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Name: Black May: The Epic Story of the Allies' Defeat of the German U-Boats in May 1943: Gannon, Michael: 9780060178192: Amazon.com: Books
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Black May: The Epic Story of the Allies' Defeat of the German U-Boats in May 1943 Hardcover – Deckle Edge, May 6, 1998

by Michael Gannon (Author)

4.0 560 ratings

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In May 1943, Allied sea and air forces won a stunning, dramatic, and vital victory over the largest and most powerful submarine force ever sent to sea, sinking forty-one German U-boats and damaging thirty-seven others. It was the forty-fifth month of World War II, and by the end of May the Germans were forced to acknowledge defeat and recall almost all of their remaining U-boats from the major traffic lanes of the North Atlantic. At U-Boat Headquarters in Berlin, despondent naval officers spoke of "Black May." It was a defeat from which the German U-boat fleet never recovered.

Black May is a triumph of scholarship and narrative, an important work of history, and a great sea story. Acclaimed historian Michael Gannon, author of Operation Drumbeat, has done enormous research and produced the most thoroughly documented study ever done of these battles. In his compelling historical saga, the people are as significant as the technical information.

Given the strategic importance of the events of May 1943, it is natural to ask, How did Black May happen and why? Who or what was responsible? Were new Allied tactics adopted or new weapons employed?

This book answers those questions and many others. Drawing on original documents in German, British, U.S., and Canadian archives, as well as interviews with surviving participants, Gannon describes the exciting sea and air battles, frequently taking the reader inside the U-boats themselves, aboard British warships, onto the decks of torpedoed merchant ships, and into the cockpits of British and U.S. aircraft.

Throughout, Gannon tells the Black May story from both the German and Allied perspectives, often using the actual words of captains and crews. Finally, he allows the reader to "listen in" on secretly recorded conversations of captured U-boat men in POW quarters during that same incredible month, giving intimate and moving access to the thoughts and emotions of seamen that is unparalleled in naval literature. Rarely, if ever, has the U-boat war been presented so accurately, so graphically, and so personally as in Black May.

Print length

492 pages
Language

English
Publisher

HarperCollins
Publication date

May 6, 1998
Dimensions

6.12 x 1.53 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0060178191
ISBN-13

978-0060178192
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After a year of terrorizing ships off the coast of the United States, the tide turned against the U-boats in May 1943 when Allied forces sank 41 vessels and damaged 37 others. This frenzy of activity essentially reopened the North Atlantic to merchant shipping and helped clear a path for the Allies' final assault on Europe the following year. Michael Gannon tells his story with wonderful anecdotes from all perspectives--in one scene, he describes a surfaced U-boat crew standing on deck and watching automobile headlights shine through the blackness of night from the New Jersey shore. Few people realize that German naval vessels actually came so close to the United States, but they did--until, as Gannon tells the story, they were finally pushed away, once and for all, in a single hectic month of combat. Although Black May is something of a sequel to Gannon's extraordinary Operation Drumbeat, which described the German's initial successes, it stands on its own as a brilliant work of naval history. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Combining scholarship, storytelling and analysis, Gannon (Operation Drumbeat) delivers a compelling, comprehensive account of the turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic in May 1943. Gannon integrates coverage of the North Atlantic convoy battles with the Bay of Biscay offensive simultaneously mounted by RAF Coastal Command. The book's focal point is the epic story of Convoy ONS 5, which included 43 merchantmen (ships used in commerce) and a half dozen escorts. ONS 5 was sailing to Halifax, and most of its ships were in ballast. But cargoes were less important than tonnage for German Admiral Karl Donitz's U-boat wolf packs. Gannon takes readers from the decks of merchantmen to the bridges of warships, to the conning towers of U-boats in a kaleidoscope whose final pattern was as much a function of skill and determination as of weapons systems. Thirteen merchantmen were sunk. But a half-dozen U-boats went down as well, and seven more were so crippled they had to return to base. U-boat captains were like fighter pilots: a relatively small number scored a disproportionate number of victories. By May 1943, many of the original "aces" were dead. Their successors were generally less willing to push attacks against escorts whose crews, techniques and tactics had exponentially improved since 1940. Meanwhile, civilian analysts had developed an operational model indicating that by concentrating on the choke point provided by the Bay of Biscay, RAF Coastal Command would be in a position to paralyze the U-boat offensive. When implemented, the plan's verifiable figures matched the projected numbers. Few men fought better in an evil cause than did the U-boat crews. But, as Gannon shows in his excellent book, none performed better in a good one than those who defeated them. 40 b&w photos.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Black May is another amazing job of research and writing, a more than worthy successor to Operation Drumbeat. Who would imagine at this late date, fifty years after the war, that anyone could fine so much new material about the Battle for the Atlantic? The monitored conversations of the prisoners are especially fascinating. I can't think of another book that tells both sides of the story with such depth and drama." -- -- Thomas Fleming, author of Time and Tide

