Download or read book U boat Combat Missions written by Lawrence Paterson and published by Chatham Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawrence Paterson has pieced together the technical details of the roles of individual U-boat crew members with extensive first-hand reports, many drawn from previously unpublished oral histories. These experiences build up a picture of life undersea.
Download or read book U Boat War Patrol written by Lawrence Paterson and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique account charts the complete story of a single U-boat patrol through the summer of 1942 based around a remarkable collection of photographs that were 'liberated' from a concrete U-boat pen in Brest at the end of the war and which had, until recently, remained hidden in a shoe box. The boat in question, U-564, carried the famous three black cat motif of Reinhard 'Teddy' Suhren who, along with Prien and Kretschmer, was one of the top U-boat commanders during the battles of the Atlantic. This remarkable book provides unique access into both the day-to-day life of a U-boat at sea and into the detailed workings of the Kriegsmarine. Through the successes and trials of U-564 the reader is transported to that vast and watery battlefield that was perhaps the most significant theater of the Second World War.
Download or read book German U Boat Ace Rolf M tzelburg written by Luc Braeuer and published by Schiffer Military History. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: German naval officer Rolf Mützelburg was one of the outstanding figures of the WWII German U-boat arm. After obtaining regular successes against the North Atlantic convoys during his first four missions, he found new victims directly along the shores of Canada. Mützelburg received the highest decorations of the period and became one of the top U-boat aces. Furthermore, he shared with Adalbert Schnee, Teddy Suhren, and Erich Topp, the rare privilege of being affectionately nicknamed by Admiral Dönitz as "The Four Aces." The discovery of a photo album from a U-203 crew member, complemented by images sourced at the U-Boat Archive at Cuxhaven, allows us to illustrate the astonishing history of this U-boat with 240 photographs and documents. The eleven combat missions of U-203 are precisely described thanks to numerous maps and sketches and the complete translation of its logbook.
Download or read book First U Boat Flotilla written by Lawrence Paterson and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2001-08-01 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formed in 1935, First U-Boat Flotilla operated against Hitler's enemies from the very earliest stage of the war through to September 1944 when disbanded amid the flames of Brest during the US siege. Over seventy-five per cent of operational U-boats were lost as the Allies' counter-measures and code-breaking successes took ever greater effect. This fascinating work records the Flotilla's successes and disasters in detail.
Download or read book Steel and Ice written by Lawrence Paterson and published by . This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the land war raged along the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945, an equally fierce and unrelenting war ensued on the seas. From German Wolf Pack attacks on Russian convoy traffic and military vessels to close-quarter combat undertaken by small U-boats transported by land and river to the Black Sea, the Kriegsmarine wrestled for control of the seas fringing an embattled Soviet Union. Combined with the fortitude of U-boat crews who fought in some of the harshest weather conditions found at sea, ingenuity on behalf of German military engineers also facilitated the transfer of U-boats from Germany to Romania. From there, the Kriegsmarine engaged Soviet military might and pioneered the use of submarine-based rocket firing technology against land targets. The struggle between the Kriegsmarine s U-boats and the Red Navy lasted from the opening salvos of Operation Barbarossa to the final chaotic days of Germany s defeat. Available in English for the first time, "Steel and Ice" is well-illustrated, containing never-before-published color and black and white photos."
Download or read book U boat Commander written by Peter Erich Cremer and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true-life war thriller by the famed U-boat ace who presents an authentic view of the notorious wolf packs and their encounters with the Allies.
