Download or read book U boats of the Second World War Their Longest Voyages written by Jak P. Mallmann Showell and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2014-03-24 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ocean-going U-boats, each one not much longer than four European articulated lorries with up to sixty men inside them, sailed the far-off seas to reap havoc in hot inhospitable waters. The air forces and navies from Britain, the United States and other colonial countries followed to make this a daring and death-threatening venture. The facts of what the U-boats achieved against massive odds have been told before, but U-Boats of the Second World War: Their Longest Voyages is different. It concentrates more on how it was done. How the men survived, how they lived and died and how they still found time to carry out their orders. The book is based on masses of previously unpublished documents from the German U-boat Museum, many of them written during or shortly after the war by men who survived this bitter conflict. This is the story of how specially built long-range ocean-going U-boats started out one step ahead of the Allied navies and air power, how they fell one step behind and how they finally vanished into the depths of the biggest and deepest oceans. This is a remarkable story of endurance, courage and comradeship that terrified the world for the most critical period of the Second World War. The author, Jak P. Mallmann Showell, is the son of a U-boat diesel mechanic who disappeared in those warm waters two months before the author was born.
Download or read book U Boats at War in World War I and II written by Jon Sutherland and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2009-11-19 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photographic history of German submarines in the world wars, including unseen images from the personal collections of captains and crew. U-boats were the scourge of the seas for Allied shipping during both world wars, almost bringing Britain to the brink of starvation on several occasions. This book contains unseen photographs taken by German submarine crew and captains during each war. The World War One selection features a submariner’s photos of U-25, an early German U-boat. They belonged to WO Friedrich Pohl, who served on U-boats SM-25 and SMU-33. There are many photos of the U-boat itself, crew on deck, and attacks on Norwegian merchant ships with the surface gun. U-25 was launched July 12, 1913, sank a total of twenty-one ships and 14,126 tons, and surrendered to France on February 23, 1919. The World War Two photos include images from an original WW2 U-boat commander’s photo album. It belonged to Kapitan Leutnant Herbert Bruninghaus. As a U-boat navigator, he served on the famous U-38 under ace Heinrich Liebe. Bruninghaus later went on to command three U-boats of his own: U-6, U-148, and U-1059. There are also original images from a Kriegmarine officer’s photo album (unfortunately unnamed), including photos of Commander Prien’s U-47 returning to Kiel after attacks at Scapa Flow.
Download or read book Hitler s Naval Bases written by Jak P. Mallmann Showell and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-01-21 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hitler's U-boats and his dreaded pocket battleships such as Bismarck and Tirpitz - Churchill dubbed the latter as 'The Beast' - continue to fascinate an ever-growing interest in the Second World War. Despite a numerical disadvantage when compared the Royal Navy, Hitler's U-boats wrecked havoc in the Atlantic against vulnerable convoys and the doomed Bismarck took on the might of Britain's battleships in a mighty clash of the titans. Hitler's Naval Bases, a work of love that took the author over forty years to research and write, is the most comprehensive and dedicated book on the subject matter. A world's first, it covers bases in remarkable detail from the smallest and unmanned locations to the largest dedicated bases in Lorient, Kiel and Wilhemshaven. The book covers the different types of naval base from isolated and forgotten bases, escape and survival bases, to the extremities of the main naval bases. The functions and various departments - artillery, ship construction to dockyard medical service - are explained as are North Sea naval bases in Emden, The Weser Ports and Cuxhaven, Baltic ports, the major bases that never were ('The Lobster's Claw on Heligoland') to France, Asia and German colonies, including re-fuelling in Spain and bases located in Russia and in the 'Heart of England'. Also covered are naval artillery and naval infantry as well as the anatomy of coastal artillery batteries, the shipping yards and even rules for living in such conditions. A most lavish and phenomenal book, it is beautifully illustrated with over 200 unpublished photographs complemented with thousands of unique interviews with veterans during the war as well as survivors. A labour of love, Hitler's Naval Bases is written by a world's leading authoritarian figure and is an essential book for those interested in the armed forces of the Third Reich.
Download or read book The U Boat War in the Atlantic written by Bob Carruthers and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 255 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 Torpedo Junction written by Homer H Hickam and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 1996-05-03 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area "Torpedo Junction." And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful of Coast Guard sailors scrambled to the front lines. Outgunned and out-maneuvered, they heroically battled the deadliest fleet of submarines ever launched. Never was Germany closer to winning the war. In a moving ship-by-ship account of terror and rescue at sea, Homer Hickam chronicles a little-known saga of courage, ingenuity, and triumph in the early years of World War II. From nerve-racking sea duels to the dramatic ordeals of sailors and victims on both sides of the battle, Hickam dramatically captures a war we had to win--because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.