"Black May does the best job I have seen yet of describing in detail why the U-boats lost the Battle of the Atlantic.....It is a significant addition to the history of World War II." -- Vice Admiral James F. Calvert, USN (Retired), Naval Institute Proceedings Magazine

"Black May is another amazing job of research and writing, a more than worthy successor to Operation Drumbeat. Who would imagine at this late date, fifty years after the war, that anyone could fine so much new material about the Battle for the Atlantic? The monitored conversations of the prisoners are especially fascinating. I can't think of another book that tells both sides of the story with such depth and drama." -- Thomas Fleming, author of Time and Tide

"Black May, like everything Michael Gannon has written, bears the hallmarks of his careful scholarship and thorough research. He has come up with long-buried documents that most of us never knew existed and has combined them all into what by all odds will have to be recognized as the final word on that critical period of the Battle of the Atlantic when the U-boats were vanquished. From then on, though they continued to fight desperately, the U-boats were doomed. They carpeted the Atlantic floor with their iron coffins, losing in sum three-quarters of all the submarines they sent to sea. They were brave and honorable men, despite the terrible cause for which they fought." -- Captain Edward L. Beach, author, Run Silent, Run Deep

"A splendid book...Black May is a gripping tale of the undersea (or U-Boat) war by oneof our finest naval historians. Highly recommended." -- Carlo D'Este, author of Patton: A Genius for War

"Based on careful research in the archives of Great Britain, the United States, Canada and Germany, the author describes the operational background and the technical developments on both sides including the most important intelligence evaluations....For the first time the fateful decisions at the top and the developments at sea are told in a balanced and lively way." -- Jurgen Rohwer, author of The Critical Convoy Battles of March 1943

"Gannon is at his best, describing the men and women who used those new weapons of war to reduce U-boats to victims rather than predators." -- Tallahassee Democrat

"In Black May, the author of Operation Drumbeat has outdone himself." -- Brian McCue, author of U-Boats in the Bay of Biscay

"Michael Gannon possesses an extremely rare talent. He combines the skeptical eye of the historian, the fastidious care of the researcher and the dash and enthusiasm of the popular writer. He recreates for us the nightmare conditions of the German U-boat crews, and the harsh and hazardous lives of the men hunting them. He also probes, in a fair but critical way, the decisions of the top brass on both sides. Black May is a serious military study but its narrative power beats any fiction I have read in years." -- Len Deighton, author of Blood, Tears, and Folly

"What is impressive to me about Black May is that even after a hundred or sobooks have been written about the Battle of the Alantic, Mike Gannon hasbeen able to uncover new material and use it to develop new perspectives andnew insights into how the battle was won and lost. He has done this byfocussing on May 1943. In that most interestingmonth it became obvious that experience, new tactics, new weapons, newanalyses and more ASW ships and aircraft had turned the tide. Black May isa solid history of the month and its antecedants skillfully based on thebest archival sources. Gannon's felicitous style and keen appreciation ofthe human aspects make it a pleasure to read." -- Fred Milford, Battelle Memorial Institute, Emeritus

About the Author

Michael Gannon is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Florida, where he taught the history of World War II. He resides in Gainesville and is the author of seven books. In the l950s he wrote on military subjects from Europe. In 1968 he served as a war correspondent in Vietnam. Also a scholar in the field of Spanish colonial history, he has received numerous awards and honors, including Knight Commander of the Order of Isabel la Catolica from King Juan Carlos I of Spain.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Omens
May Day

