U Boat Prey Merchant Sailors At War 1939 1942

ñThe Merchant Seaman never faltered. To him we owe our preservation and our very livesî - The Right Hon. Alfred Barnes, Minister of War Transport.??During the first stages of the Second World War, all forces were rallied in an attempt to support the Allied effort. With trade and supply routes to Britain suddenly being placed at great risk, a stalwart team of merchant sailors were required to protect vital supplies for the British people, as well as shipping vital army necessities back and forth. The efforts of the sailors involved really can't be overstated. Despite the fact that they didn't wear uniforms, and few were rewarded with medals or memorials, they were certainly as worthy of the title 'front-line warrior' as the guardsmen and fighter pilots to whom they transported necessary combat supplies. Indeed, many are in agreement that their efforts stood between the might of German forces and the domination of the world. ??Over 30,000 men fell victim to the German U-boats between 1939 and 1945. This publication serves as a tribute to their efforts, and will be followed by a second volume covering the final stages of the war, from 1943-45. Images of some of the most imposing merchant ships feature, accompanied by a lucid narrative describing the various roles enacted by the sailors on board and the wartime context in which they worked.

The ships and men of the Allied merchant navies. Without the British Merchant Navy, the American Merchant Marine and the Canadian Merchant Navy, Britain could not have survived even a few weeks of war.

The first in a two-volume history of Germany's submarine campaign during World War II covers events from the beginning of the war up to 1942, discussing Hitler's operations against British and American shipping. Reprint.

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.

“An indispensable reference work for anyone studying either the U-boat campaign or WW2 at sea . . . copiously illustrated, fascinating—and harrowing.”—Navy News During the Second World War over 250 Allied warships from a dozen navies were sent to the bottom by German U-boats. This ground-breaking study provides a detailed analysis of every sinking for which source material survives from both the Allied and the German sides, resulting in detailed treatment of the fate of 110 vessels, with the remainder summarized in an extensive appendix. Uniquely, each entry is built around a specialist translation of the relevant segment of the war diary (log) of the U-boat in question, taken directly from the surviving originals—remarkably, this represents the first large-scale publication of the U-boat war diaries in any language. The book offers a wealth of new information, not only with respect to the circumstances of the sinkings from both the Allied and German perspectives, but also to the technical environment in which they lived as well as the fate of the crews. The entries include background details on the vessels concerned and the men involved, with a selection of rare and carefully chosen photos from archives and collections around the world. Each entry is itself a compelling narrative, but is backed with a list of sources consulted, including documents, published works and websites. A decade in the making, this is probably the most important book on the U-boat war to be published for many a year. “Offers significant new information on many of the most famous incidents.”—Maritime Advisor

‘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.

This fully illustrated history explores the unique role of armored vehicles in the Korean War with more than 180 wartime photographs. After World War II, military analysts thought that the only place significant armored forces were ever likely to confront each other again was in central Europe where the NATO alliance would fend off the Soviet Red Army. But then during the Korean War of 1950-53, large numbers of armored fighting vehicles were deployed by both sides. This neglected aspect of the conflict is the subject of Anthony Tucker-Jones’s photographic history. Korea, with its rugged mountains, narrow passes, steep valleys and waterlogged fields. was not ideal tank country so the armor mainly supported the infantry and rarely engaged in battles of maneuver. Yet the wide variety of armor supporting UN and North Korean forces played a vital if unorthodox role in the swiftly moving campaigns. More than 180 contemporary photographs have been selected to show Soviet-built T-34/85s and Su-76s, American M4 Shermans, M26 Pershings and M46 Pattons, as well as British Cromwells and Centurions in one of the defining conflicts of the Cold War.

In Europe, World War II was four months old by Christmas 1939. The City of Flint, an American freighter, had been instrumental in rescuing 1200 passengers from a torpedoed ocean liner, making headlines on both sides of the Atlantic. She was captured by a Nazi warship and sent towards a German port, rigged with explosives to ensure the British Navy would not capture it. Norwegian soldiers liberated the ship--by then even Hitler knew her name. Christmas 1942 saw the City of Flint in New York with other freighters loading for North Africa. Allied codes had been cracked and the convoy was expected by a group of U-Boats. Secretly carrying poison gas as part of her cargo, she was torpedoed and exploded on January 25, 1943. Eleven survivors in her fourth lifeboat fought mountainous seas, sharks and hunger. One went mad and walked overboard. The others survived 46 days before rescue. Eyewitness accounts, war diaries and archival sources bring this untold story to life.