategy in 1940–41, helped create an Anglo-American bomber alliance in 1942, and drafted the compromise at the Casablanca Conference that broke a deadlock in Anglo-American strategic debate. Slessor was instrumental in defeating the U-boat menace as RAF Coastal Commander, and later shared responsibility for directing Allied air operations in the Mediterranean. Few aspects of the allied air effort escaped his influence: pilot training, aircraft procurement, and dissemination of operational intelligence and information all depended to a degree on Slessor. His influence on Anglo-American operational planning paved the way for a level of cooperation and combined action never before undertaken by the military forces of two great nations.

Download or read book The Battle of the Atlantic written by Peter Darman and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2012-12-15 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the naval battles in the Atlantic during World War II.

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 The Battle of the Atlantic September 1939 May 1943 written by Samuel Eliot Morison and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume I: The Battle of the Atlantic, September 1939-May 1943 concerns Allied efforts to protect shipping, supply, and troop transport against Axis submarines and their supporting aircraft and ships. Morison discusses all U.S. naval operations in the Atlantic from pole to pole and in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Barents Sea, and Atlantic territorial waters.

Download or read book The Naval War in the Baltic 1939 1945 written by Poul Grooss and published by Seaforth Publishing. This book was released on 2017-04-30 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A military historian and naval warfare expert delivers a revealing history of the Baltic Sea Campaigns and their significance throughout WWII. From the Battle of Westerplatte on the Polish coast in 1939 to the thousands of German refugees lost at sea in 1945, the Baltic witnessed continuous fighting throughout the Second World War. This chronicle of naval warfare in the region merges such major events as the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet campaign against Sweden, the three wars in Finland, the Soviet liberation of the Baltic states, the German evacuation of two million people from the East, and the Soviet race westwards in 1945. Naval historian Poul Grooss explains the political and military backgrounds of the war in this theatre while also detailing the ships, radar, artillery, mines and aircraft employed there. He also offers fascinating insights into Swedish cooperation with Nazi Germany, the Germans’ use of the Baltic as a training ground for the Battle of the Atlantic, the secret weapons trials in the remote area of Peenemunde, and the Royal Air Force mining campaign that reduced the threat of German submarine technology. A major contribution to the naval history of this era, Naval War in the Baltic demonstrates the extent to which the Baltic Sea Campaigns shaped the Second World War

Download or read book The Battle of the Atlantic written by Jonathan Dimbleby and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril," wrote Winston Churchill in his monumental history of World War Two. Churchill's fears were well-placed-the casualty rate in the Atlantic was higher than in any other theater of the entire war. The enemy was always and constantly there and waiting, lying just over the horizon or lurking beneath the waves. In many ways, the Atlantic shipping lanes, where U-boats preyed on American ships, were the true front of the war. England's very survival depended on assistance from the United States, much of which was transported across the ocean by boat. The shipping lanes thus became the main target of German naval operations between 1940 and 1945. The Battle of the Atlantic and the men who fought it were therefore crucial to both sides. Had Germany succeeded in cutting off the supply of American ships, England might not have held out. Yet had Churchill siphoned reinforcements to the naval effort earlier, thousands of lives might have been preserved. The battle consisted of not one but hundreds of battles, ranging from hours to days in duration, and forcing both sides into constant innovation and nightmarish second-guessing, trying desperately to gain the advantage of every encounter. Any changes to the events of this series of battles, and the outcome of the war-as well as the future of Europe and the world-would have been dramatically different. Jonathan Dimbleby's The Battle of the Atlantic offers a detailed and immersive account of this campaign, placing it within the context of the war as a whole. Dimbleby delves into the politics on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the role of Bletchley Park and the complex and dynamic relationship between America and England. He uses contemporary diaries and letters from leaders and sailors to chilling effect, evoking the lives and experiences of those who fought the longest battle of World War Two. This is the definitive account of the Battle of the Atlantic.