Not only must every opportunity to attack be resolutely seized, but it would also be a grave error to depart from the principles which have been hammered into U-boat crews so hard and so frequently: "get to your position ahead just as quickly as you can, launch your attack just as soon as you can, exploit your opportunities at once and as fully as you can."
Karl Doenitz

Enemy submarines are to be called U-boats. The term "submarine" is to be reserved for Allied underwater vessels. U-boats are those dastardly villains who sink our ships, while submarines are those gallant and noble craft which sink theirs.
Winston S. Churchill

The U-515 was on her third operational patrol since the long-range Type IXC boat emerged from the yards of Deutsche Werft at Hamburg-Finkenwerder and Werner Henke raised the national flag and his Commander's pennant above her conning tower at the Indienststellung, or formal commissioning, on 21 February 1942. After six months of workup and tactical exercises, she had made her maiden war patrol, and Henke's first as a Kommandant, on 12 August-14 October 1942 off Trinidad and Tobago in the southeast Caribbean, netting ten Allied ships sunk, for a total of 52,807 GRT; a not-inconsiderable tally for a single cruise, even given the fact that Henke was operating against mostly independently routed ships in a weakly defended area. It was a score outdone by only a handful of German boats during the war, and matched by only one U.S. Navy submarine in the Pacific (U.S.S. Tang in June-July 1944).
The U-515's second cruise, on 7 November 1942-6 January 1943, off Gibraltar and the Azores, resulted in only two sinkings, but one vessel was a Royal Navy destroyer depot ship, H.M.S. Hecla (10,850 tons), and the other a passenger liner-troopship, Ceramic (18,713 GRT). The loss of life from the two ships had been dreadful: 279 lost from 847 ranks and ratings on the former; all but one of 656 on the latter. By 30 April 1943, U-515's third patrol, begun on 21 February, was already one of the longest of the war, and due to grow longer still. Operating off first the Azores and then Dakar in Senegal, on the bulge of West Africa, U-515's third cruise, like the second, had been mostly a run of bad luck, with only two merchant trophies of 10,657 GRT to show for sixty-nine days of steaming--a poor individual tonnage rate per sea-day of 154 GRT.
The first sinking had come on the evening of 4 March while U-515 was northwest of the Azores. On a calm sea with little wind and good visibility, Henke sighted a large freighter proceeding independently at 15 knots on a course of 050* (degrees). He advanced on the surface toward the target. What happened next he described in his war diary (Kriegstagebuch, hereafter KTB):
Double fan launch [Faecher] from [torpedo] Tubes II and IV. [Torpedo] speed 14 knots, range [to target] 1,200 meters. [Target's] bows on right, bearing 80 degrees, [torpedo] depth 5 meters, running times 37 and 38 seconds. Two hits amidship and forward [but] the steamer doesn't sink. Coup de grace [Fangschuss] from [stern] Tube VI, depth [set to run below the keel of the target] 9 meters, [torpedo warhead equipped] with Pi 2 [Pistole-2: a detonator designed to be activated by the magnetic field of a ship's steel keel], running time 36 seconds. Hit toward the stern, in the engine room--a powerful explosion. The steamer sinks slowly on an even keel, transmits wireless signal. [Another] coup de grace, this time from Tube I. Depth 10 [meters] with Pi 2, running time 25 seconds. Hit forward--great explosion. Ship goes down after about 10 minutes. It's the California Star at 8,300 GRT, [which was sailing] from New Zealand to England with butter, cheese, lard, and meat. The Second Officer was taken prisoner. The Captain and First Officer probably went down with their ship.
The California Star, which carried general cargo as well as food, was a motor ship of British registry. Fifty of her seventy-four men on board were killed, fatally wounded, or drowned. The sinking took place at latitude and longitude coordinates 42*32'N, 37*20'W. On 21 March and 1 April U-515 rendezvoused with two returning boats, U-106 (Kptlt. Hermann Rasch) and U-67 (Kptlt. Guenther Mueller-Stockheim), to take on fuel, provisions, and spare parts. Henke's second success on this patrol came thirty-six days after the first, on 9 April, at night, while steaming off Dakar. This victim, the French motor ship Bamako, was a smallish 2,357 GRT, slightly overestimated by Henke:
Advanced on a freighter of 3,500 GRT. Double fan launch from [stern] Tubes V and VI. [Target's] speed 8.5 knots. [Torpedo] depths set to 3 and 4 meters. [Target's] bows on right bearing 80 degrees. Range 800 meters. [Torpedo] running times 60 and 61 seconds. Hits fore and aft. Ship capsizes and sinks very quickly.
Twenty of the ship's thirty-seven crew and passengers went to watery graves at position 14*57'N, 17*15'W.
The wages of war were not only bottoms and cargoes--a reminder, if one were needed by affronted humanity, that the fragile tissue of men was no equal to the violent and deadly instruments that roamed the spring Atlantic seeking whom they might devour. In that connection, it bears mention that if there has been a general fault with histories of the Atlantic war it has been their tendency to concentrate on the uniformed fighting services of sea and air, while giving scant notice to the civilian British, American, and other Allied merchant seamen who experienced the most danger of U-boat attack at sea and suffered by far the most human casualties.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins; First Edition (May 6, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 492 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060178191
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060178192
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.99 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 1.53 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,181,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,547 in Naval Military History
- #3,042 in German History (Books)
- #10,841 in World War II History (Books)

