U-Boats off Bermuda

U-Boats off Bermuda
Author: Eric Wiberg
Publisher: Fonthill Media
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2017-08-18
Genre: Transportation
ISBN:

The untold story of 142 German and one Italian submarines, which patrolled the waters around BermudaThe Axis powers sank eighty Allied ships, one of them naval, for the loss of two submarines1,224 Allied sailors and passengers were landed in Bermuda during the warMore than steel on steel: this book tells of their survival voyages, rescue and reception For the first time, a book exposes an obscure theatre of the Second World War in great detail and comprehensively, not just in terms of geography, but also from the perspectives of both Allied and Axis participants. U-Boats off Bermuda provides details of specific U-Boat patrols and their commanders, as well as a general overview of the situation in the theatre of war around Bermuda. It is a detailed analysis of individual casualties, broken down by a) background of ship, b) background of U-Boat, c) attack method (surface and/or submersed), d) details of survivors and their plight at sea and e) their rescue, recuperation and repatriation. Detailed maps and illustrations provide a human face to what were often tragic attacks with fatal consequences. Did you know that half a dozen German submarines came close enough to the US Naval Operating Base in Bermuda to see Gibbs Hill? Or that hardy Canadians from a sunken trading schooner rowed and sailed their way to the remote island on their own? Allied pilots based in Bermuda sank two German U-Boats, rescued dozens in daring water landings and several crashed.

U-Boats in New England

U-Boats in New England
Author: Eric Wiberg
Publisher: Fonthill Media
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2019-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN:

Starting weeks after Hitler declared war on the United States in mid-December 1941 and lasting until the war with Germany was all but over, 73 German U-Boats sustainably attacked New England waters, from Montauk New York to the tip of Nova Scotia at Cape Sable. Fifteen percent of these boats were sunk by Allied counter-attacks, five surrendered in the region, and three were sunk off New England--Block Island, Massachusetts Bay, and off Nantucket. These have proven appealing to divers, with a result that at least three German naval officers or ratings are buried in New England, one having killed himself in the Boston jail cell. There were 34 Allied merchant or naval ships sunk by these subs, one of them, the 'Eagle', was not admitted to have been sunk by the Germans until decades later. Over 1,100 men were thrown in the water and 545 of them made it ashore in New England ports; 428 were killed. Importantly, saboteurs were landed three places: Long Island, Frenchman's Bay Maine and New Brunswick Canada, and Boston was mined. Very little was known about this.

U-Boats in the Bahamas (HC)

U-Boats in the Bahamas (HC)
Author: Eric Wiberg
Publisher: ibooks
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2016-10-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1899694625

“Eric Wiberg's ability, to unearth obscure historical facts, keeps me in a constant state of surprise. I commend his relentless determination to verify every detail, with local sources in Nassau's historical community, for corroboration of his findings.”—Capt. Paul C. Aranha, author, THE ISLAND AIRMAN . . . AND HIS BAHAMA ISLANDS HOME. “Eric Wiberg has made a significant contribution to the bibliography of World War II history.” —J. Revell Carr, Santa Fe, N.M. This his book tells one more key part of the big story and is one more piece in the giant puzzle of the history of World War II. Its value for historians cannot be underestimated. Throughout the stories of the attacks by German and Italian submarines on Allied shipping in the water around the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, several consistent themes emerge in Wiberg’s thorough accounts. Prime among them is the heroism of the merchant mariners who time and again put themselves in danger as they performed the critical task of moving supplies, military and civilian, which were vital to ultimate victory. We read of numerous instances of sailors having their ships shot out from under them and then continuously going back to sea and having additional ships torpedoed and sunk. We can also recognize what we know today as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which was seldom recognized 75 years ago.

When the U-Boats came to America

When the U-Boats came to America
Author: William Bell Clark
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2015-03-31
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 3954274744

This book follows the tracks of the first German U-Boats coming to the American coast in the summer and fall of 1918. It was the first time for more than 100 years that a foreign power came so close. Originally published in 1929.

The U-Boat War in the Atlantic, 1942–1943

The U-Boat War in the Atlantic, 1942–1943
Author: Bob Carruthers
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2013-03-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473846528

This is the fascinating account, as told from the German perspective, of the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest-running, continuous military campaign in World War II, spanning from 1939 through to Germanys defeat in 1945. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, which was announced the day after the declaration of war, although it quickly grew to include Germany's counter-blockade. The name "Battle of the Atlantic", was coined by Winston Churchill in 1941 and he famously stated that the U-boats were the only thing that really frightened him. The U-boat war encompassed a campaign that began on the first day of the European war and lasted for six years, involved thousands of ships and stretched over thousands of square miles of ocean, in more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters. In the 68 months of World War II, 2,775 Allied merchant ships were sunk for the loss of 781 U-boats.This is the story of that massive encounter from the German perspective. Published in three volumes, this work was compiled under the supervision of the U.S Navy Department and the British Admiralty by Fregattenkapitan Gunther Hessler. The author, though without previous experience as a writer, had first hand experience of U-boat warfare having commanded a U-boat in 1940 and 1941. For the remainder of the war he was Staff Officer to the Flag Officer commanding U-boats. He had access to German war diaries and other relevant documents concerning U-boat command, and this work based on these many documents, tells the story entirely from the viewpoint of that command. For this reason this work is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of World War II from primary sources and will be of enduring interest to those engaged in attempting to unravel the true nature of submarine warfare in World War II.

