Download or read book German Submarine Warfare in World War I written by Lawrence Sondhaus and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling book explores Germany’s campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in World War I, which marked the onset of total war at sea. Noted historian Lawrence Sondhaus shows how the undersea campaign, intended as an antidote to Britain’s more conventional blockade of German ports, ultimately brought the United States into the war. Although the German people readily embraced the argument that an “undersea blockade” of Britain enforced by their navy’s Unterseeboote (U-boats) was the moral equivalent of the British navy’s blockade of German ports, international opinion never accepted its legitimacy. Sondhaus explains that in their initial, somewhat confused rollout of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915, German leaders underestimated the extent to which the policy would alienate the most important neutral power, the United States. In rationalizing the risk of resuming the unrestricted campaign in 1917, they took for granted that, should the United States join the Allies, German U-boats would be able to stop the transport of an American army to France. But by bringing the United States into the war, while also failing to stop the deployment of its troops to Europe, unrestricted submarine warfare ultimately led to Germany’s defeat. Because US manpower proved decisive in breaking the stalemate on the Western Front and securing victory for the Allies, Sondhaus argues that Germany’s decision to stake its fate on the U-boat campaign ranks among the greatest blunders of modern history.
Download or read book Anti Submarine Warfare in World War I written by John Abbatiello and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigating the employment of British aircraft against German submarines during the final years of the First World War, this new book places anti-submarine campaigns from the air in the wider history of the First World War. The Royal Naval Air Service invested heavily in aircraft of all types—aeroplanes, seaplanes, airships, and kite balloons—in order to counter the German U-boats. Under the Royal Air Force, the air campaign against U-boats continued uninterrupted. Aircraft bombed German U-boat bases in Flanders, conducted area and ‘hunting’ patrols around the coasts of Britain, and escorted merchant convoys to safety. Despite the fact that aircraft acting alone destroyed only one U-boat during the war, the overall contribution of naval aviation to foiling U-boat attacks was significant. Only five merchant vessels succumbed to submarine attack when convoyed by a combined air and surface escort during World War I. This book examines aircraft and weapons technology, aircrew training, and the aircraft production issues that shaped this campaign. Then, a close examination of anti-submarine operations—bombing, patrols, and escort—yields a significantly different judgment from existing interpretations of these operations. This study is the first to take an objective look at the writing and publication of the naval and air official histories as they told the story of naval aviation during the Great War. The author also examines the German view of aircraft effectiveness, through German actions, prisoner interrogations, official histories, and memoirs, to provide a comparative judgment. The conclusion closes with a brief narrative of post-war air anti-submarine developments and a summary of findings. Overall, the author concludes that despite the challenges of organization, training, and production the employment of aircraft against U-boats was largely successful during the Great War. This book will be of interest to historians of naval and air power history, as well as students of World War I and military history in general.
Download or read book The German Submarine War 1914 1918 written by R.H. Gibson and published by Periscope Publishing Ltd.. This book was released on 2002-11 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This account of the U-boat campaign in the World War I represents the official British history of the war against the German submarine attack on shipping. From a few fragile craft, the U-boats grew to become the greatest menace to Britain's survival.
Download or read book The U boat Century written by Jak P. Mallmann Showell and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 2006 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a sweltering day in August 1906 U-1, or Unterseeboot 1, meaning underwater boat, was lifted into Kiel's waters for trials; 100 hundred years later Kiel still witnesses the launching of U-boats, modern submarines with fuel cell propulsion systems, built for navies worldwide. In the years in between Germany fought two world wars, in which the U-boat almost defeated the Allies. --The U-boat was one of the most potent weapons of the 20th century, and here Mallmann Showell, perhaps the world's leading U-boat historian, explains how it was developed and designed and then deployed to wreak havoc in European waters and further afield in the Atlantic and the Far East. This is not a dry technical book but a work that looks behind the scenes at the men who built and fought in them. Weapons systems, operational areas, bases, builders and fleet organisation are covered, and as well as dealing with the world wars, the author brings the story up to date with the third, latest, generation of U-boats. The text is augmented by over 300 images, many never published before. --Publisher description.
Download or read book The Great War at Sea written by Lawrence Sondhaus and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New naval history of the First World War which reveals the contribution of the war at sea to Allied victory.