Download or read book German U Boat Losses During World War II written by Axel Niestlé and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2014-06-30 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deep dive into the fate of German submarines lost during the Second World War. “This has to be the best reference you can find on the subject.”—Military Modelling No other publication on this subject comes even close to including the amount of detail provided in this book. An introduction both summarizes previous works on the subject and describes the difficulties of obtaining and verifying information from either the Germans or the Allies on U-boat losses. The main part of the book lists by hull number each U-boat’s date of commissioning, its commanding officer, and the date and port of departure for its last patrol. It also gives the date, position, and cause of loss of each submarine, with complete details on Allied units involved in the sinking, the names and ranks of their commanding officers and pilots, and the number of crew killed or rescued. An appendix neatly summarizes data on the disposition of surviving U-boats at the end of the war and provides valuable statistical data on German U-boat losses. “Highly recommended for every serious scholar of the Atlantic war, and every library in naval history and the history of the Second World War.”—The Mariner’s Mirror “The level of detail is quite impressive and this edition is the result of 16 years of further research since the first edition . . . If you are seeking data on the fate of U-Boats then this book should be your ‘first place of call’—no other book has such detailed data.”—Military Archive Research
Download or read book U Boats at War in 100 Objects 1939 1945 written by Gordon Williamson and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 192 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 history of the Second World War. ‘I was even more anxious about this battle than I had been about the glorious air fight called the Battle of Britain.” In reality, the Kriegsmarine had been woefully unprepared for the war into which it was thrown. The Command-in-Chief of submarines, Karl Dönitz, himself a verteran U-boat captain from the First World War, felt that he could bring Britain to its knees with a fleet of 300 U-Boats. But when war broke out, he had just twenty-four available for operational use. Despite this, the U-Boat arm scored some incredible successes in the early part of the war, raising the status of the submarine commanders and crews to that of national heroes in the eyes of the German people. The ‘Grey Wolves’ had become super-stars. Small wonder then that the U-Boat war has fascinated students of military history ever since. This book, using a carefully selected range of both wartime images and colour images of surviving U-boat memorabilia from private collections, describes 100 iconic elements of the U-Boat service and its campaigns. The array of objects include important individuals and the major U-Boat types, through to the uniforms and insignias the men wore. The weapons, equipment and technology used are explored, as are the conditions in which the U-boat crews served, from cooking facilities and general hygiene down to the crude toilet facilities. Importantly, the enemy that they faced is also covered, examining the ship-borne and airborne anti-submarine weaponry utilised against the U-boats. The U-Boats began the war, though small in number, more than a match for the Allies and created carnage amongst merchant shipping as well as sinking several major warships. The pace of technological development, however, failed to match that of Allied anti-submarine warfare weaponry and the U-Bootwaffe was ultimately doomed to defeat but not before, at one point, coming close to bringing Britain to its knees.
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 256 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 Hitler s Attack U Boats written by Jak P. Mallmann Showell and published by Frontline Books. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A definitive introduction by a highly recognized authority who writes beautifully and clearly.” —Naval Historical Foundation The fact that German submarines almost managed to cut off Britain’s vital imports during the First World War hadn’t been forgotten by Hitler—and when, in 1935, he repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, Britain, magnanimously, signed an Anglo-German Naval Agreement. This allowed the Germans to build their submarine strength up to one third of the Royal Navy’s tonnage. When war broke out in 1939, German U-boats went quickly into action, but with only four years of production and development, the main armament of these submarines was considerably weaker than equivalent boats in other navies and many other features, such as living conditions, were also significantly inferior. Yet, the German U-boat onslaught against British merchant ships in autumn 1940 was highly successful because the attacks were made on the surface at night and from such close range that a single torpedo would sink a ship. Soon, though, Allied technology was able to detect U-boats at night, and new convoy techniques, combined with powerfully armed, fast modern aircraft searching the seas, meant that by 1941 it was clear that Germany was losing the war at sea. Something had to be done. The new generation of attack U-boats that had been introduced since Hitler came to power needed urgent improvement. This is the story of the Types II, VII, and IX that had already become the ‘workhorse’ of the Kriegsmarine’s submarine fleet and continued to put out to sea to attack Allied shipping right up to the end of the war. The Type II was a small coastal boat that struggled to reach the Atlantic; the Type VII was perfectly at home there, but lacked the technology to tackle well protected convoys; while the Type IX was a long-range variety modified so it could operate in the Indian Ocean. This book by the renowned Kriegsmarine historian explores these attack U-boats at length, including details of their armament, capabilities, and crew facilities; the story of their development and operational history; and just what it was like to operate such a vessel.
