Hitlers U Boat War

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 865 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 Hitler's U-boat War written by Clay Blair and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2000-04 with total page 909 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume in Clay Blair's history of Hitler's U-boat war, covering years 1942 to 1945. Told chronologically, it is divided into two sections: the war against Britain and her empire, and the war against the Americas. Clay Blair served in World War II in the submarines. He chronicles dramatic scenes of naval actions and makes interpretations and conclusions about all aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic.

Download or read book Hitler's U-boat War: The hunted, 1942-1945 written by Clay Blair and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1996 with total page 988 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume of Clay Blair's magisterial, highly praised narrative history of the German submarine war against Allied shipping in World War II, The Hunters, 1939-1942, described the Battle of the Atlantic waged first against the British Empire and then against the Americas. This second and concluding volume, The Hunted, 1942-1945, covers the period when the fortunes of the German Navy were completely reversed, and it suffered perhaps the most devastating defeat of any of the German forces. In unprecedented detail and drawing on sources never used before, Clay Blair continues the dramatic and authoritative story of the failures and fortunes of the German U-boat campaign against the United States and Great Britain. All the major patrols and sorties made by the Germans are described in detail and with considerable human interest: the Peleus and Laconia affairs; the capture at sea of U-505; the crisis of German command; the futile operations against the Americas; and the mounting and devastating losses that, in effect, entirely destroyed the German submarine service. Amid the riveting accounts of battles at sea in Volume I, military historian Blair, who served on an American submarine in the Pacific against Japan, postulates that the German U-boat peril in the Atlantic has been "vastly overblown" in previously published histories and memoirs of that naval struggle, as well as in films. As a consequence, Blair writes, a false mythology about the effectiveness of U-boats has taken root, and in order to clearly and fully understand World War II, one must put the U-boat threat into proper perspective. Although neither volume is intended to be "technical" in nature, Blair does not neglect the scientific developments of the U-boat war. These include radar and radar detectors, active and passive sonar, Axis encoding machines and exotic Allied decoding machines, high-frequency direction finding (Huff Duff), Hedgehogs, depth charges, and sophisticated U-boat torpedoes. He describes how these devices worked and how they influenced the course of the naval battle. The remarkable story of Hitler's U-Boat War has been one of the last World War II subjects without a conclusive treatment. Now, thanks to Clay Blair, this has been brilliantly remedied.

Download or read book Hitler's U-Boat War written by Clay Blair and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 1567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second and final volume of the definitive account of the German submarine war. Acclaimed on its publication in 1997 ('should become the standard history of the Unterseeboote' - Washington Post) volume one of Clay Blair's magnum opus is here followed by volume two, The Hunted covering 1942-45. In this volume the fortunes of the German navy are completely reversed - due in no small part to Allied codebreaking - and they suffer perhaps the most devastating defeat of any of the Germany forces. destroying their submarine service entirely. Blair has been at work on this history for nine years since the British and American governments began to release official WWII records in the 1980s. Blair himself served in submarines in combat in WWII. He chronicles the U-Boat war with authority, fidelity, objectivity and extraordinary detail. He also writes vivid and dramatic scenes of naval actions and dispassionate, but startling new revelations, interpretations and conclusions about all aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic.

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 285 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 Hitler's U-Boat Bases written by Jak P. Mallmann Showell and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a concise historical background to the rise of the Nazi U-boat fleet, and the part it played in the Second World War. The author examines in detail how and why each of the bases in France, Germany and Norway were designed and built, and how they were defended against attack, while listing which boats were based where and when.

Download or read book Hitler's U-Boat Fortresses written by Randolph Bradham and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2003-11-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Despite their extensive efforts - and those of the Americans who joined them in 1942 - the fortresses would survive, surrounded by the decimated French towns and countryside. This is the story of what was, perhaps, the longest ongoing battle in Europe during the Second World War, seen through the eyes of someone who experienced much of it firsthand."--Jacket.