Download or read book History of the U Boot written by Kittel & Graf and published by Edizioni R.E.I.. This book was released on 2015-03-10 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: U-Boot is the German term to refer broadly to submarines, and is short for Unterseeboot, literally "submarine boat". The objectives of the U-boat campaigns in both wars were the convoys carrying supplies from the US to Europe. The term U-Boot, followed by a number, such as U-Boot 47 indicates a specific vessel, while U-Boot Type II a particular class, the only U-boats that can be considered true submarines, and submarines, are those that belong to the Type XXI and Type XXIII. During the Second World War, the attacks of the U-boats were the main component of the Battle of the North Eastern, which lasted until the end of the war. During the early stages of the war and immediately after the entry of the United States, the U-boats were extremely effective in the destruction of merchant allies. Improvements in tactical convoys, sonar, the depth charges, the deciphering of the Enigma code used by the Germans and the range of escort aircraft served to turn the fate against the U-boats. At the end of the U-boat fleet suffered extremely heavy losses, losing 789 units (three British submarines captured) of 1157 (of which 25 Allied captured) and about 30,000 sailors on a total of 50.000. The German U-boats and Japanese submarines and Italian sank around 2,828 Allied ships, for a total of about 15 million tons. Between 1939 and 1942 the U-boats also bombed the oil fields of Florida and Americans of many coastal areas causing extensive damage; when the British found a way to decipher Enigma allies were able to predict the movements, yet the Germans did not interrupt the use of U-boats in the Atlantic. During World War II, the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) produced different types of U-boats, as the technology improved. In this volume are indicated in detail the characteristics of all the classes of U-Boot, from Type I to Type XXIII, in addition to the history of the U-boats that made the protagonists during the Second World War.
Download or read book Wolf written by Jordan Vause and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultivated by the Allied press during the war and fostered by movies and novels ever since, the image of a U-boat skipper held by most Americans is the personification of evil: the wolf who stalks innocents. Quite the opposite image is shared by U-boat veterans and others sympathetic to their work: the knight who endures unrivaled danger and fights nobly. Yet another popular image depicts the submarine operator as a beleaguered sailor swept along by events beyond his control. This book examines the lives of many U-Bootwaffe officers, including the famous and the not-so-well known, to see if a pattern emerges. Drawing on a wealth of primary documents and, when possible, interviews or correspondence with the U-boat commanders themselves, Jordan Vause follows individual officers from their youths and early naval training through their wartime experiences and into the often bitter peace that followed. His close examination of their lives reveals that many were extremely different from the pictures typically drawn of them and as varied in their thoughts and actions as other fighting men on both sides of the war. Particularly valuable is the author's use of new information in his portrayal of Karl Doenitz and other prominent commanders to correct and enhance pictures presented in earlier books. His use of personal correspondence and unpublished manuscripts loaned to him in Germany adds special significance to this study and its appeal to all those interested in World War II, submarines, and the U-Bootwaffe.
Download or read book The Official U Boat Commanders Handbook written by Bob Carruthers and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-01-21 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the complete wartime translation by the U.S. Navy of the 1943 edition of the official handbook given to all U-boat commanders. The original handbook was compiled from combat reports and was regularly updated throughout the war. The handbook was an invaluable reference for every operational U-boat commander. ??Simply written and highly accessible for a wider audience, the U-boat handbook attempted to anticipate every possible situation and to advise on suitable tactics. This superb war-time primary source is enhanced by a rare series of photographs taken on an actual combat patrol and published during the time of the Third Reich in the book ñU-Boot Auf Feindfahrtî.??Together the handbook and these rare photographs provide a fascinating glimpse into the world of the U-boats from a first hand perspective, and is essential reading for anyone interested in World War II from primary sources.