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DarthRad

An excellent account of the development of anti-U-boat warfare during the Battle of the Atlantic

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2007

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This is an excellent book, and deserves better ratings and reviews than it has so far received.

Several reviewers have complained about excessive detail - I found the details in this book most welcome and authoritative, but then I do read a lot of military history. This book may not be for the novice reader, but it is by no means overwhelmingly complex.

The title of the book refers to the month of May 1943, when several pivotal battles with German U-boats played out. The center section of the book focuses on a detailed analysis of the battle of convoy ONS.5. Some 30 U-boats were vectored to attack this slow convoy of 43 merchant ships (escorted by only 2 destroyers, a frigate, and 3 corvettes), and ended up sinking 13 merchant ships, but at a loss of 7 U-boats and several others damaged. This was at the time the worst result ever for a major U-boat operation, and came about because of improved Allied training and tactics to make the most efficient use of the best technology available at the time (which included aircraft patrols with radar, and shipboard HF/DF radio detection, radar, sonar, and hedgehogs). Thus, the convoy battles of May 1943 marked the turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic, as U-boat losses began to rise sharply while Allied shipping losses dropped.

There is much more in this book besides the month of May 1943. The book neatly summarizes almost the entire course of Allied anti-U-boat warfare during WWII. A great many fascinating details come out, including:

1. The U.S. lost over 5,000 merchant marine sailors and over 2 million tons of shipping in the first six months of her entry into WWII. This was directly the result of decisions by Admiral King to not institute a convoy system (he finally started one in May, 1942) and to not impose a total blackout on the East Coast shoreline. During that time, the unescorted merchant ships were helpless as they were picked off at night by U-boats, silhouetted by the bright lights from the shoreline. That more ships were not sunk was due only to the limited numbers of U-boats that could make the trip to the U.S. East Coast.

2. Strategy and tactics against the U-boats were developed by a think tank of select academicians and other civilians in Britain. Statistical analysis was applied to the results of the ongoing battle against the U-boats to determine the most effective strategies.

3. The "tonnage war" that Karl Donitz's U-boat men fought to win was lost the instant that the U.S. entered the war. The strategy of the tonnage war was based on sinking more ships than could be produced by British shipyards and thus starving Britain into submission. This effort became hopeless for the Germans when the U.S. entered the war with her high output shipyards (as an ironic aside, does the U.S. build any merchant ships today?).

4. Although much has been made of Allied code-breaking of the German "Enigma" machine, the real story was much more complex than that, as the Germans did frequently change their codes, and it was during one of these changes that Allied code-breakers went blind during the battle for convoy ONS.5. At the same time - something rarely mentioned in most historical accounts of WWII - the Germans did have their own successes in breaking codes to Allied communications, and this played a part in the ability of the Germans to vector their U-boats against convoy ONS.5

5. The war against the U-boats was won with a combination of improved technology, improved strategy, improved training of the escort personnel, and finally, improved types and numbers of escorts, with increased air coverage from long range shore based bombers and from escort carriers.

