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 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 Thunder Below written by Eugene B. Fluckey and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thunderous roar of exploding depth charges was a familiar and comforting sound to the crew members of the USS Barb, who frequently found themselves somewhere between enemy fire and Davy Jones's locker. Under the leadership of her fearless skipper, Captain Gene Fluckey, the Barb sank the greatest tonnage of any American sub in World War II. At the same time, the Barb did far more than merely sink ships-she changed forever the way submarines stalk and kill their prey. This is a gripping adventure chock-full of "you-are-there" moments. Fluckey has drawn on logs, reports, letters, interviews, and a recently discovered illegal diary kept by one of his torpedomen. And in a fascinating twist, he uses archival documents from the Japanese Navy to give its version of events. The unique story of the Barb begins with its men, who had the confidence to become unbeatable. Each team helped develop innovative ideas, new tactics, and new strategies. All strove for personal excellence, and success became contagious. Instead of lying in wait under the waves, the USS Barb pursued enemy ships on the surface, attacking in the swift and precise style of torpedo boats. She was the first sub to use rocket missiles and to creep up on enemy convoys at night, joining the flank escort line from astern, darting in and out as she sank ships up the column. Surface-cruising, diving only to escape, "Luckey Fluckey" relentlessly patrolled the Pacific, driving his boat and crew to their limits. There can be no greater contrast to modern warfare's long-distance, videogame style of battle than the exploits of the captain and crew of the USS Barb, where they sub, out of ammunition, actually rammed an enemy ship until it sank. Thunder Below! is a first-rate, true-life, inspirational story of the courage and heroism of ordinary men under fire. A Main Selection of the Military Book Club. Winner of the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature given by the Naval Order of the United States, New York Commandery.

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 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 Submarines and the World Wars written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 252 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. 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. One critical innovation in World War II's Atlantic U-boat operations consisted of wolf-pack tactics, in which Admiral Karl Dönitz put great faith: "The greater the number of U-boats that could be brought simultaneously into the attack, the more favourable would become the opportunities offered to each individual attacker. [...] it was obvious that, on strategic and general tactical grounds, attacks on convoys must be carried out by a number of U-boats acting in unison." (Dönitz, 1990, 4). However, even the wolf-pack proved insufficient to defeat the Atlantic convoys and stop Allied commerce - the precise opposite of the Pacific theater, where America's excellent submarine forces annihilated much of Japan's merchant marine and inflicted severe damage on the Imperial Japanese Navy. Submarines exercised a decisive impact on the outcome of the Pacific Theater in World War II. The U.S. submarine fleet, largely though not exclusively under the overall command of Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, strangled the supply lines and shipping traffic of the Empire of Japan. Their commerce raiding crippled both Japan's ability to keep its frontline units supplied and to manufacture the weapons, vessels, and vehicles needed to successfully carry on the struggle. Though constituting only 1.6% of the total U.S. Navy's tonnage in the Pacific, the submarine fleet inflicted massive losses on the Imperial Japanese Navy and Japan's crucial merchant marine. Submarines sank 55% of the merchant shipping lost, or approximately 1,300 vessels; overall, the Allies sank 77% of Japan's shipping. The submarines also sank 214 Japanese warships, including 82 of 1,000 tons or more - 4 carriers, 4 escort carriers, one battleship, 4 heavy cruisers, 9 light cruisers, 38 destroyers, and 23 submarines - or approximately 30% of the entire Imperial Japanese Navy. The sleek, predatory craft made in the shipyards of Virginia, Wisconsin, or Washington state devastated the naval and freighter assets of the Empire of the Rising Sun out of all proportion to their numbers, at a cost of 42 submarines on "Eternal Patrol." Submarines and the World Wars: The History of Submarine Warfare in World War I and World War II analyzes the underwater fighting during both great conflicts.

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 94 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 Antisubmarine Warfare in World War II written by Charles M. Sternhell and published by . This book was released on 1946 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II written by Akihiko Yoshida and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When first published in 1995, this book was hailed as an absolutely indispensable contribution to the history of the Pacific War. Drawing heavily from Japanese sources and American wartime intercepts of secret Japanese radio messages, a noted American naval historian and a Japanese mariner painstakingly recorded and evaluated a diverse array of material about Japan's submarines in World War II. The study begins with the development of the first Japanese 103-ton Holland-type submergible craft in 1905 and continues through the 1945 surrender of the largest submarine in the world at the time, the 5300-ton I-400 class that carried three airplanes. Submarine weapons, equipment, personnel, and shore support systems are discussed first in the context of Japanese naval preparations for war and later during the war. Both successes and missed opportunities are analyzed in operations ranging from the California coast through the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the coast of German-occupied France. Appendixes include lists of Japanese submarine losses and the biographies of key Japanese submarine officers. Rare illustrations and specifically commissioned operational maps enhance the text.

