Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942

"His monumental work...is the most thorough study of the U-boat campaign available." —Library Journal

Hitler's U-boat Waris an epic sea story about the most arduous and prolonged naval battle in 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 both the Allied strategic air assault on German cities and Operation 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.

Read more

For decades, an authoritative and definitive history of the Battle of the Atlantic could not be attempted, since London and Washington agreed to withhold all official code-breaking and U-boat records in order to safeguard the secrets of code breaking in the postwar years. The accounts that did appear were incomplete and full of false conclusions and errors of fact, often leaving the entirely wrong impression that the German U-boats came within a whisker of defeating the Allies, a myth that is finally laid to rest in this account.

Clay Blair, acclaimed author of the bestselling naval classic Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, has drawn from the official records as well as the work of German, British, American, and Canadian naval scholars. Never before has Hitler's U-boat war been chronicled with such authority, fidelity, objectivity, and detail. The result is this magnificent and monumental work, crammed with 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.

Subject
history
Genre
war and militaryhistorical fictionworld war II
Themes
military history
Setting
world war II
Audience
adult
Length
epic · 864 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal Shares history, world war II, military history
  2. The Second World War Shares history, world war II, military history
  3. Operation Drumbeat: Germany's U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II Shares history, world war II, military history
  4. Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway Shares world war II, history, military history

“People who read Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942 tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa
  2. The Battle of Kursk
  3. To Lose a Battle: France 1940
  4. Fire In The Sky: The Air War In The South Pacific

“If you want more of the same (history about military history), start with these.”

  1. The Dam Busters
  2. Sandakan
  3. The Dead and Those About to Die: D-Day: The Big Red One at Omaha Beach
  4. Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc--the Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day's Toughest Mission and Led the Way across Europe

“If it was the world war II that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945
  2. D-Day
  3. Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy
  4. Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Black May: The Epic Story of the Allies' Defeat of the German U-Boats in May 1943
  2. Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings
  3. A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Battle of World War II
  4. At War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century