6. Ultimately, the German U-boats proved to be obsolete weapons, as by the mid-part of WWII, they had become all too easy to detect and destroy, once the US and British made concerted efforts to do so. Gannon points out that the U-boats were not even true submarines, and were in reality submersible surface ships, as they spent the vast majority of their time on the surface, and even attacked while surfaced. The later development of the schnorkel was countered by Allied development of 10cm radar that could detect the schnorkels. It was not until the Type XXI and XXIII submarines, with their expanded battery stores, that German submarines would have the capability of staying underwater long enough to completely avoid detection. But these appeared too late in the war to see action.

There are many, many other such wonderful gems of information in this book. Take the time to read it carefully, and savor the many fascinating details of this often overlooked part of WWII.

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Neil Isenberg

Lots of Detail, Very Thorough, Not a quick, entertaining read but highly informative

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2015

Verified Purchase

Black May: The Epic Story of the Allies' Defeat of the German U-Boats in May 1943

I would highly recommend this book to someone interested in lots of detail and analysis on the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II. At 99 cents for the kindle version it is a tremendous value.

Tactics, Weapons, Strategy, covered in great detail. The Whats, Hows, Whys, Whos are mostly covered. The blow-by-blow battle reporting might be great for some readers and a bit much for others. The U-boat prisoner of war conversations might also be great for some readers and again a bit much for others.

This is not a quick read even if you are familiar with and interested in all the details as I suspect most readers drawn to the title are. I expect that many readers will be practicing their skimming skills in a few of the sections.

SAMPLE CONTENT:
------------------

(1) At the start in 1940 Donetz estimated he needed to sink 700K Gross Registered Tons (GRT) per month of British shipping to effectively blockade England. Britain estimated it would take 600K GRT. Most ships are in the range of 1.5K-10K GRT each so that is a lot of ships to meet that target.

(2) The 99 U.S. shipyards were turning out so much merchant shipping that by the spring of 1943 the montly target rose to 1.3 million GRT.

(3) The author proposes that March 1943 was the closest Germany got to severing trade ties between the U.S./Canada and Britain. The author then notes that Germany was always behind the GRT necessary to with the Battle of the Atlantic, usually way behind.

Note: The author only discusses the German magnetic mine threat period in the past tense due to the book's focus on contributions to the later critical turning-point period of Spring-Fall 1943. One might argue that period as equally if not more dangerous until a solution was found. The author also reminds us of the continued potential threat of greatly increased u-boat construction, which never came in enough numbers to turn the tide.

(4) At the start Germany only had 39 operational u-boats, far short of the 300 Donetz said he needed to blockade England effectively, nor the 162 he was promised by 1948 .. yes 1948. By February 1941 they were down to 22 u-boats. Still only 86 operational u-boats at sea by August 1943.

(5) The author proposes that although the decryption of German navy codes (Ultra/Enigma) was a tremendous coup it was only one contributing factor in the Battle of the Atlantic, its value greatly limited by decryption delay.

(6) The author proposes that the intense training and retraining of convoy escort crews starting in Jan-Jun 1942 was one of the biggest contributions, if not the most important one, to Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.

(7) An Operations Research group led by Professors Blackett and Williams and their teams came up with several efficiency improvements in the Battle of the Atlantic with the resources already available that made a very significant impact.

(8) Almost 400 merchant ships sunk off the coast of the U.S. in the 6 months after Germany declared war on the U.S. The author notes this was primarily due to the refusal to use convoys along the U.S. coast. When convoys were finally used the destruction was greatly reduced. The maritime loss during this period was massive and the author proposes mostly avoidable.

(9) By April 1943 the reduction in command experience among u-boat commanders as they are killed and the u-boat fleet expansion results in a noticeable overall reluctance by u-boats to press the attack.

(10) The realization that larger convoys can greatly reduce losses. For example 54 ship convoys lost 1.1% of shipping, 32 ship convoys lost 2.5% of shipping. 60+ ship convoys then became a standard. It is estimated that this tactic would have saved 200 ships the previous year.

(11) Many technical improvements discussed in detail including improving versions of HF/DF (high freq detection finding), 10 cm airborne and seaborne radar, asdic/sonar, and others.

(12) The German response to the 10cm radar invention, the 10 cm radar receiver which warned the u-boats when they were being painted by 10 cm radar, didn't appear until October 2013 despite the recovery of a 10 cm radar unit 6 months or so earlier from a crashed aircraft. This gave the British and Americans a great advantage for twice as long as they thought they would have.

