Product Description

Submarine is almost certainly the first book to bring together eye-witness accounts from almost every navy that deployed submarines in WW2, and it is far more than an account of WW2 missions. With self-deprecating modesty, humour, pride, sadness and sometimes bitterness, submariners from Britain, Germany, the USA, Italy, France, the former USSR and Yugoslavia, Norway, Greece, Poland, the Netherlands and Japan describe every facet of operational submarine life, from firing torpedoes, the illicit distillation of alcohol, going to the toilet in heavy weather, rescuing a cat and how to treat appendicitis, to the terrifying experiences of being depth-charged, disposing of a bomb, escaping a doomed boat and planting charged beneath an enemy warship. Anyone who believes that the only task of a submarine was to torpedo enemy vessels will have to think again. Submariners tell of daring missions to land agents on Occupied coasts, run cargo, defend a convoy, gather intelligence, supply other submarines, lay mines and even transport troops. They operated in almost every sea from the Arctic and the Pacific to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Special operations, including those of the human torpedoes and midget submarines are fully represented, and all accounts are placed in historical and strategic context by concise chapter introductions. Footnotes and glossaries explain abbreviations, technical jargon, naval slang and regional slang. The Foreword has been written by a submariner from the present era: the Royal Navya??s Rear Admiral D J Cooke MBE, Rear Admiral Submarines, Commander (Operations), COMSUBNORTH.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #220293 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Reviewed by Phil Tomaselli for Family History Monthly magazine, Jan 2007
A FASCINATING FIRST-HAND GLIMPSE OF WAR BENEATH THE WAVES

The submarine war was a hard and dangerous one. British submariners suffered 38 per cent casualties, almost all fatal and German U-Boats lost and incredible 85 per cent but continued to fight to the end.
In this oral history collection, submariners of almost all the participating nations recall their service. There are chapters on how submarines were worked, on life aboard and on the particular perils of the service - depth charges, being rammed, staying submerged for many hours. There is also a chapter for each year of the war, with tales from the submariner's perspective. Among the best are: one Royal Navy stoker who remembers hearing that his boat had been sunk and he'd been counted as dead; a U-Boat commander who describes swimming for 49 hours; and an American submariner who recalls returning to Pearl Harbour after the attack. The editor is to be congratulated on finding and putting together such a splendid collection of rare and compelling stories.

Reviewed by Roger Moorehouse for BBC Who Do You Think You Are magazine, February 2008 issue
BENEATH THE WAVES - This is more than just a collection of accounts. It gives the stories context...

To some degree, the submariners of The Second World War were a breed apart. Showing often extraordinary valour, they served in the most difficult and perilous conditions imaginable and suffering sometimes astonishing losses in the process. The famed German U-Boat captain Günter Prien wrote of his crew, they were men who "did their duty silently and blindly, who could neither see the day nor the target and who dies in the dark if it had to be".
Jean Hood's excellent book is a fitting memorial to such men. It is an anthology of both published and unpublished accounts of life below the waves - many of them gleaned from the archive of the Imperial War Museum.
Unlike many other recent anthologies, however, this is much more than a mere collection of stories unrelated to one another and lacking background or context.
Arranged chronologically, the accounts chart the waning fortunes of the German and Japanese submarine forces, the technical advances of the Allies, as well as the contributions of lesser known combatants, such as the Poles, Italians and French.
In addition to all this, the book contains a wealth of additional information, such as a glossary of naval slang, and illuminating sections dedicated to everyday life beneath the ocean waves.
It is this sheer volume and breadth of information that will appeal both to the naval history buff, as well as the genealogist. Indeed, for those who have discovered submariners among their forebears, this book should be required reading. However, even for the layman, Submarine is a fascinating read - full of insight, drama and pathos.

From the Publisher
- Covers many of the overt and covert submarine operations- of
the Second World War.
- Includes vivid accounts by veterans of the submarine war.
- Balanced with news clippings, official reports and diary entries.
- Incorporates UK, US and Russian, German, Italian and 'Free' navy
accounts.

Customer Reviews

Incredibly readable and packed full of new information.
In many ways this could be described as a book of short stories and, if that were the case, it would probably hold the record for containing the greatest number of such tales ever found in a single publication. In reality, each story is a personal account about an event on a submarine during WW2. Each of these is a vivid description of a dangerous or interesting occurrence and includes anything from Günther Prien's own account of entering Scapa Flow and sinking the Royal Oak to one of the many problems associated with the Russian Pravda Class submarine P-3 recounted by Torpedoman Nickolay Leontievich Tolokonnikov.

Set out in date order, no sooner have we digested an individual report of how one crewman was rescued and his treatment at the hands of his erstwhile enemy in one theatre of war, we move to an equally harrowing tale of an unplanned dive to previously unknown depths as a very different team from yet another nation struggle to survive. Elsewhere, this is a book which clarifies why those "other" X-Craft never got to attack the Scharnhorst. It is a book which explains a lot as it covers the exploits of those who manned submarines from the UK, USA, Australia, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Russia and Yugoslavia during this dark period of world history.

Each entry commences with the name and either rank or position held by the contributor followed by a clear reference to the source from which the information was extracted. Anyone familiar with the extensive filing lists for material pertaining to Admiralty records now held in the British National Archives, will recognise the "ADM" prefix for much of the information and quickly realise how much research has gone into this project. It also allows the reader to check each and every source quoted.

In order to familiarise myself with the book - before settling down to read it from cover to cover, I went straight to a specific action with which I am particularly familiar and immediately had reservations about what I then read. Consequently, I wrote to the publishers outlining my concerns and included my own précis of events as I had understood them to have occurred. The actual event in question is irrelevant and is mentioned only as an example. What is important is that I am entirely satisfied with the very professional response from the Publishing Team and their detailed answers have enabled me to give this excellent product the full 5 star rating it so richly deserves.

This is a book from which even the most devoted student of submarine warfare will learn a great deal.

NM

Submarine by Submariner
I have just finnished read in the book, and was extremely impressed by the work that has gone into it. I must say that I enjoyed it a great deal, and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in Submarines, and indeed, anyone that has an interest in human nature.It is nice, as a British Submariner to read about other nations Submariners, and their experiences. In fact, there is little to choose between Submariners. We all have the same fears and hopes. We are, after all, Submariners.

superb
an excellent book well written and covers many countries.It gives the reader an insight into submarine life and many dangers