Download or read book Hitler s U Boat War written by Clay Blair and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2010-07-21 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clay Blair's best-selling naval classic Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, is regarded as the definitive account of that decisive phase of the war in the Pacific. Nine years in the making, Hitler's U-boat War is destined to become the definitive account of the German submarine war against the Allies, or "The Battle of the Atlantic." It is an epic sea story, the most arduous and prolonged naval battle in all history. For a period of nearly six years, the German U-boat force attempted to blockade and isolate the British Isles, in hopes of forcing the British out of the war, thereby thwarting the Allied strategic air assault on German cities as well as Overlord, the Allied invasion of Occupied France. Fortunately for the Allies, the U-boat force failed to achieve either of these objectives, but in the attempt they sank 2,800 Allied merchant ships, while the Allies sank nearly 800 U-boats. On both sides, tens of thousands of sailors perished. The top secret Allied penetration of German naval codes, and, conversely, the top secret German penetration of Allied naval codes played important roles in the Atlantic naval battle. In order to safeguard the secrets of codebreaking in the postwar years, London and Washington agreed to withhold all official codebreaking and U-boat records. Thus for decade upon decade an authoritative and definitive history of the Battle of the Atlantic could not be attempted. The accounts that did appear were incomplete and full of errors of fact and false interpretations and conclusions, often leaving the entirely wrong impression that the German U-boats came within a whisker of defeating the Allies, a myth that persists. When London and Washington finally began to release the official records in the 1980s, Clay Blair and his wife, Joan, commenced work on this history in Washington, London, and Germany. They relied on the official records as well as the work of German, British, American, and Canadian naval scholars who published studies of bits and pieces of the story. The end result is this magnificent and monumental work, crammed with vivid and dramatic scenes of naval actions and dispassionate but startling new revelations and interpretations and conclusions about all aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic. The Blair history will be published in two volumes. This first volume, The Hunters, covers the first three years of the war, August 1939 to August 1942. Told chronologically, it is subdivided into two major sections, the War Against the British Empire, and the War Against the Americas. Volume II, The Hunted, to follow a year later, will cover the last years of the naval war in Europe, August 1942 to May 1945, when the Allies finally overcame the U-boat threat. Never before has Hitler's U-boat war been chronicled with such authority, fidelity, objectivity, and detail. Nothing is omitted. Even those who fought the Battle of the Atlantic will find no end of surprises. Later generations will benefit by having at hand an account of this important phase of World War II, free of bias and mythology.
Download or read book Building for Battle U Boat Pens of the Atlantic Battle written by Philip Kaplan and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-03-30 with total page 219 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 - Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Churchill, as a former First Lord of the Admiralty, was well versed in the importance of Britain protecting itself at sea. In the opening years of the Second World War, Germanys U-boat (submarine) fleet was tasked with attacking and destroying the supply ships that Britain depended upon for its survival.The U-boats were under the command of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz who, for much of the war, effectively guided that strategy. There was a very real possibility that the British people would starve if the U-boats succeeded in their campaign. When France fell to the German forces in 1940, Hitlers Ubootwaffe gained a significant asset in five important ports along the Brittany coast - Brest, Lorient, St. Nazaire, La Palace and Bordeaux. The use of these ports put Germanys submarine force hundreds of miles closer to the action in the North Atlantic, the routes of the Allied supply convoys which were operating mainly between Halifax, Nova Scotia and various English port cities. This afforded the U-boats several more days at sea on their deadly patrols than was possible while they had been based in Germany and German-occupied Norway.In this new publication from Philip Kaplan, the massive bunkers or pens constructed in Brittany by the laborers of the German Organisation Todt are revisited. These giant structures, some of which sheltered more than a dozen submarines at a time, still exist because they were built with concrete ceilings more than three meters thick. With equally impressive supporting walls, they suffered relatively little damage in the wartime bombing raids of the Royal Air Force and the US Eighth Army Air Force. Illustrated with more than 150 rare and compelling photo images, this book is a richly rewarding journey back across time to some of the most intriguing and electrifying sites from the war years. The story of the pen shelters and their part in that war is both fascinating and enduring.
Download or read book Wolf Pack written by Gordon Williamson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-01-20 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive book, the wartime development of the U-Boat is traced along with the experiences of typical U-Boat crewmen, from recruitment to combat. Germany's World War II U-Boat fleet represented the elite of their naval personnel. In terms of technology, training, tactics and combat successes, the U-Boat Waffe was far superior to that of any other combatant nation. Gordon Williamson examines the operational tactics of the U-Boat fleet, as well as describing the massive bunkers that housed them. Wolf Pack contains material taken from Fortress 3: 'U-Boat Bases and Bunkers 1941-45', Warrior 36: 'Grey Wolf: U-Boat Crewman of World War II' and New Vanguards 51 and 55: 'Kriegsmarine U-Boat 1939-45 (1) and (2)', with the addition of a new section on wartime tactics.