COUNTERPOINT:
----------------

The author proposes that while the U-boat toll on shipping to England was catastrophic it was never enough to threaten an actual effective blockade of England.

In March of 1941 Churchill warned that Britain would not be able to hold out more than four more months at the present rate of shipping losses. Was he correct, dramaticizing in order to motivate, fearful of what the future held regardless, and/or unsure of the facts? Statements after the war suggest strongly that he felt that the "U-boat peril" was not only catastrophic in terms of losses, of course, but also genuinely put the war at risk for Britain.

Supplies of food and petrol in England dropped precipitously low in 1942. There are those that feel England was in more peril than the author proposes. I would have liked to see the author put aside gross net tonnage for a moment and discuss food and petrol supplies over time, the effects of early rationing, etc., more evidence on the home front. That being said he makes his point well regarding GRT and backs it up.

THE EFFECTS OF MINES, AIRCRAFT, ETC.:
----------------------------------------

The author doesn't really discuss Gross Net Tonnage (GRT) loss caused by sources other than U-boats in much detail and how that does or does not affect one of his central arguments. In 1941 U-boats are estimated to have caused 41% of the shipping losses, mines an additional 17%, aircraft another 19%, etc. In such a detailed book with as much attention given to GRT I think the book would have benefited from more attention to this.

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A M B

Black May was fun to read and informed me we'll about a phase ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2014

Verified Purchase

A well-written chronicle of the U-Boat war, especially May of 1943. However, unless you are a historian writing about the U-Boat war with need to cover all available sources and cite them, the book contains too many facts, too much minutiae. For instance, Mr. Gannon provides the name of the captain of every U-Boat he mentions. He also liberally uses parentheticalls which tended to slow my reading. Nevertheless, Black May was fun to read and informed me well about a phase of the war that I was only vaguely aware of, especially the Allies introduction and use of technological advances that the Germans did little or nothing to counter.

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Penn Naim

Beginning of the end of the Battle of the Atlantic

Reviewed in Canada on September 9, 2016

Verified Purchase

Good read, shows conclusively how the U-boat war took a definitive turn in favor of the Allies in May 1943. Even so, Donitz and his u-boats continued on with increasing losses for two more years until the war's end in May '45. Good personal anecdotes from the perspective of the merchant marine. Highly recommended for those interested in the Battle of the Atlantic.

K. Mitchell

Excellent stuff.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2015

Verified Purchase

Excellent breakdown of the battle in the Atlantic focusing on the tide turning for the allies. The writer doesn't just repeat what others have said or concluded, he's done his own research and conducted his own interviews. It's a bit broader than the title suggests, using the month as a focal point while ranging over the whole U-Boat war, so its pretty comprehensive in that respect. A good read if you're into this particular part of WWII history.

"飛行機好き"

読み応えのある一冊

Reviewed in Japan on May 4, 2004

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　Uボート群対護送船団の戦いを、「暗黒の５月」とUボート側が呼ぶ1943年5月を軸に描いている。戦う生身の人間たちの描写、情勢図を前に彼らをチェスのように操る双方の司令部、それぞれが戦わなければならない北大西洋のきびしい自然、兵器、戦術、暗号解読戦と多角的に述べられている。その重層的に描かれる戦いの様相は、非常に読み応えがある。
例えば、無線方向探知機(HF-DF)とレーダーが護送船団側にどのくらい価値があったかがよくわかる。それらから忍びよるUボートをかぎつ、火事場に向かう消防車のように駆けつける護衛艦。空振りも多いその活動はけなげさを感じる。また、航空機用の対潜音響魚雷フィドーの開発から、最初の使用までの話が興味深い。
その一方で、撃沈され、荒海に放り出された乗組員の過酷な体験がある。撃沈されたUボートの乗組員も同様に過酷である。鉄の棺桶に閉じ込めれれて沈むのと、脱出して救援の見込みなく、力尽きるまで海面に浮かんでいるのとどちらが幸運か、考えてしまう。
読み応えある一冊である。

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peggie

Real history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2018

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A present for my husband. Has read it before and has said it was very accurate record of the time.

JR

Battle of the Atlantic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2012

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This is one of the best books I have read.
It reads like an action thriller but is based upon real events.
The research and detail is excellent.
I have read it several times and still find it absorbing.

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