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Book Review: [i]Hitler's U-Boat War[/i] by Clay Blair (Two volumes)

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Don in Cincinnati:
Hitler's U-Boat War

Author: Clay Blair
Volume One: The Hunters 1939-1942
volume Two: the Hunted 1942-1945
Publisher: Random House


Clay Blair served in combat in the Pacific and knows a lot about submarines. At 700 pages for volume one, and 719 pages for volume two - and not including almost 200 pages of appendix material- his magnum opus is crammed with facts, maps, interviews and statistics enough to completely satisfy anyone interested in World War Two U-boat warfare. The research alone took over a decade.

Blair is a writer with a point of view and more than one axe to grind. He contends, for example, that despite the horrific allied shipping losses during the "happy times,"  the U-boat peril was vastly overblown, and Germany failed to sink more boats than the allies could build. He cites a plethora of facts to support his contention.

He also takes on historian Michael Gannon who offers a strong criticism of Admiral King's failure to convoy shipping along America's coastline in Operation drumbeat, citing more pages of facts to support King's decision.

Indeed, this is perhaps one of several failings in an otherwise fascinating history of the U-boat war.  A page or two of detailed information would have sufficed to make the point. A dozen pages is overkill, and boring overkill at that.

The second failing is a repetition of phrases scattered throughout the books.  It is enough to know, for example, that U-Boat commanders qualified for their Ritterkreuz upon sinking 100,000 tons of shipping. To be reminded of this fact as each candidate got his award makes for dull reading.

All this aside, when Blair adopts a narative style he can hold the reader spellbound. A paragraph which begins, "When Reinhard Hardegen (U123) surfaced off the East coast of the United States for the first time, he couldn't believe his eyes." It's hard to set a book down with that sort of lead in. Likewise Gunter Prien's (U47) words to First Watch Officer Engelbert Endrass explaining the misson to penetrate Scapa Flow speak volumes about the dangers of the attempt: "Hold onto to something, Endrass," Prien said, "We're going into Scapa Flow."

Nowhere have the North Atlantic winter storms and their effect on the boats and crews been better described. In one instance the entire bridge lookout crew of a boat was swept away by heavy seas, and their loss not discovered until the next watch came through the hatch to find it the bridge empty except for some shredded safety belts. The boat had been running blind for hours.

 Blair is at his best when he brings events down to the human level: Donitz' frustration at having his Atlantic attack boats sent off on pointless far-flung missions by Hitler, The almost overnight change for the Battle of the Atlantic brought about with the dual introduction by the allies of the Leigh Light and Centemetric radar in hunter-killer aircraft. The loss of Gunter Prien and U-47. (Sadly preceeded by ten pages of statistics and graphs which could have been relegated to footnotes.)

In summary, Hitler's U-Boat War is a mixed bag. A tendency toward dry facts, dates and stats rob some of the drama from the Atlantic conflict. Still there is enough here to merit the attention of any serious student of naval history. For those with only a passing interest there are shorter and less costly alternatives. Put another way, I read the 1400+ pages and am glad I did so. Would I read it a second time? Probably not.  Those who want to sample the book(s) are best directed to their local library before purchase.

dougie47:
Hi Don,

Thanks for the review. I agree exactly with your summary. I find them very useful for the sheer amount of information they hold.  But this wealth of information and stats can often detract from story-telling, and indeed the reader's enjoyment of the book.

You are entirely correct to point out his contention that the U-boat danger was overstated. I do think he had an "axe to grind" on this issue! During the early wars Allied personnel perceived the U-bootwaffe to be a grave threat. While this threat did not materialise to the extent that had been feared, people were still correct during the early years to fear the U-boats. A merchant sailor who sailed in 1941 would likely not have been able to foresee Black May.

Only by the application of a great deal of resources - equipment, manpower and scientific development - was the U-boat threat neutralised. Without such dedicated application the story could have been quite different. Given that Clay Blair clearly thought the threat was overstated, do you think he would contend that some of these resources should have been used in other ways against Germany?

Happy New Year,

Dougie

Greif:
Hi Don, excellent review.  I also have both volumes, and Blair's book on the sub war in the Pacific "Silent Victory" as well.  I agree that soemtimes interesting stories get buried under a mountain of facts in the books.  They are an informative read which will give the reader a pretty indepth understanding of the development of the Battle of the Atlantic; if the reader can slog his way through the material.  They are "heavy" reads for sure.  "Silent Victory" has some of the same problems; and strengths.  And reading all three books gives one a very nice persepective of submarine doctrine, tactics, technology and, to a certain extent, the men who manned them.  The development of ASW assets is also well laid out. 

Again, nice capsule review!

Ernest

Don in Cincinnati:

--- Quote from: dougie47 on 02 Jan , 2010, 06:50 ---Hi Don,

Thanks for the review. I agree exactly with your summary. I find them very useful for the sheer amount of information they hold.  But this wealth of information and stats can often detract from story-telling, and indeed the reader's enjoyment of the book.

You are entirely correct to point out his contention that the U-boat danger was overstated. I do think he had an "axe to grind" on this issue! During the early wars Allied personnel perceived the U-bootwaffe to be a grave threat. While this threat did not materialise to the extent that had been feared, people were still correct during the early years to fear the U-boats. A merchant sailor who sailed in 1941 would likely not have been able to foresee Black May.

Only by the application of a great deal of resources - equipment, manpower and scientific development - was the U-boat threat neutralised. Without such dedicated application the story could have been quite different. Given that Clay Blair clearly thought the threat was overstated, do you think he would contend that some of these resources should have been used in other ways against Germany?

Happy New Year,

Dougie

--- End quote ---

Any answer I might give about your question would be pure speculation on my part, but my first reaction is that Blair feels that from the wealth of new information now available, (Some only recently declassified) we might have allocated resources more effectively  back then had we been privy to this information at the time.

He does make a good case for a lot more allied bombing attacks on sub pen sites on the west coast of France before the sites were hardened and were virtually impenetrable from that point on. Also for more firepower directed at the U-boat construction sites. In essense, I think he seems to feel that more preemptive strikes would have been to the allies advantage since this would have prevented more subs from getting to combat zones in such numbers.

Despite his "mountain of facts" I agree largely with you that he overstates his case. That said, I do think the anti-German forces were lax in going to convoying sooner, and that sharing the scientific data between England and the U.S. left something to be desired. The same could be said of inter-servive rivalries between Army, Navy and Air Force on our side.

One further drawback from the German point of view is that the Military in general, and the Kreigsmarine in particular felt that they were nowhere near ready to fight a world war. Given that, they put up one heck of a fight.

Happy New year, Dougie.

Don

Rokket:
Very nice review Don, and an interesting thread this!

I saw a book recently on how the Great Depression was "sort of a lie". The author's point was that those that lived through it (my parents) had heaps of fun and were very positive about it. I see that as being similar to this "overstated U-boat threat."

I think the Depression author misses the point. Yes, they rolled up their sleeves and made the best of it, but life sucked! I think Blair may be in the  - pun coming, wait for it...same boat! (HA!) Dougie states it very well above 9and like many things, the solution is/was multiple, no magic bullet). I still think King had his own Pacific agenda, and as mentioned, merchantmen weren't too crazy about uboats with good reasons, they died a lot!

In the Blair vein, I throw this out there too for fun: ALLIED goal in WW2: stop an evil madman and empire from taking over Europe. Successful with Russian help, an then ...Russians control half of Europe for 50 years, crushing all (poor Poland!). So one could make a case that the Allies were only half successful, Stalin and the Russians were just different and slightly less impact, so what was the point? (just tossing it out there to cause trouble, er, conversation!)

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