Hitler's U-Boat War - book review & more links

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Hitler's U-Boat War

Clay Blair's books w/ Amazon reviews.

Also links to related Nazi spy info, Nuremberg trials and more.

The Avalon Project : Nuremberg

The Brandenburg Commandos - Cover Page: July '96 World War II Feature

The Voyage of the Damned, the Abwehr in Cuba, and the Spy in the

Spy Book Fact of the Day: Garbo

Espionage - Spymaster - Canaris, Wilhelm Franz

ABWEHR via the Simon Wiesenthal Center

WWII - Europe - Germany - H-Q

Intelligence Section OKW (Abwehr) - German Intelligence Agencies

WWII - Europe - Germany - Canaris/Abwehr

USS Bogue An ASW "Jeep carrier" via U-BOAT.NET Includes ref. to U-1229

PROJECT CA-35

Ref. U-1229 - She carried the ABWEHR agent, Oskar Mantel. He was repatriated in 1947

Investigating the sinking of a legendary German U-Boat off the coast

of Cape Cod, Massachusetts in August of 1944, and to uncover the

reasons for its secrecy for over fifty-four years.

Buy Clay Blair's books at RONTINI's BOOKSTORE (An Amazon access site)

Hitler's U-Boat War : The Hunters, 1939-1942 (Vol. 1)

Reviews copied from Amazon.com

From Booklist , October 15, 1996

This is the first of two volumes in which Blair strives to do for World War II German submarine actions in the Atlantic what he did for the U.S. Pacific submarine effort in Silent Victory (1970). He chronicles most of the major U-boat attacks and antisubmarine counterattacks, and as he does, revises the prevailing wisdom on a good many classic actions and sees to it that quite a number of hitherto unknown yet distinguished officers on both sides receive their due.

In the mass of stories told, however, Blair's two interpretive theses tend to be lost--both the major one, that the U-boats were never a strategic danger to the Allied war effort, and the minor one, that the U.S. Navy was well aware of Britain's 1942 antisubmarine warfare experience but had to leave American coastal shipping unprotected to concentrate scarce resources on escorting troop convoys. Overall evaluation of Blair's achievement must wait until publication of the second volume in 1997. Suffice it to say that this book makes a very fine beginning.

From Kirkus Reviews , September 15, 1996

The first of two volumes recounting in sweeping (almost too sweeping) detail the true impact of Nazi Germany's storied U-boats on the course of WW II. On the basis of his painstaking research, Blair (Ridgway's Paratroopers, 1985, etc.) concludes that this impact has been greatly exaggerated. Noting that 99 percent of the Allied merchant ships in transatlantic convoys reached their destination, he suggests that the principal achievement of the U-boats may have been obliging Anglo-American forces to commit substantive resources to anti-submarine warfare. Without ever suggesting that the Battle of the Atlantic was other than a bitter, to-the-death struggle on both sides, the author (who saw action aboard a US sub in the Pacific theater) makes a persuasive case for his revisionist thesis. In doing so, moreover, he offers gripping, hell-and-high- water accounts of submarine warfare.

Blair provides background on the post WW I revival of the German Kriegsmarine, and on the command structure and aspirations of the Third Reich's silent service. The author then reckons the havoc wreaked by their skippers before and after the US was drawn into the global conflict. Covered as well are the exploits of legendary aces, the logistical problems attendant to deploying a flotilla of U-boats, rules of engagement, the invariably inflated tonnage claims, and code-breaking programs.

For all the terror U-boats inspired among mariners and upper-echelon commanders, Blair argues that they never proved a decisive strategic weapon; in fact, these craft were doomed early on by a ruinously unfavorable exchange rate (the number of ships sunk per subs lost) without ever posing a serious threat to Allied supply lines. Military history of a surpassingly high order, which (assuming no letdown in the concluding volume) could become the standard reference on U-boats. (maps and photos, not seen) (History Book Club selection)

Book Description

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.

Synopsis

The epic, authoritative--and definitive--story of Hitler's undersea war by the author of the bestselling Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan. The attraction to readers here will be the cornucopia of events--the encounters of the Ark Royal, North Sea patrols, creation of the Wolf Packs, the extreme agitation and fear created in the Allies by the U-boat campaign, and the myriad encounters of war at sea. of photos.

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. 20,000 first printing. History Bk Club.

About the Author

Clay Blair served in combat on a submarine in the Pacific, attended Tulane and Columbia universities, and became the National Security Correspondent for Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post magazines in Washington, then editor in chief of the Saturday Evening Post. He has published hundreds of magazine articles and 24 prior books. These include biographies of Admiral H.G. Rickover, Generals Douglas MacArthur, Omar N. Bradley, Matthew B. Ridgway, and John F. Kennedy and most recently, a definitive account of the conflict in Korea, The Forgotten War

Hitler's U-Boat War : The Hunted 1942-1945 (Vol. 2)

Reviews copied from Amazon.com

This mammoth book concludes the two-volume set that began with The Hunters, 1939-1942. If the first installment charted the rise of the U-boat, this one describes its downfall as the United States became fully engaged in the Second World War. A careful scholar, Blair never overstates the impact the U-boats played on the war's final outcome, even though they sank roughly 3,000 ships.

He is, above all, comprehensive. Rather than a breezy overview, this book describes, spread out over nearly 900 pages (including 20 appendices!), almost every U-boat action in the second half of the war. Some readers will find this level of detail exhausting, but others will revel in it, and The Hunted is sure to be regarded as a standard in its field.

John J. Miller

Book Description

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.

Synopsis

The second landmark volume of German U-boat warfare in World War II--by the author of the bestselling "Silent Victory: The U.S. of photos. 5 maps.

From the Back Cover

"There is no doubt that this is a magnificent piece of naval history, not only exhaustive but also very well written, with strong appeal to the general reader as well as to the specialist....A real heavyweight."

--John Keegan