Download or read book Submarine Warfare in World War I written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-28 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of fighting *includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading Submarine warfare began tentatively during the American Civil War (though the Netherlands and England made small prototypes centuries earlier, and the American sergeant Ezra Lee piloted the one-man "Turtle" vainly against HMS Eagle near New York in 1776). Robert Whitehead's invention of the torpedo introduced the weapon later used most frequently by submarines. Steady improvements to Whitehead's design led to the military torpedoes deployed against shipping during both World Wars. World War I witnessed the First Battle of the Atlantic, when the Kaiserreich unleashed its U-boats against England. During the war, the German submarines sent much of the British merchant marine to the bottom. Indeed, German reliance on U-boats in both World War I and World War II stemmed largely from their nation's geography. The Germans eventually recognized the superiority of the Royal Navy and its capacity to blockade Germany's short coastline in the event of war. While the British could easily interdict surface ships, submarines slipped from their Kiel or Hamburg anchorages unseen, able to prey upon England's merchant shipping. The sleek hunter-killers lurking beneath the waves, using periscopes to close in unnoticed on their prey, added a new, nerve-wracking element to naval warfare. The mere threat of submarine attack immediately altered naval tactics and strategies employed by both the Western Allies and the Central Powers, shifting them towards a more cautious approach, especially at the war's start when the submarine threat remained untested. During World War I, German U-boats operated solo except on one occasion. Initially, the British and nations supplying England with food and materiel scattered vessels singly across the ocean, making them vulnerable to the lone submarines. However, widespread late war re-adoption of the convoy system tipped the odds in the surface ships' favor, as one U-boat skipper described: "The oceans at once became bare and empty; for long periods at a time the U-boats, operating individually, would see nothing at all; and then suddenly up would loom a huge concourse of ships, thirty or fifty or more of them, surrounded by a strong escort of warships of all types." (Blair, 1996, 55). World War I proved the value of submarines, ensuring their widespread employment in the next conflict, but by using U-boats against the shipping that kept Britain supplied, it might have ultimately cost Germany and Austria-Hungary the war by providing a reason for President Woodrow Wilson to bring the United States into the struggle. Submarine Warfare in World War I: The History and Legacy of the German U-boats and Allied Efforts to Counter Them analyzes the underwater fighting. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about submarine warfare in World War I like never before.
Download or read book Find and Destroy written by Dwight R. Messimer and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War I was the crucible of antisubmarine warfare (ASW), and the years of trial and error between 1914 and 1918 gave rise to the weapons and tactics used by today's ASW forces. With this study, military historian Dwight Messimer examines the weapons, tactics, and organization used by all the belligerents during the war and provides some surprising findings. Because he draws heavily from personal accounts as well as from official records, his book will appeal to both serious readers seeking hard facts and to general readers who like stories about war at sea. Messimer tells the story from both sides. German survivors who escaped from sunken U-boats explain what it was like to face the newly developed ASW weapons beneath the surface, and pilots tell what it was like from above. The author describes the German's well-organized and efficient ASW organization in the Baltic and the Helgoland Bight. He also discusses the weapons developed during the war that proved to be largely ineffective or outright failures. While his evaluations of the contributions made by aircraft and Q-ships put them in the category of only marginally effective, his analysis of the effectiveness of politics deems that ASW "weapon" the most effective of all. Solidly grounded in the best primary sources available in England, the United States, and Germany, this book is the first to address the ASW of all World War I belligerents.
Download or read book The U Boat War 1914 1918 written by Edwyn Gray and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 1994-04-01 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of Germany’s usage of submarine warfare during World War I, by the author of Operation Pacific. In 1914, U-Boats were a new and untried weapon, and when such a weapon can bring a mighty empire to the brink of defeat there is a story worth telling. Edwyn Gray’s The U-Boat War is the history of the Kaiser’s attempt to destroy the British Empire by a ruthless campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. It opens with Germany’s first tentative experiments with the submarines and climaxes with the naval mutiny that helped bring down the Kaiser. In between is a detailed account of a campaign of terror which, by April, 1917, had the British Empire on the verge of surrender. The cost in lives and equipment was staggering. On the German side, 4,894 sailors and 515 officers lost their lives in action; 178 German Submarines were destroyed by the allies; 14 were scuttled and 122 surrendered. According to the most reliable sources, 5,708 ships were destroyed by the U-Boats and 13,333 non-combatants perished in British Ships. World figures for civilian casualties were never released. The U-Boat War is a savage but thrilling account of men fighting for their lives beneath the sea, and of the boats that changed the face of naval warfare.
