Operation Drumbeat: Germany's U-Boat Attacks Along the American Coast in World War II [Paperback]

Michael Gannon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 1991

The dramatic national bestseller and remarkably exciting account of Germany's little-known U-boat campaign against merchant shipping along the North American Atlantic coast during the first six months of 1942.

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

From Publishers Weekly

Interviews with a U-boat skipper, former German crew members and U.S. and British military personnel help explain why the Allies lost nearly 400 ships to U-boat attacks; evidence suggests that well-informed British intelligence was disregarded by the Anglophobic U.S. chief of naval operations. "The book will be of enormous interest to sub warfare buffs," said PW. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (June 25, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060920882
• ISBN-13: 978-0060920883
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,404,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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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.