Post by nukesnipe on Oct 26, 2013 21:43:41 GMT -6
I have a pretty extensive book collection I've been working on for over 35 years. In high school I found and devoured Clay Blair's Silent Victory. Years later, I stumbled across the second volume of his two-volume set Hitler's U-Boat War, but passed on buying it until I could get both books at once. Several years passed and I finally found them at a reasonable price, so I snapped them up and have spent the past several weeks reading them. For those who might not have read them, or know of Clay Blair's Silent Victory, I thought I'd provide a brief review of Hitler's U-Boat War.
Hitler's U-Boat War covers the subject from prior to the start of WW2 through the Nuremberg trials. Volume 1 is subtitled The Hunters, 1939-1942, while Volume 2 is subtitled The Hunted, 1942-1945. He further divided the period 1939-1942 into three books: Book One, The U-Boat War Against the British Empire; Book Two, The U-Boat War Against the Americas; and, Book 3, The U-Boat Campaign Against the British Commonwealth and the United States. Books One and Two are contained in Volume 1 of the set, while Book 3 comprises the entirety of Volume 2.
This is not a read for the faint-hearted. Skipping the appendices, there are nearly 1500 pages of reading between the two volumes. The appendices fill a further 150 pages, while the acknowledgements and sources take another 40 pages. The work apparently took nearly 9 years to complete, and having been published in the late 1990s had the advantage of recently declassified sources that were not available to other works on the subject. While not a revisionist history, Hitler's U-Boats does put a slightly different spin on the realities of the U-boat war and the war-time perception of the U-boat threat.
The book is extensively researched and annotated; nearly every page has a footnote citing a source or providing additional information. There are numerous tables throughout the work that provide information supporting Blair's summations and conclusions. The material is logically organized and well-presented. Blair does an exemplary job in making the Reader feel the tension between the Germans and the Allies as each tries to gain the upper hand in the conflict. The intelligence war is a constant underlying feature of the war as both sides attempt to break and exploit the other's codes. Technological advances, and political, strategic, and tactical considerations are all discussed in detail.
Volume 1, The Hunters, dives into the hey day of the U-boat war, and was quite frankly that with which I was most familiar (the Pacific war is where my primary interests lie). I found this volume most informative as I had not appreciated how extensive the U-boat operations had been (U-boats operating out of Java? Who knew?!). Nor did I understand the tensions between the British and the Americans when it came to strategy and, especially, Enigma. I certainly was not aware of the disdain the British had for the Canadian Navy.
Volume 2, The Hunted, was to me perhaps even more informative. I knew that after the United States entered the war and turned its industrial capabilities against the Axis, things went badly for the U-boats. Blair makes the point that after the United States entered the war and started its ship building projects it became utterly impossible for the U-boat war to have any meaningful impact on the outcome of the war. Blair makes his assertion and then hammers the Reader with table after table of statistics that prove his point.
I found Volume 2 sobering. The United States Navy lost 52 submarines in WW2: 49 in the Pacific, and 3 in the Atlantic. That comes out to roughly 1 a month for the duration of the war. Toward the end of the war, the Germans were losing roughly 50% of the boats that deployed in a given month, something I'm not sure I truly realized. Volume 2 becomes almost repetitions (and depressing): "U-XXX deployed from France/Norway on MM/DD/YYYY and was attacked and sunk by a Leigh Light equipped Wellington/radar equipped B-24/sonar equipped escort X days later. There were no German survivors." Over and over again. I was both angered by the senselessness of it all, and filled with admiration for the German sailors who tried again and again to sink anything.
There are occasions in the book where Blair voices a strong opinion, calling out the author of a previous work for inaccuracies or self-aggrandizement. I found that somewhat strange in a military history work, but upon reflection didn't find it so much different from Morrison's cheer leading in his works.
In the end, I found Blair's work to be exactly what I expected from him: well-researched, well-written, and very interesting. If this aspect of naval history interests you, Hitler's U-Boat War probably needs to be on your shelf.
Hitler's U-Boat War covers the subject from prior to the start of WW2 through the Nuremberg trials. Volume 1 is subtitled The Hunters, 1939-1942, while Volume 2 is subtitled The Hunted, 1942-1945. He further divided the period 1939-1942 into three books: Book One, The U-Boat War Against the British Empire; Book Two, The U-Boat War Against the Americas; and, Book 3, The U-Boat Campaign Against the British Commonwealth and the United States. Books One and Two are contained in Volume 1 of the set, while Book 3 comprises the entirety of Volume 2.
This is not a read for the faint-hearted. Skipping the appendices, there are nearly 1500 pages of reading between the two volumes. The appendices fill a further 150 pages, while the acknowledgements and sources take another 40 pages. The work apparently took nearly 9 years to complete, and having been published in the late 1990s had the advantage of recently declassified sources that were not available to other works on the subject. While not a revisionist history, Hitler's U-Boats does put a slightly different spin on the realities of the U-boat war and the war-time perception of the U-boat threat.
The book is extensively researched and annotated; nearly every page has a footnote citing a source or providing additional information. There are numerous tables throughout the work that provide information supporting Blair's summations and conclusions. The material is logically organized and well-presented. Blair does an exemplary job in making the Reader feel the tension between the Germans and the Allies as each tries to gain the upper hand in the conflict. The intelligence war is a constant underlying feature of the war as both sides attempt to break and exploit the other's codes. Technological advances, and political, strategic, and tactical considerations are all discussed in detail.
Volume 1, The Hunters, dives into the hey day of the U-boat war, and was quite frankly that with which I was most familiar (the Pacific war is where my primary interests lie). I found this volume most informative as I had not appreciated how extensive the U-boat operations had been (U-boats operating out of Java? Who knew?!). Nor did I understand the tensions between the British and the Americans when it came to strategy and, especially, Enigma. I certainly was not aware of the disdain the British had for the Canadian Navy.
Volume 2, The Hunted, was to me perhaps even more informative. I knew that after the United States entered the war and turned its industrial capabilities against the Axis, things went badly for the U-boats. Blair makes the point that after the United States entered the war and started its ship building projects it became utterly impossible for the U-boat war to have any meaningful impact on the outcome of the war. Blair makes his assertion and then hammers the Reader with table after table of statistics that prove his point.
I found Volume 2 sobering. The United States Navy lost 52 submarines in WW2: 49 in the Pacific, and 3 in the Atlantic. That comes out to roughly 1 a month for the duration of the war. Toward the end of the war, the Germans were losing roughly 50% of the boats that deployed in a given month, something I'm not sure I truly realized. Volume 2 becomes almost repetitions (and depressing): "U-XXX deployed from France/Norway on MM/DD/YYYY and was attacked and sunk by a Leigh Light equipped Wellington/radar equipped B-24/sonar equipped escort X days later. There were no German survivors." Over and over again. I was both angered by the senselessness of it all, and filled with admiration for the German sailors who tried again and again to sink anything.
There are occasions in the book where Blair voices a strong opinion, calling out the author of a previous work for inaccuracies or self-aggrandizement. I found that somewhat strange in a military history work, but upon reflection didn't find it so much different from Morrison's cheer leading in his works.
In the end, I found Blair's work to be exactly what I expected from him: well-researched, well-written, and very interesting. If this aspect of naval history interests you, Hitler's U-Boat War probably needs to be on your shelf.