Download or read book The U Boat War in the Atlantic 1944 1945 written by Bob Carruthers and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second of three volumes covering the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic during the Second World War.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 Gunther 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 D nitz s Last Gamble written by Lawrence Paterson and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2008-07-23 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The tragic final year of Hitler’s once highly effective U-Boat campaign against Allied shipping is graphically and grippingly told here.” —Work Boat World By the end of 1943 the German submarine war on Atlantic convoys was all but defeated, beaten by superior technology, code-breaking and air power. With losses mounting, Karl Dönitz withdrew the wolfpacks, but in a surprise change of strategy, following the D-Day landings in June 1944, he sent his U-boats into coastal waters, closer to home, where they could harass the crucial Allied supply lines to the new European bridgehead. Caught unawares, the British and American navies struggled to cope with a novel predicament—in shallow waters submarines could lie undetectable on the bottom, and given operational freedom, they rarely needed to make signals, neutralizing the Allied advantages of decryption and radio direction-finding. Behind this unpleasant shock lay an even greater threat, of radically new submarine types known to be nearing service. Dönitz saw these as war-winning weapons, and gambled that his inshore campaign would hold up the Allied advance long enough to allow these faster and quieter boats to be deployed in large numbers. This offensive was perhaps Germany’s last chance to turn the tide, yet, surprisingly, such an important story has never been told in detail before. That it did not succeed masks its full significance: in the Cold War that followed, the massive Soviet submarine fleet—built on captured German technology and tactical experience—became a very real menace to Western sea power. In this way, Dönitz’s last gamble set the course of post-war antisubmarine development.
Download or read book German U Boat Ace Adalbert Schnee written by Luc Braeuer and published by Schiffer Military History. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few commanders symbolize the evolution of the German U-boat arm during the Second World War as does Adalbert "Adi" Schnee. In 1940, Schnee successively commanded three Type II U-boats--U-6, U-60 and U-121-- in which he registered his first successes in the Atlantic. From the beginning of 1941, he was appointed commander of U-201, the first Type VIIC U-boat allotted to I Flotilla. During seven patrols with this U-Boot, which would take him to the coasts of America and Africa, he would receive the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. With 15 ships sunk in convoys in the mid-Atlantic, he became the specialist in this form of attack. Commanding U-2511 in May 1945, he alone carried out an actual combat mission in the Type XXI U-boat. With the aid of logbooks and the recent discovery of a considerable collection of images from a war correspondent on one of U-201's missions, this book examines Schnee's incredible combat career.
Download or read book Black May written by Michael Gannon and published by Dell Publishing Company. This book was released on 1999 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In one extraordinary month, using new tactics, new weapons, and the coordinated forces of a new generation of submarine hunters, the Allies destroyed 41 U-boats and damaged 37 others in the North Atlantic--sending the Nazi U-boat wolf pack running. Here, distinguished naval historian Michael Gannon captures this epic battle and those who shaped it, from the men who made key command decisions to the sailors trapped inside the steel-hulled U-boats as they were pounded by Allied depth charges. Drawing on never-before-released transcripts of secretly recorded conversations of U-boat POWs, this is the epic story of two powerful enemies going head-to-head in a desperate naval battle, and why one side emerged the victor and the other the vanquished. Book jacket.
Download or read book Battle Beneath the Waves written by Robert Cecil Stern and published by Castle Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of true stories featuring German U-boatmen vividly tell what it was like to undergo the terror and tedium of living for weeks on end in a narrow, stinking tube, targeting their counterparts for sudden, sinking death. In these first-person accounts, even the torpedo attacks are routine; what creates terror is the sudden instant when something goes horribly, often fatally, wrong.
