Product Description

Illustrated throughout, this book is the story of the month in the spring of 1943 - "Black May" as the U-boat crews called it - when it became clear that the Allies could and would defeat the submarine threat. Gannon draws on personal recollections.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1213225 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-25
• Binding: Paperback
• 503 pages

About the Author
Michael Gannon is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Florida, his previous books include Operation Drumbeat, the history of the U-Boat campaign off the east coast of America in 1942.

Customer Reviews

The turning of the Atlantic tide
A detailed and readable account of the events of May 1943, the month in which the U-boats, apparently at the height of their powers, suffered a rout at the hands of the Atlantic escorts that was as catastrophic as it was unexpected.

Gannon sets the background well and gives some very vivid descriptions of encounters between U-boats and escorts. The Battle of the Atlantic is usually perceived as a slugging match between foes who rarely sighted each other; in fact, as this account makes clear, on occasion they saw a startling amount of each other, at uncomfortably close quarters. It is also instructive to learn that, once stripped of its aces, the U-boat fleet became radically less effective, and numbered among its skippers many who never sank a single ship.

What Gannon achieves is to explain why: by 1943, tangling with the convoy escorts and their latest weapons was little short of suicide. He provides a thorough and absorbing account of a convoy battle in which no fewer than forty boats were decisively routed by the eight-ship escort of the convoy they ought to intercept. Those battered boats that survived the convoy encounter had then to survive the voyage home, across waters patrolled by Allied aircraft with undetectable radar, acoustic homing torpedoes, and floodlights to illuminate hapless U-boats at night.

This book makes one wonder how the U-boats got near the convoys in the first place.

An excellent account of the Battle of the Atlantic
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in naval warfare, the history of World War II, or in selfless courage. The book focuses on the month of May 1943 when Allied forces sunk 41 U-boats, the point at which the Germans lost the Battle of the Atlantic. This is a lengthy book, but always interesting and readable. The author describes the major actions in detail, giving particular attention to the battle for Convey ONS.5, which he sees as one of the decisive battles of British history. He says that "In the long Atlantic struggle against the U-boats, theirs truly was a sword-from-the-stone triumph. In looking through British naval/military annuals for comparisons, one is tempted to recall Rorke's Drift in 1879, where eighty men of the 24th Regiment of Foot defended the mission station against similarly overwhelming numbers."
The author also details the technical developments, such as 10 cm radar and ship-bourne direction-finding which enabled the naval and airbourne defense to match and defeat the U-boats. This is a gripping book, and the courage of those involved is hard to imagine. The horrors of seamen freezing to death in artic seas, of men leaving their fellows behind to drown because they could not risk stopping their ships in order to rescue them, Captains ensuring that the crew abandoned their ships in an orderly manner as the holds filled with water and the vessel slid beneath the waves.
There is also an interesting explanation of the role of Operational Research in ensuring that new technology and tactics were effective. This was the first modern (scientific) conflict.
This is the equal of any naval book, and I hope you enjoy it.