Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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.

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.

This amazing book is a thoroughly footnoted piece of professional historical research that reads like a well-written novel. Although the pace slows a bit toward the end, despite knowing the eventual outcome this is a real page-turner about some historical events that are not widely known.

Gannon concentrates on the background, strategy and techniques of the initial German submarine attacks on shipping along the United States' East Coast in the early months of 1942, which the Germans called Operation Drumbeat. Despite the British Royal Navy passing on timely, accurate intelligence about the pending attack, this book documents the disorganization and incompetence with which the U.S. Navy responded to the initial German submarine assault that sunk dozens of ships and killed hundreds of people literally within sight of American cites and towns from New England to Florida and, eventually, the Gulf coast.

Gannon's interesting technique is to focus his account on the still living, at least as of 1990, captain and crew members of U-123 which was one of the boats that participated in the mission. U-123 scored a number of kills from New York to Florida, sometimes operating so close to shore that they could hear the music from beachfront honkytonks. The true story of the U-123 mission has many elements of the tale told in the German movie Das Boot, right down to an out-of-place propaganda journalist accompanying the patrol.

Buy Operation Drumbeat, crank up the soundtrack to Das Boot (also available from Amazon in an expensive but well-worth-it CD) and return to the exciting days of 1942 when the outcome of the titanic struggle between good and evil known as World War II was still uncertain!

News stories about the recent emphasized role of the Coast Guard as protector of US home waters, brought to mind this excellent book.

This is the non-fiction story of the first six months of 1942's WWII along the ESF (Eastern Sea Frontier), which Adm King commanded. However, this is not a glowing account of King's command, rather a damning account of his failure to protect shipping along the Atlatic seaboard. This is described from the eyes of the commander of U-123, a real U-boat, a real captain, Reinhard Hardegen, and real events.

The reason that the CG's current role in home waters defence brings this book to mind is that when 1942 opened on the ESF, among the ships available, there were only five along the whole coast, ready for offshore patrol. These were the 165 foot CG Cutter Dione, two 125 foot CG Cutters, a Navy Eagle boat and a converted yacht. Deja-vu!

This is a salty tale, especially during U-123's passage across the far North Atlantic in January, to avoid detection. Icy spray, ice and contiuous damp are the lot of the crew both on and off watch, until they reach the calmer waters of Ambrose Channel and creep up to New York harbor, undetected, using only a tourist guide book of NYC as the chart and sailing directions.

King failed to darken the coastline and aids to navigation for several months, not wanting to interfere with tourism and shipping. This made easy hunting for the five U-boats which participated in Doenitz' Operation Drumbeat.

The information in this book came from heavy research by the author in German War Diaries, shooting reports, US documents and interviews with surviving crewment of U-123, including Hardegen.

Besides the adventure of U-123 banging away down the coast from NYC to Mayport FL NOB, you learn a lot about British vs 1942 era US intelligence (deja-vu!), the Enigma machine, and a lot about the U-123 class subs and life aboard. There are insights as to why Hitler's dominance of the German Hig Command played a good part in losing the War. Also, how King disregarded Roosevelt's orders and was later rewarded by being named CNO (Chief of Naval Operations.)

Even the large reference section is interesting reading. For example, I didn't know that the sub's fuel tanks were open at the bottom, like an inverted water glass. As the fuel is used up, it is replaced by sea water, helping maintain the sub's trim.

While armchair historians will not learn much new about the U-Boat war from this book, enthusiasts will find a lively account of a German submarine's career against Allied shipping. Michael Gannon has written a detailed and accurate account of not only the initial onslaught against shipping off the East Coast in the first half of 1942, but of one U-Boat's entire war. Extremely absorbing.

This book is by far, one of the absolute best books on U-Boats that I have ever read.
Gannon, tells the tale of Hardegen in such an enjoyable manner the book was darn near impossible to put down.

U-Boat crews were the best!
Highly Recommended!

Reading Operation Drumbeat was similar to sitting in on one of Professor Gannon's lectures...gripping. As a student of Gannon's I found his lectures more like a great story and this goes for Operation Drumbeat as well. As a Florida resident with some history in St. Augustine (where Gannon witnessed a U-boat attack) I find it interesting to put myself in the place of those Americans who witnessed these attacks. If they were as suprised as I was just reading about it then it most have been quite a seen.

Best military history I've ever read and believe me I've read a lot of 'em....explodes lots of myths (some intentional by the US Navy) and much stuff that wasn't declassified until the late 80's. I think they (the US Navy) were embarassed and this book explains why. Very little opinion as it is all thoroughly documented and foot-noted. It reads like a novel, mostly from the German and British viewpoints. I couldn't put it down.

There is definitely severe criticism of the U.S. Navy's actions during 1942 and before, but author Gannon gives sound reasons for coming to his conclusions. One may argue about the details, but 3,997 ships sunk in the Atlantic is enough testimony that something went haywire. Gannon refuses to gloss over the mistakes made by all sides in that conflict and just lays out all the facts.

As for Admiral King, Gannon references an excerpt from General Eisenhower's 1942 wartime journal that said the quickest way to end the War in the Atlantic was "to shoot Admiral King." Even Gannon acknowledges that the US Navy did finally catch on to the tactical and strategic lessons of Anti-Submarine Warfare (after much goading by the British and Canadians), but I believe even seasoned students of military history will be absolutely shocked at the timidity and incompetence of the naval high command at the outbreak of war with Germany.

This book is well foot-noted and indexed so if one is so inclined the primary source material can be readily examined.

Michael Gannon meticulously documents an underreported element of our nation's involvement in WWII. It's amazing that more hasn't been written about the attacks by German U-boats along the US east coast, but Gannon's book seems to be one of only a relative few that documents this aspect of the war. The most striking fact that sticks in my mind from this book is how slow the U.S. was to react to the attacks, finally taking measures against the attacks only after constant prodding by British intelligence, which was, by Gannon's account, much more advanced in tracking U-Boat movements, and quite willing to share this information with the U.S. despite the stubborness of some in the U.S. command. Gannon's suggestion that the U-Boat attacks were more damaging to the war effort than the Pearl Harbor attack is provocative, and seems to underestimate the emotional impact of December 7th, but Gannon clearly shows the heavy damage the U-Boat attacks had on the war effort until the U.S. command did its part to repel such attacks. All in all, a worthy effort to document an under-reported aspect of the WWII struggle.