Hitler's Man in Havana

Hitler's Man in Havana
Author: Thomas Schoonover
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2008-09-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813173027

When Heinz Lüning posed as a Jewish refugee to spy for Hitler’s Abwehr espionage agency, he thought he had discovered the perfect solution to his most pressing problem: how to avoid being drafted into Hitler’s army. Lüning was unsympathetic to Fascist ideology, but the Nazis’ tight control over exit visas gave him no chance to escape Germany. He could enter Hitler’s army either as a soldier . . . or a spy. In 1941, he entered the Abwehr academy for spy training and was given the code name “Lumann.” Soon after, Lüning began the service in Cuba that led to his ultimate fate of being the only German spy executed in Latin America during World War II. Lüning was not the only spy operating in Cuba at the time. Various Allied spies labored in Havana; the FBI controlled eighteen Special Intelligence Service operatives, and the British counterintelligence section subchief Graham Greene supervised Secret Intelligence Service agents; and Ernest Hemingway’s private agents supplied inflated and inaccurate information about submarines and spies to the U.S. ambassador, Spruille Braden. Lüning stumbled into this milieu of heightened suspicion and intrigue. Poorly trained and awkward at his work, he gathered little information worth reporting, was unable to build a working radio and improperly mixed the formulas for his secret inks. Lüning eventually was discovered by British postal censors and unwittingly provided the inspiration for Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. In chronicling Lüning’s unlikely trajectory from a troubled life in Germany to a Caribbean firing squad, Thomas D. Schoonover makes brilliant use of untapped documentary sources to reveal the workings of the famed Abwehr and the technical and social aspects of Lüning’s spycraft. Using archival sources from three continents, Schoonover offers a narrative rich in atmospheric details to reveal the political upheavals of the time, not only tracking Lüning’s activities but also explaining the broader trends in the region and in local counterespionage. Schoonover argues that ambitious Cuban and U.S. officials turned Lüning’s capture into a grand victory. For at least five months after Lüning’s arrest, U.S. and Cuban leaders—J. Edgar Hoover, Fulgencio Batista, Nelson Rockefeller, General Manuel Benítez, Ambassador Spruille Braden, and others—treated Lüning as a dangerous, key figure for a Nazi espionage network in the Gulf-Caribbean. They reworked his image from low-level bumbler to master spy, using his capture for their own political gain. In the sixty years since Lüning’s execution, very little has been written about Nazi espionage in Latin America, partly due to the reticence of the U.S. government. Revealing these new historical sources for the first time, Schoonover tells a gripping story of Lüning’s life and capture, suggesting that Lüning was everyone’s man in Havana but his own.

U-Boats Against Canada

U-Boats Against Canada
Author: Michael L. Hadley
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 420
Release: 1990-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780773508019

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.

Business in Great Waters

Business in Great Waters
Author: John Terraine
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 789
Release: 2009-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473812925

Twice within 25 years Britain was threatened with starvation by the menace of the U-Boat. In this study of submarine warfare, the author explains why Winston Churchill wrote "the only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the U-Boat peril". Until it had been overcome, the Anglo-American entry into Europe in 1944 would have been impossible. John Terraine concentrates on the combatants themselves, both German and Allied, but does not overlook the three main factors in the equation—the political, the military and the technological, as well as the intelligence, the weapons and the devices both sides employed in order to outwit each other. He also focuses on the fighting men on either side, seeing the action from "where it was at".

Dönitz, U-boats, Convoys

Dönitz, U-boats, Convoys
Author: Jak P. Mallmann Showell
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2013-08-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473829704

This unique WWII history combines the memoirs of a Nazi Admiral with secret British naval reports for a comprehensive view of the U-Boat war. The memoirs of Admiral Karl Dönitz, Ten Years and Twenty Days, are a fascinating first-hand account of the Battle of the Atlantic as seen from the headquarters of the U-boat fleet. Now, noted naval historian Jak P. Mallmann Showell has combined Dönitz's memoirs in a parallel text with the British Admiralty's secret Monthly Anti-Submarine Reports to produce a unique view of the U-boat war as it was perceived at the time by both sides. The British Monthly Anti-Submarine Reports were classified documents issued only to senior officers hunting U-boats. They were supposed to have been returned to the Admiralty and destroyed at the end of the War, but by chance a set survived in the archives of the Royal Navy's Submarine Museum in Gosport. They offer significant and hitherto unavailable insight into the British view of the Battle of the Atlantic as it was being fought. With expert analysis of these firsthand sources from opposing sides of the conflict, Jak P. Mallmann Showell presents what may be the most complete contemporary account of the desperate struggle in the North Atlantic during the Second World War.