Customer Reviews

Find and Destroy: Antisubmarine Warfare in World War I

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This is an interesting book, not only for the subject matter, but for the way in which it is written. Instead of exciting action stories of steely men at war that one might expect, the author digs past that superficial level to provide detailed information on both the weapons in use and the methods in which they were used.

Each nation's capabilities at the beginning of the war (brief synopsis: Trivial) is assessed, how that changed as the war went on, and what were the success and failures both as seen by the respective country and by its foes. I especially liked how the author, rather than simply parroting an action report from some British or German destroyer, took the time to search out the records and reports from the target submarine. This is repeatedly done throughout the book to illustrate some tactic or weapon, which means that one can now understand not only what the attacking destroyer thought of the attack, but what were the effects on its intended target.

The ASW weapons are given a good examination and again the effectiveness of each nation's weapons is reviewed not only by the users but also by the defenders. For example, the British thought that their use of anti-submarine nets in the channel thoroughly hindered the movements of the German U-Boats. However, the Germans actually found these to be a minor nuisance for most part, easily defeated or simply avoided. Similar insights are given to as the effectiveness of German ASW weapons and tactics.

In summary, this book should be seen as being a definitive study of the subject at the detailed level. It is not a breezy set of action stories strung together to form a "popular" history. For that reason, I give this work a high rating and look forward to more such works from the author.