Wiggins, Melanie. U-Boat Adventures: Firsthand Accounts from World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999

ISBN 1-55750-950-6
250 pages

Foreword; Preface; photos; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Melanie Wiggins also wrote Torpedoes in the Gulf. Partly as a result of her research for that earlier book, Wiggins has been able to gather the stories of twenty-one former U-boat sailors. These are mostly told in first-person transcripts of oral interviews and correspondence; a few, such as the story of Oskar Kusch, are simply brief third-person biographical sketches. The U-boat men include enlisted sailors as well as a few skippers and their tales range from fairly mundane and predictable accounts of life at sea to unusual voyages such as that of U-810 transporting Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose to his rendezvous with a Japanese submarine in the Indian Ocean and the abortive mission to rescue Otto Kretschmer from a Canadian POW camp. Some very entertaining tales and also some very unusual photographs.

Compared to the next volume, Mulligan's Neither Sharks nor Wolves, this is a very informal, comfortable approach which allows the veterans mostly to speak for themselves.

Certain to appeal to anyone with an interest in the U-boat war.

Mulligan, Timothy P. Neither Sharks nor Wolves: The Men of Nazi Germany's U-Boat Arm, 1939-1945. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999

ISBN 1-55750-594-2
340 pages

Preface; Glossary; Comparative Ranks of World War II Navies; photos; tables; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Appendices: Survey of U-Boat Veterans; Numbers and Losses of the U-boat Service; Organization of the U-Boat Arm, 1 July 1942

Mulligan's is a much more structured and scholarly approach than that of Melanie Wiggins. Having managed to survey more than a thousand U-boat veterans -- officers and enlisted men -- and personally interview an additional number, he here assembles his findings, arranges the data and weighs it and measures it, and builds a formidable if somewhat stiff portrait of the German submariners who fought the Battle of the Atlantic: their ages, birthplaces, religions, formal education, prewar occupations, and so on.

While many of the survey results are presented in tabular format, this is very much a volume of analysis and interpretation and Mulligan writes at considerable length about who these men were, what they did aboard the boats, how they fit into the war at sea, and what they thought about the wider world war.

An important contribution to understanding the human aspects of the U-boat war, but likely to appeal mostly to those readers who take a more serious approach to studying the subject.

Haskell, W. A. Shadows on the Horizon: The Battle of Convoy HX-233. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999.

ISBN 1-55750-887-9
192 pages

Foreword; Acknowledgements; Introduction; photos; maps; diagrams; charts; Glossary; Sources; Index

Appendices: Armed Guard Commanders' Reports to Vice CNO; Sailing Telegram of Convoy HX-233; Composition of Convoy HX-233; Notes on Ships of Convoy HX-233; Escorts; Support Group Vessels; Convoy HX-233; 0800hrs Positions; Casualties on USCG Cutter Spencer, Casualties on SS Fort Rampart; German POWs on Spencer; German POWs on Duane; Casualties on U-175; U-Boats Operating against Convoy HX-233; Technical Details of U-175 Type IXC; Eyewitness Account of Attack on Bridgetown Harbour, 11 September 1942, by Revd Stanley R. Haskell

While Wiggins and Mulligan write about the U-boat sailors, W. A. Haskell -- who witnessed the battle for Convoy HX-233 from the deck of a merchantman -- has written a thorough and engrossing account of a classic North Atlantic engagement.

Haskell sets the stage with explanations of the convoy system and the sailing of HX-233 plus the story of the first patrols of U-175. These threads come together in mid-Atlantic in April 1943. By that time, Allied ASW measures were gaining ascendancy over the U-boats, and Haskell's battle proved to be a defeat for the Kriegsmarine. Despite assembling eight submarines against the convoy, the wolfpack could claim only a single success and that at the cost of U-175.

Although the text is relatively brief, Haskell does a fine job of explaining all the salient facts of the battle, including technical aspects such as weapons systems and "high tech" ASW equipment, while weaving together the personal stories of sailors from both sides. Also includes well-chosen photos and very detailed appendices.

Burn, Alan. The Fighting Commodores: Convoy Commanders in the Second World War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999.

ISBN 1-55750-283-8
262 pages

Glossary; photos; maps; Postscript; Notes; Index

Alan Burn takes up the tale of the sailors on the surface who fought against the U-boats in the last of this Battle of the Atlantic foursome. In particular, he tells the story of the convoy commodores, those senior naval officers, more often than not recalled from retirement, who commanded the merchant ships arrayed in their columns and rows as they brought succor across the wide ocean to the British Isles in the face of the U-boat menace.

This is not a comprehensive account of the Atlantic campaign as a whole, but rather an episodic series of studies of particular commodores and their convoys. Burn writes like a mariner (and in fact he served in the Royal Navy during the war) and brings these battles to life from the perspective of the officers and men aboard the transports and escorts. Among other topics, chapters deal specifically with "The Merchant Seaman's Lot," "The Liberty Ships," and "Commodores in the Arctic."

Of the four titles here, this one provides much more salt spray in the face while also presenting a much broader view of naval operations in the Atlantic. A good, readable book with some exciting tales of the sea, but with not quite so much to recommend for U-boat fans. The author, by the way, shortly after delivering his manuscript to the publisher "suffered a severe stroke and is now living in a nursing home in Oxford."

All available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from the Naval Institute Press.

Thanks to NIP for providing these review copies.