U-boat Commander - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook U-boat Commander write by Peter Erich Cremer. This book was released on 1984. U-boat Commander available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A true-life war thriller by the famed U-boat ace who presents an authentic view of the notorious wolf packs and their encounters with the Allies.
Silent Hunters
Silent Hunters - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Silent Hunters write by Theodore P. Savas. This book was released on 2013-09-25. Silent Hunters available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The compelling true stories of six little-known U-boat commanders and their dramatic WWII careers. When World War II erupted across Europe in 1939, Germany knew it couldn’t hope to compete with the Royal Navy in a head-to-head naval war. Left with no viable alternatives, the U-Bootwaffe wagered everything on the submarine in a desperate attempt to sink more tonnage than the Allies could construct. Some of these “silent hunters” who slipped out of their shelters along Europe's shores to stalk their prey have enjoyed considerable recognition in the years since. While most aspects of the bitter struggle have been told and retold from both the Axis and Allied points of view, the careers of some highly effective U-boat commanders have languished in undeserved obscurity. The profiles of six such commanders are presented in this collection of essays. They include Englebert Endrass, whose spectacular career before being lost off the coast of Gibraltar is described here by his best friend and fellow ace Enrich Topp, who wrote this while on his fifteenth War Patrol; Karl-Friedrich Merten, who was ranked among the war’s top tonnage aces; Ralph Kapitsky, whose U-615 suicidal surface-to-air battle in the Caribbean allowed many of his fellow submariners to escape into the Atlantic; Fritz Guggenberger, who sank an aircraft carrier and organized the biggest POW escape attempt in American history; Victor Oehrn, a former staff officer of Karl Dönitz's; and Heinz Eck, who was executed by the British. Includes photographs
U-boat Commander Oskar Kusch
U-boat Commander Oskar Kusch - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook U-boat Commander Oskar Kusch write by Eric C Rust. This book was released on 2020-06-15. U-boat Commander Oskar Kusch available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. To his enlisted men on U-154, Lieutenant Oskar Kusch was the ideal skipper--bright, experienced, successful, caring, tolerably eccentric--and a popular captain who always brought his boat home safely when so many others vanished without a trace. To most of his officers Kusch came across as someone very different--a Nazi-hating intellectual with an artistic bent given to lengthy criticisms of the regime, its leaders and its propaganda, a suspected coward and potential traitor unfit for command. Early in 1944, after his second patrol under Kusch, his executive officer, a reservist with a doctorate in law and member of the Nazi party, denounced him on charges of sedition and cowardice. A hastily arranged court-martial cleared Kusch of the cowardice accusation but sentenced him to death on purely ideological grounds for "undermining the fighting spirit" of his boat, even though the prosecutor had only recommended a ten-year jail sentence. Abandoned by all but his closest friends and relatives, coldly sacrificed by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, unwilling to plead for mercy, and to the end tormented by a naval legal bureaucracy acting in collusion with the brown regime, Oskar Kusch was executed in May 1944. This study, the first scholarly work on Kusch in English, traces his career and ordeal from his upbringing in Berlin to his tragic death and beyond, including the fifty-year struggle to rehabilitate his name and restore his honor in a postwar Germany long loath to confront the darker dimensions of its past. The passing of the wartime generation and the emergence of a new school of historians dedicated to critical research and inspired historiography have finally combined to rectify our picture of the Kriegsmarine and to appreciate the sacrifice of men like Oskar Kusch.
Otto Kretschmer
Otto Kretschmer - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Otto Kretschmer write by Lawrence Paterson. This book was released on 2018-01-30. Otto Kretschmer available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Otto Kretschmer was only in combat from September 1939 until March 1941 but was Germany's highest-scoring U-boat commander sinking 47 ships totaling 274,333 tons. This definitive work details his personal story and the political backdrop from his earliest days. Aged 17 he spent 8 months studying literature at Exeter University where he learned to speak English fluently. The following year, on 1 April 1930, he enlisted as an officer candidate in the Weimar Republic's small navy. After completing his officer training and time on the training ship Niobe he served aboard the light cruiser Emden. In December 1934 he was transferred to the light cruiser Köln, then in January 1936 made the move to the fledgling U-boat service. His first operational posting was to the 2nd U-Flotilla’s Type VII U35 where he almost being drowned during training in the Baltic Sea! During the Spanish Civil War, he was involved in several patrols as part of the international nonintervention force. He was finally given command of U23, a post which he held until April 1940. He had already sunk 8 ships including the destroyer HMS Daring east of Pentland Firth on 18 February 1940. He demonstrated a cool approach to combat: his mantra ‘one torpedo for one ship’ proved that the best way for his boat to succeed against a convoy was to remain surfaced as much as possible, penetrating the convoy and using the boat’s high speed and small silhouette to avoid retaliation. His nickname ‘Silent Otto’ referred to his ability to remain undetected and his reluctance to provide the regular radio reports required by Dönitz: he had guessed that the Allies had broken German codes. Alongside his military skill was a character that remained rooted in the traditions of the Prussian military. While other U-boat commanders and crew returned from patrol with beards and a relaxed demeanor, U99 always returned with all men clean-shaven and paraded on deck. In the Bowmanville POW camp he organized a 2-way radio link to the German Naval High Command and planned a mass breakout with a U-boat rendezvous arranged. He was also instrumental in the ‘Battle of Bowmanville’ that lasted for 3 days in October 1942. His antics behind the wire became the inspiration for the 1970 film ‘The McKenzie Break’. Postwar he answered the call for volunteers upon the establishment of the Bundesmarine. He retired from the rank of Flotillenadmiral in 1970. He suffered a fall celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary aboard a boat and died two days later at the age of 86.
Diary of a U-Boat Commander
Diary of a U-Boat Commander - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Diary of a U-Boat Commander write by Stephen King-Hall. This book was released on 2017-04-18. Diary of a U-Boat Commander available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Captain Karl von Schenk of the Kaiser's Navy is a stereotypical German nobleman - supremely self-confident, touchy about the divisions of class and any infringement on his place. He thinks he is handsome, has a suitably manly physique, an excellent singing voice, and a facility with writing. His wartime service related in his diary is a series of triumphs over harrowing circumstances, bringing his boat back in spite of the best efforts of the Royal Navy to stop him. His one vulnerability is a young lady he meets on leave in Bruges, Belgium. Although she is the trophy girlfriend of a German colonel who could cause him much harm if he were to find out, von Schenk pursues his Zoe with Teutonic straightforwardness. And both he and the reader are entirely blind-sided by the unexpected thunderclap that puts an end to the sweet affair. Stephen King-Hall, a Royal Navy officer during the war and writing as "Etienne", penned this book as if he had simply discovered it on a surrendered submarine. In fact, some editions of the book list the author as "anonymous." King-Hall's knowlege of naval affairs lend authority to this yarn of men that go to the sea in ships that sink... on purpose.