Download or read book Gale Researcher Guide for Submarine Warfare and the Entry of the United States into World War I written by Mark D. Van Ells and published by Gale, Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2018-09-28 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gale Researcher Guide for: Submarine Warfare and the Entry of the United States into World War I is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.
Download or read book German Submarine Warfare written by Wesley Frost and published by . This book was released on 2009-03 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Download or read book Dead Wake written by Erik Larson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania “Both terrifying and enthralling.”—Entertainment Weekly “Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR “Thoroughly engrossing.”—George R.R. Martin On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history. Finalist for the Washington State Book Award • One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miami Herald, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, LibraryReads, Indigo
Download or read book War Beneath the Sea written by Peter Padfield and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2008-05-02 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for War Beneath the Sea "I am truly filled with awe and admiration...fascinating and a great contribution to the entire lore of submarines.... I wish I had written the book." ?Capt. Edward L. Beach, USN (Ret.) author of Run Silent, Run Deep "Peter Padfield is the best British naval historian of his generation now working. [His] book...will now become the standard work on the subject." ?Daily Telegraph (London) "Peter Padfield has produced by far the best and most complete critical history of the submarine operations of all the combatants in the Second World War, at the same time providing vivid narrative accounts of particular actions and events." ?Lloyd?s List (London) "An excellent account of submarine warfare in 1939?45... [it] recreates the tribulations and horrors of that especially brutal form of warfare within a sturdily analytical and often critical framework." ?The Economist "[A] marvelously complete and detailed study of World War II submarine warfare...an interesting, serious, and timely book." ?Houston Chronicle "A brilliant submarine warfare study." ?Military Review
Download or read book The British Submarine Warfare written by Charles W. Domville-Fife and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2015-01-09 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fully illustrated book (the original was published 1919) describes the victory of the British fleet over the German submarines during WWI.
Download or read book Peace Moves and U boat Warfare written by Karl E. Birnbaum and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book America s U Boats written by Chris Dubbs and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2014-11-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The submarine was one of the most revolutionary weapons of World War I, inciting both terror and fascination for militaries and civilians alike. During the war, after U-boats sank the Lusitania and began daring attacks on shipping vessels off the East Coast, the American press dubbed these weapons “Hun Devil Boats,” “Sea Thugs,” and “Baby Killers.” But at the conflict’s conclusion, the U.S. Navy acquired six U-boats to study and to serve as war souvenirs. Until their destruction under armistice terms in 1921, these six U-boats served as U.S. Navy ships, manned by American crews. The ships visited eighty American cities to promote the sale of victory bonds and to recruit sailors, allowing hundreds of thousands of Americans to see up close the weapon that had so captured the public’s imagination. In America’s U-Boats Chris Dubbs examines the legacy of submarine warfare in the American imagination. Combining nautical adventure, military history, and underwater archaeology, Dubbs shares the previously untold story of German submarines and their impact on American culture and reveals their legacy and Americans’ attitudes toward this new wonder weapon.
Download or read book German Submarine Warfare written by Wesley Frost and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Silent Hunters written by Theodore P. Savas and published by Savas Publishing. This book was released on 2013-09-25 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The compelling true stories of six little-known U-boat commanders and their dramatic WWII careers. When World War II erupted across Europe in 1939, Germany knew it couldn’t hope to compete with the Royal Navy in a head-to-head naval war. Left with no viable alternatives, the U-Bootwaffe wagered everything on the submarine in a desperate attempt to sink more tonnage than the Allies could construct. Some of these “silent hunters” who slipped out of their shelters along Europe's shores to stalk their prey have enjoyed considerable recognition in the years since. While most aspects of the bitter struggle have been told and retold from both the Axis and Allied points of view, the careers of some highly effective U-boat commanders have languished in undeserved obscurity. The profiles of six such commanders are presented in this collection of essays. They include Englebert Endrass, whose spectacular career before being lost off the coast of Gibraltar is described here by his best friend and fellow ace Enrich Topp, who wrote this while on his fifteenth War Patrol; Karl-Friedrich Merten, who was ranked among the war’s top tonnage aces; Ralph Kapitsky, whose U-615 suicidal surface-to-air battle in the Caribbean allowed many of his fellow submariners to escape into the Atlantic; Fritz Guggenberger, who sank an aircraft carrier and organized the biggest POW escape attempt in American history; Victor Oehrn, a former staff officer of Karl Dönitz's; and Heinz Eck, who was executed by the British. Includes photographs
