Customer Reviews

Death in the Doldrums: U-Cruiser Actions Off West Africa

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One of the more remarkable aspects of this book is the revelation of the way in which the Vichy French treated British sailors (which were accepted as being non-combatants) as prisoners of war. These being the sailors who had survived being sunk by the U Boats which feature in this book. War crimes, it seems, were not limited to the Germans and Japanese!

The U Cruiser was a type IX U Boat which was larger and had far greater range than the highly successful Type VII. Her design and features enabled the craft to operate further afield where they saw considerable success off the east coast of Africa and on the western side of the Atlantic. What started out as a nuisance operation - to become a thorn in the side of the British Admiralty in areas where, previously, Allied ships had sailed unhindered, U68 and U505 saw such success that the British soon had to completely rethink their strategy by organising convoys and defence systems for the ships which sailed these remote waters.

This author has received mixed reviews from me in the past with one of his books earning a well-justified 4 stars and another, an equally deserving one. On this occasion, however, he brings detailed and meticulous research to a subject which has, hitherto, been overlooked - possibly because of the more flamboyant exploits of those commanders who served in the Type VII U Boat (Prien, Kretschmer, Schepke & Co). In so doing, he has revealed an area of U Boat activity and operations from which many devotees of the subject will learn something new.

If I may be permitted one very minor criticism; In the German language, there never was a hyphen after the letter "U" in connection with U Boats. Consequently, U Boat, U68 and U505 are correct. U-Boat, U-68 and U-505 are incorrect. As I say, small point.

NM

One of the more remarkable aspects of this book is the revelation of the way in which the Vichy French treated British sailors (which were accepted as being non-combatants) as prisoners of war. These being the sailors who had survived being sunk by the U Boats which feature in this book. War crimes, it seems, were not limited to the Germans and Japanese!

The U Cruiser was a type IX U Boat which was larger and had far greater range than the highly successful Type VII. Her design and features enabled the craft to operate further afield where they saw considerable success off the east coast of Africa and on the western side of the Atlantic. What started out as a nuisance operation - to become a thorn in the side of the British Admiralty in areas where, previously, Allied ships had sailed unhindered, U68 and U505 saw such success that the British soon had to completely rethink their strategy by organising convoys and defence systems for the ships which sailed these remote waters.

This author has received mixed reviews from me in the past with one of his books earning a well-justified 4 stars and another, an equally deserving one. On this occasion, however, he brings detailed and meticulous research to a subject which has, hitherto, been overlooked - possibly because of the more flamboyant exploits of those commanders who served in the Type VII U Boat (Prien, Kretschmer, Schepke & Co). In so doing, he has revealed an area of U Boat activity and operations from which many devotees of the subject will learn something new.

If I may be permitted one very minor criticism; In the German language, there never was a hyphen after the letter "U" in connection with U Boats. Consequently, U Boat, U68 and U505 are correct. U-Boat, U-68 and U-505 are incorrect. As I say, small point.

NM

The subject of this book is the actions of primarily three UBoats off the coast of West Africa (the Doldrums), the U68, U505, and the Italian Leonardo da Vinci. The writing is satisfactory, but much of the content is taken up with the experiences of the survivors of the torpodoed ships and even their captivity under the Vichy French. These stories were wearying and added little except readily forgotten detail. In fact, the story is without impact being mainly focused on the hum-drum of limited activities in a remote theater. For students of the naval war of World War II, there is little to learn here, and really nothing of importance to the greater conflict.

About the only thing I learned was that the British allowed Vichy French ships to trade unmolested even though they were carrying cargos destined for use by the German Wehrmacht. On the other hand, British crews that fell into Vichy hands suffered imprisonment under harsh conditions until the Allies took North Africa.

The prose is supplemented with log records, reports and 1st person narratives, but in general these added little other than authenticity.

For someone collecting books covering all of the German naval actions, this work would be an addition to his library. Otherwise, one learns little about UBoat life, tactics, command structure and problems. The role of allied air cover is accurately depicted, especially in the Bay of Biscay. The actions of merchant ships and their survivors were monontous in their sameness, except that one should be reminded that it was safer to be in the US Navy in World War II than in the US Merchant Marine.

All in all, this was an average book of little importance. The treatment of the subject was scholarly and well-researched, but I suspect most readers will not find enough meat here to give the work a high rating. And at $35.00, the book is clearly over-priced -- the reader should wait until it is on the bargain list as it certainly will be given the minimal interest in the subject matter.

The book provides, predominately, brief stories regarding individual u-boat actions primarily from the perspective of the u-boats (about two-thirds to three quarters of the book) with the balance being from the perspective of the allies (predominately allied stories of being attacked, rescue, making it to shore and prisoner of war experiences). For a reader interested in micro level "stories", as opposed to strategic or operational picture (i.e., tonnage sunk, total u-boats in theater, allied resources, etc.), this would be an interesting book. The "stories" also provide a picture of typical experiences in the theater from both the u-boat and merchant men's perspective. Unfortunately due to the lack of presenation, analysis or discussion at the strategic level the reader comes away with really no picture of how important this theater was, the success or failure of u-boat operations relative to other theaters, the damage done to allied shipping (there is neither an accounting of total allied shipping sunk or u-boats engaged or sunk), allied naval resources tied down or damage done to allied shipping otherwise (i.e., slow down in shipping due to need for convoy, etc.). If a reader is interested in any of these issues this is the wrong book to read.

On the positive side, the short "stories" provided do illustrate the differences in u-boat tactics in this theater as opposed to North Atlantic (u-boats operating pretty much alone as opposed to in wolf packs) along with the environment they faced (i.e., intense heat, mechanical and fuel problems due to the long voyages required, etc.).

Although the theme of the book sounds very interesting, the writing style and the extremely dense narrative made me stop reading after a few pages. There are a lot of details in the book but it just couldn't keep my interest for long. Better try other books on the U-Boat War.