Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany's First U-boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II [Paperback]

Michael Gannon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2009

In the first eight months of 1942, German submarines sank nearly 400 Allied freighters and tankers along the U.S. Atlantic coast with a loss of more than 5,000 merchant seamen and sailors twice the number of fatalities at Pearl Harbor. This book helps readers understand the complexities of the long Battle of the Atlantic by examining those disastrous early days of war and following the U-boats into action. The book traces the voyages of five U-boats to their destinations as they sink twenty-five ships unmolested by the U.S. Navy, which failed to follow through on British intelligence warnings. It also provides a compilation of personal stories from crewmen and officers of U-123 and from the Allied sailors and merchant seamen cast adrift in lifeboats by the U-boat s torpedoes. A bestseller when first published in 1990, it is now back in print as a trade paperback.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Historian Michael Gannon argues that the systematic assault by German submarines on merchant tankers and freighters along the U.S. eastern seaboard in 1942 "constituted a greater strategic setback for the Allied war effort than did the defeat at Pearl Harbor." The case for the claim is intriguing and includes a damaging assessment of the U.S. naval command, which ignored information that might have allowed it to avert the disaster, but Gannon never lets his argument distract from the compelling wartime story. Through original interviews and archival research, he describes the exploits of U-123 and its 28-year-old Lieutenant Commander Reinhard Hardegen, who terrorized American home waters on two separate missions. Operation Drumbeat presents a remarkable picture of life on the U-boats. (Fans of the movie Das Boot especially won't want to miss it.) Gannon's book eventually may become a classic work of naval history; for now it's a great book on a particular aspect of the Second World War. --John J. Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1942 German U-boats sank nearly 400 Allied ships off the East coast of the U.S., threatening to sever Britain's lifeline and cripple U.S. war industry. Gannon, a University of Florida history professor, reveals the appalling degree of unpreparedness and opposition to military intervention on the American side, despite accurate warnings from British intelligence, and traces much of it to the Anglophobia of the chief of naval operations, Admiral Ernest J. King. In an impressive research coup, Gannon located the former skipper and several crew members of one of the U-boats involved in the campaign. Using interviews with these men and former U.S. and British military personnel, and a war diary of the U-123 , Gannon recreates two action-packed patrols and the sinking of 18 Allied ships by that submarine. The book will be of enormous interest to sub warfare buffs. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 529 pages
• Publisher: United States Naval Inst.; Reprint edition (March 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591143020
• ISBN-13: 978-1591143024
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #267,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars history book that reads like a great novel, March 2, 2001

By 

Tim F. Martin (Madison, AL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Operation Drumbeat: Germany's U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II (Paperback)

Operation Drumbeat is far, far from a dry history text. Though skilled writers can most the seemingly most arcane and esoteric aspects of history interesting, Gannon has written a riveting account of the first U-boat attacks along the US coast in World War II. Reading ever bit like a great Tom Clancy novel (or something similiar), Gannon puts you in the action as if you were on a U-boat, or the merchant ships that were hunted, or in Bletchley Park trying to figure out U-boat actions and intentions and warn the slumbering American merchant ships and port cities.

Much of the work focuses on the actions of a representative U-boat from this operation, U-123 commanded by Captain Reinhard Hardegen. You follow him, his officers, and crew from their U-boat pens in occupied France as they sortie out into the stormy North Atlantic and engage in operations up and down the American coast, attacking merchant ships that were not prepared for a sudden Nazi assault, backlight by cities that were not apparently aware that a war was going on. Often in full view of major cities and beachgoers on vaction, Hardegen and other U-boat commanders sunk merchant craft in a period of extraordinary success for the German Navy.

Gannon also chronciles the efforts to find and track the U-boats, both in war-weary and desperate British circles and in somewhat naive and arrogant American circles. Gannon paints an interesting contrast between the highly effective and dedicated British Naval Intelligence, working around the clock to amass as much information on each U-boat, right down to personal details on the commanders, and their American counterparts under Admiral King, who were unprepared and were slow to see the need to take countermeasures against the sudden attacks, at some points unsure of what to do, and slow to implement them. Gannon describes King as a man unconcerned and ill-prepared to deal with the Battle of the Atlantic. For all his heroics in the Pacific, King, accoring to Gannon, costs lives and equipment again and again in the war versus Hitler's submarines through inaction and poor action.

A great book, highly recommended.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Operation Incredible., May 2, 2000

By 

choiceweb0pen0 (Lafayette, LA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Operation Drumbeat: Germany's U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II (Paperback)

It did take me awhile to get into this book, but reads more like a novel than a 'history book' and I mean this as a compliment. Gannon spent a lot of time researching every possible aspect. Not only giving the German U-boat side, he also gives the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy perspective as well. This is important to realize how lax the American Navy was in the Atlantic, almost completely ignoring the threat until several thousand tons of shipping, boats, and lives were lost to U-boats. Cracking the Enigma coat was an extremely important to the Allies defeat and sinking of many U-boats. It is impossible to write an account of German U-Boats and not mention it. The amount of detail Gannon provides is nothing short of amazing. Operation Drumbeat is an excellent account and look at one U-boats patrols to the East Coast of North America, a nearly forgotten event in history.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gannon vs. Adm. King, December 31, 2001

By 

Dennis Reilly (Concord, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Operation Drumbeat: Germany's U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II (Paperback)

This book was an enjoyable read. It seems like the type of story that a movie producer would want to put on film. Perhaps Gannon had that in mind when he wrote the book. As history, however, I believe that it is flawed.
Gannon tries to convince the reader that Adm. King was soley responsible for the losses to U-boats in the Eastern Sea Frontier during early 1942. He displays an apparent bias against the USN and in favor of the RN. The term "anglophobe" is applied so frequently that it becomes trite. Any facts which would tend to weaken his case against King are conspicuously absent from OPERATION DRUMBEAT.
I admit that I may have failed to understand precisely what Gannon was attempting to communicate in some sentences, which ran for nearly half of a page.
For a more accurate and balanced history of ComInCh, ESF and Drumbeat, read HITLER'S U-BOAT WAR: The Hunters, 1939-1942 by Clay Blair. In this 1996 book, Blair refutes directly much of what Gannon wrote about the availability of escort vessles and the culpability of Adm. King.