Wolfgang Luth was one of only seven men to win Germany’s highest combat decoration. He operated in almost every theater of the undersea war from Norway to the Indian Ocean and he was the second most successful German U-boat ace in World War II. Luth is credited with sinking 47 Allied ships and a submarine – a record topped only by Otto Kretschmer. In 1944, after 16 war patrols, including one that lasted a record 203 days at sea, he was named the youngest Commandant of the German Naval Acad...

Cultivated by the Allied press during the war and fostered by movies and novels ever since, the image of a U-boat skipper held by most Americans is the personification of evil: the wolf who stalks innocents. Quite the opposite image is shared by U-boat veterans and others sympathetic to their work: the knight who endures unrivaled danger and fights nobly. Yet another popular image depicts the submarine operator as a beleaguered sailor swept along by events beyond his control. This book exa...

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 leaders...

"Once you heard that pinging sound you knew they had got to you, then the depth charges came. Terrible, just terrible." Kurt Wehling, u-boat survivor The steel coffins was the name given to the U-boats of the Kriegsmarine by their own crews. Their fatalistic view of the war was certainly justified; it is estimated that seventy-five per cent of the 39,000 men who sailed in the U-boat fleet paid the ultimate price as the tide of war turned inexorably against Hitler's Germany. This is the ill...

The inside story of life aboard the deadly Nazi U-Boat that sank forty-nine ships.The history of one of World War II's most successful submarines, U-124, is chronicled in Grey Wolf, Grey Sea, from its few defeats to a legion of victories. Kapitanleutnant Jochen Mohr commanded his German submarine and navigated it through the treacherous waters of one of the most destructive, savage wars the world has known.

The authors of Bismarck deliver "a very good account of the Tirpitz and of the naval war in the North Atlantic and Norwegian waters" during World War II ( NYMAS Review).After the Royal Navy's bloody high seas campaign to kill the mighty Bismarck, the Allies were left with an uncomfortable truth—the German behemoth had a twin sister. Slightly larger than her sibling, the Tirpitz was equally capable of destroying any other battleship afloat, as well...

"This concise and well-written book will serve as a valuable library addition for anyone interested in the naval activities of the Great War." —Sea ClassicsThe cruisers of the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserlische Marine) were active throughout the First World War and saw action all around the globe, tying up valuable Allied naval resources out of all proportion to their number. Drawing on firsthand accounts and original research in German archives, the author here des...

A study and reassessment of the major World War II battle in the South Atlantic between the British and German navies.The Battle of the River Plate was the first major naval confrontation of the Second World War, and it is one of the most famous. The dramatic sea fight between the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the British cruisers Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles off the coast of South America caught the imagination in ...

In this comprehensive book, the wartime development of the U-Boat is traced along with the experiences of typical U-Boat crewmen, from recruitment to combat.Germany's World War II U-Boat fleet represented the elite of their naval personnel. In terms of technology, training, tactics and combat successes, the U-Boat Waffe was far superior to that of any other combatant nation. Gordon Williamson examines the operational tactics of the U-Boat fleet, as well as describi...

Award-winning historian Mike Walling captures the essence of the Arctic Convoys of World War II.In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest offensive operation ever undertaken. Operation Barbarossa saw defeat after defeat heaped on the Soviet army. With Russia's forces left staggering under the strain and in desperate need of supplies, Britain and the United States launched an ambitious operation to resupply the Soviet Union using convoys sent through ...

"A gripping narrative" of the German submarines that nearly changed the outcome of World War II from the author of Dönitz and the Wolf Packs ( Naval Review).In essence, this is the story of U-223, commanded by Karl-Jurgen Wächter from the time of her commissioning in Kiel in January 1943 through a murderous career to her eventual but dramatic demise in the Mediterranean in March 1944. At the same time, the book covers the declining fortunes of the ...

The history of the vital decisions that disrupted the victorious momentum of the Axis powers in World War II, leading to their downfall.As the Japanese fleet prepared to sail from Japan to Pearl Harbor, the German army was launching its final desperate assault on Moscow, while the British were planning a decisive blow against Rommel in North Africa. The British conquered the desert, the Germans succumbed to Moscow's winter, and the Japanese awakened the sleeping gi...