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 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 Unrestricted Warfare written by James F. DeRose and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2008-04-21 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unrestricted Warfare reveals the dramatic story of the harsh baptism by fire faced by U.S. submarine commanders in World War II. The first skippers went to battle hamstrung by conservative peacetime training and plagued by defective torpedoes. Drawing extensively from now declassified files, Japanese archives, and the testimony of surviving veterans, James DeRose has written a fascinating account of the men and vessels responsible for the only successful submarine campaign of the war. They clearly charted a new course to victory in the Pacific. ADVANCE PRAISE FOR UNRESTRICTED WARFARE "James DeRose has done an excellent job-- surprisingly so, in view of his lack of true WWII submarine experience. He obviously contacted everyone he could find who served on one of the three boats he concentrated on, and he read, as well, everything he could find that was written about them. . . . DeRose shines by his interpretation of events as the Japanese must have seen them. . . . His reconstruction of how Wahoo came to her end may well be pretty close to correct. . . . He does the same with Tang."-CAPTAIN EDWARD L. BEACH, USN author of Submarine! and Run Silent, Run Deep "An outstanding addition to the literature of the Silent Service. . . . The depth of research is wonderful. . . . This is fine history . . . that rivals Blair's Silent Victory."-PAUL CROZIER, sitemaster, "Legends of the Deep" (www.warfish.com) Web site on the USS Wahoo "I knew all of the book's main characters quite well. . . . I am also completely familiar with submarine operations in the Pacific. With that background I couldn't fail to thoroughly enjoy DeRose's book. It is well written and has the right feel."-CHESTER W. NIMITZ JR., rear admiral, USN (Ret.) "Sail with American submariners into tightly guarded Japanese home waters; undergo the horror of a depth charge attack; experience the thrill of victory with some of the U.S. Navy's ace submarine skippers. All this--and much more--is contained in James F. DeRose's compelling Unrestricted Warfare. No one interested in the naval side of World War II should be without it."-NATHAN MILLER author of War at Sea: A Naval History of World War II

Download or read book Airborne Anti Submarine Warfare written by Michael E. Glynn and published by . This book was released on 2022-05-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Michael Glynn explores a journey through the history of more than one hundred years of aerial sub hunting. From the Great War, through the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II and on to the secret confrontations of the Cold War, the reader will witness the parallel evolution of both aircraft and submarine as each side tries to gain supremacy over the other. In so doing, Glynn distills complicated oceanography, operations analysis, and technical theory into easily digested concepts, helping the reader understand how complex weapons and sensors function. By reviewing the steps of a submarine hunting flight, the reader can quickly understand how theory and practice fit together and how aviators set out to achieve their goal of detecting their submarine targets. Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare is a thrilling read for those seeking a glimpse into an arcane and high-stakes world.

Download or read book Slide Rules and Submarines written by Montgomery C. Meigs and published by The Minerva Group, Inc.. This book was released on 2002-06 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic problem of when to depend on lessons learned from previous conflicts and when to employ new tactics and technology always confronts military leaders. At the beginning of World War II, for example, Allied naval strategists were prepared to do battle using traditional tactics against surface vessels, but - this study contends - not against submarines; because the strategists failed to appreciate either the damage done by submarines in World War I or the tactics that had worked successfully against them. Consequently, from the beginning of World War II to mid-1943, German U-boats were able to mount a devastating campaign against Allied shipping. In Slide Rules and Submarines, Montgomery Meigs describes how the allies learned to counter the U-boat threat. Using new technology - and new tactics derived from scientific methods - they devised countermeasures to defeat the German submarine menace. Then, continuing to apply those successful measures, they went on to negate the Japanese submarine threat in the Pacific. The author cites the crucial role of civilian scientists - the "outsiders" - who worked with military staffs and operational commanders of the campaign at sea. Their open minds and objective methods were essential for the application of such tactical advances as sonar and radar, acoustic torpedoes, depth finders, and code breaking to the battle. As this study illustrates, the importance of such timely and innovative cooperation among scientists, the research and development community, and military commanders in bringing technological knowledge to bear for operational and strategic advantage cannot be overstated. Meigs study of how such cooperation succeeded in the crucible of wartime crisis is itself an example of how the lessons of the past can serve us well today. J. A. Baldwin Vice Admiral, United States Navy President, National Defense University

Download or read book Union And Confederate Submarine Warfare In The Civil War written by Mark K. Ragan and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 1999-11-21 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Submarine use and experimentation during the Civil War was far more widespread than generally known. Drawing on years of archival research, submarine expert Mark Ragan outlines the building programs, construction plans, and underwater operations of both the Union and the Confederacy. 50 photos/illustrations. 6 maps. Nationwide book signings.

Download or read book Submarine Warfare of To day written by Charles William Domville-Fife and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: