The U-boats constituted a serious threat to North American security and a major challenge to coastal and convoy defence. Hadley reveals the military and political impact on Canada of in-shore submarine warfare and vibrantly documents the successful German strategy of deploying daring long-range solo sorties to pin down the enemy close to home.
The Royal Canadian Navy is best known for its role in the defence of convoys against attacks by U-boats, particularly those in the mid-Atlantic from 1941 to 1943. Marc Milner's 1985 book, North Atlantic Run: The Royal Canadian Navy and the Battle for the Convoys, was the first scholarly analysis of those crucial defensive operations. The U-Boat Hunters takes up the story for the last two years of the war, when the measurement of operational effectiveness at sea shifted from success in defending convoys to the ability to hunt down and sink U-boats. The U-Boat Hunters, which completes Milner's analysis of the RCN's battle with Germany's submarines, is a pioneering study of the final years of the Atlantic war and a landmark work in both Canadian and modern naval history.
The U-Boat Hunters, which completes Milner's analysis of the RCN's battle with Germany's submarines, is a pioneering study of the final years of the Atlantic war and a landmark work in both Canadian and modern naval history.
In 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area "Torpedo Junction." And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful of Coast Guard sailors scrambled to the front lines. Outgunned and out-maneuvered, they heroically battled the deadliest fleet of submarines ever launched. Never was Germany closer to winning the war. In a moving ship-by-ship account of terror and rescue at sea, Homer Hickam chronicles a little-known saga of courage, ingenuity, and triumph in the early years of World War II. From nerve-racking sea duels to the dramatic ordeals of sailors and victims on both sides of the battle, Hickam dramatically captures a war we had to win--because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.
On May 11, 1942, a German U-boat torpedoed SS Nicoya, violently ending a peace in Canada’s waters that stretched back to 1812. By the end of 1944, another 18 merchant ships and four Canadian warships would be destroyed. More than 300 men, women and children—including at least 260 Canadians—died by explosion, fire or icy drowning. Drawing on numerous first-hand accounts from both Canadians and Germans, respected writer and historian Nathan Greenfield has penned a lively, revealing narrative, the first popular account of World War II in Canadian waters. This is a must-read for military history enthusiasts, veterans and their families.
From 1942 to 1944, 15 German submarines destroyed or severely damaged 27 ships, including three Canadian warships, a U.S. Army troop transport, and the Newfoundland ferry Caribou. More than 250 lives were lost. It was the only battle of the twentieth century to take place within Canada’s boundaries, and the only battle to be fought almost exclusively by Canadian forces under Canadian, rather than alliance, high command. And for more than 40 years the battle was characterized as a Canadian defeat. But was it a defeat? Drawing on new material from wartime records—including ultra-top-secret Allied decryptions of German naval radio communications, Roger Sarty shows that Canada mounted a successful defence with far fewer resources and in the face of much greater challenges than previously known. He draws vivid pictures of the intense combat on Canada’s shores and the interplay of the St Lawrence battle with war politics in Ottawa, Washington and London. At the same time, he weaves a second story: how researchers reassembled the scattered war records in Canada, Britain, the United States and Germany and brought the long-forgotten battle to life for new generations of Canadians and international audiences.
An exceptional figure in the history of the German Navy, Wolfgang Luth was one of only seven men in the Wehrmacht to win Germany's highest combat decoration, the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. At one time or another he operated in almost every theater of the undersea war, from Norway to the Indian Ocean, and became the second most successful German U-boat ace in World War II, sinking more than 220,000 tons of merchant shipping. A master in the art of military leadership, Luth was the youngest man to be appointed to the rank of captain and the youngest to become commandant of the German Naval Academy. Nevertheless, his accomplishments were overshadowed by those of other great aces, such as Prien, Kretschmer, and Topp. The publication of this book in hardcover in 1990 marked the first comprehensive study of Luth's life. Jordan Vause corrects the long neglect by providing an entertaining and authoritative biography that places the ace in the context of the war at sea. This new paperback edition includes corrections and additional information collected by the author over the past decade.
If the Allies cannot send the German U-boats to the bottom of the Atlantic, all hope of winning WWII will be lost. Sixteen-year-old Bill O'Connell is a new recruit in the Royal Canadian Navy, assigned to a ship that hunts for Germany's feared U-boats. With the European mainland under Nazi occupation, safe ocean passage is critical -- but the Germans are building U-boats faster than the Allies can sink them, and Britain is starved of supplies. Every gallon of aviation fuel, every explosive shell, and every can of peas sent to the British Isles from North America has to be shipped by sea, so Bill and the rest of the Allied forces have the fate of the free world resting on their shoulders. If the Allies cannot keep their merchant ships from the attacks of Germany's U-boats, the odds of winning WWII will tip in favour of Hitler.
Illustrated with detailed artworks, this book is a comprehensive guide to the submarine arm of the German navy in World War II. Uniquely divided by flotilla, this book offers a complete breakdown of U-boat units, from the beginning of the war through the last days of the Reich.