Download or read book U Boats in New England written by Eric Wiberg and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2019-11-03 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting weeks after Hitler declared war on the United States in mid-December 1941 and lasting until the war with Germany was all but over, 73 German U-Boats sustainably attacked New England waters, from Montauk New York to the tip of Nova Scotia at Cape Sable. Fifteen percent of these boats were sunk by Allied counter-attacks, five surrendered in the region, and three were sunk off New England--Block Island, Massachusetts Bay, and off Nantucket. These have proven appealing to divers, with a result that at least three German naval officers or ratings are buried in New England, one having killed himself in the Boston jail cell. There were 34 Allied merchant or naval ships sunk by these subs, one of them, the 'Eagle', was not admitted to have been sunk by the Germans until decades later. Over 1,100 men were thrown in the water and 545 of them made it ashore in New England ports; 428 were killed. Importantly, saboteurs were landed three places: Long Island, Frenchman's Bay Maine and New Brunswick Canada, and Boston was mined. Very little was known about this.
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 Hitler s Gray Wolves written by Lawrence Paterson and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Next to nothing has been written about the U-boat war in the Indian Ocean. This is the story of a forgotten campaign. The battle began in August 1943, when a German submarine arrived in the Malaysian harbor of Georgetown. In total, nearly forty U-boats were assigned to penetrate the Indian Ocean, serving alongside troops of the occupying Imperial Japanese forces. The Japanese allowed U-boats to use Malaysia as an operational station. From that base, they mixed with Japanese forces on a hitherto unseen scale: a move which spread the U-boat war throughout the vast Indian Ocean and into the Pacific. Success in this theater of war held a real chance to swing the tide of battle in North Africa in favor of Rommel, but the Germans essentially did too little too late. The joint action also gave U-boats the opportunity to penetrate the Pacific Ocean for the first time, attacking shipping off the Australian coast and hunting off New Zealand. Plans were even afoot for an assault on American supply lines. The cooperation' also brought into stark relief the fundamental differences of German and Japanese war aims. After the crews of Italian supply submarines joined the Germans and Japanese, relations between the fighting men of the three main Axis powers were often brutal and almost constantly turbulent. Stories of U-boats laden with gold and treasure stem almost exclusively from boats destined to and returning from Japanese-controlled Malaysia, laden with material exchanged between the two major partners of the Triple Axis Alliance.
Download or read book The Hemingway Patrols written by Terry Mort and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-08-18 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the summer of 1942 until the end of 1943, Ernest Hemingway spent much of his time patrolling the Gulf Stream and the waters off Cuba’s north shore in his fishing boat, Pilar. He was looking for German submarines. These patrols were sanctioned and managed by the US Navy and were a small but useful part of anti-submarine warfare at a time when U boat attacks against merchant shipping in the Gulf and the Caribbean were taking horrific tolls. While almost no attention has been paid to these patrols, other than casual mention in biographies, they were a useful military contribution as well as a central event (to Hemingway) around which important historical, literary, and biographical themes revolve.
Download or read book Kriegsmarine U boats 1939 45 1 written by Gordon Williamson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-20 with total page 77 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This, the first of two volumes on Germany's World War II U-boats, traces their development from the early U-boats of the Kaiser's Navy, the prohibition on Germany having U-boats following the Armistice in 1918 and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles, the secret development of U-boats using a 'cover-firm' in Holland, culminating in the formation of the 1st U-boat Flotilla in 1935 with the modern Type II. The operational history section includes examples from the Classes Type VIIA, Type VIIB, VIID, VIIE and VIIF before concentrating on the mainstay of the U-boat arm, the Type VIIC. Comparisons are also made with the standard allied submarines, their strengths, weaknesses and U-boat tactics.
Download or read book A Measureless Peril written by Richard Snow and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-05-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "A Measureless Peril, " the historian Richard Snow captures all the drama of the merciless contest between the quickly built U.S. warships and the ever-more cunning and lethal U-boats that controlled the sea lanes of the Atlantic during WWII.
Download or read book The U Boat War in the Atlantic written by Bob Carruthers and published by . This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the third of three volumes describing U-boat operations 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 The Burning Shore written by Ed Offley and published by Civitas Books. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel— all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America’s east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen’s three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen’s successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats’ success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen’s cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic—and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode’s survivors. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler’s U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.
