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The Battle of the Atlantic

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Churchill once said the only thing that frightened him during World War II was the U-boat menace. Well-known aviation historian Roy Nesbit revisits the fierce conflicts that were waged in the Atlantic from 1939 to 1945 in this comprehensive, well-illustrated volume from Sutton Publishing.

The Battle of the Atlantic was played out on a huge canvas, stretching from America to the European coastline and involving the air, naval and merchant marine arms of many nations. Nesbit takes a somewhat scholarly look at events, only occasionally naming individual units, vessels or crews involved in specific actions. Nevertheless BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC is a good read, an engrossing, well-researched account of German U-boats, battleships and air units pitted against the plodding Allied merchantmen and their naval and air escorts who provisioned England - and Russia - despite sometimes crippling losses.

Nesbit's book benefits from having access to information formerly classified as well as use of his voluminous archive of photographs related to the subject. The book is bursting with 310 black & white and color photographs, wartime posters, maps and charts. Along with shots of major players in the Battle like Doenitz, Pound, Tovey, 'Johnny' Walker and U-boat aces Kretschmer, Schepke and Prien are many shots of 'grey wolves' at sea, under attack or in home port as well as Kriegsmarine & RN capital ships, Allied merchantmen aloft and in extremis, Coastal Command aircraft, their Luftwaffe countemporaries, Enigma machines, Leigh lights and so on. Also featured are nine striking artworks by Charles Thompson and Mark Postlethwaite.

The Battle of the Atlantic has been the subject of many books. With its well-honed, comprehensive text and wealth of visuals, Nesbit's book stands out as one of the best single-volume histories on the subject.