3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
WW2 High Seas Adventure, December 30, 2007
This review is from: Phantom Raider: Nazi Germany's Most Successful Surface Raider (Fortunes of War) (Paperback)
I'm not normally a fan of sea faring books of any sort this book is one of three and it is good reading, easy to follow doesn't get bogged down in the politics of the era, just what happened from the start to the end and eventual sinking by the british.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Model of What a wartime Memoir should look like, June 6, 2009
This review is from: Phantom Raider: Nazi Germany's Most Successful Surface Raider (Fortunes of War) (Paperback)
The best kind of war memoirs are those that are written soon after the events and where the author sticks to subjects with which he had first-hand experience. It also helps if the author adds healthy quantities of the `three Hs': humour, humility and honesty. Phantom Raider, written by Ulrich Mohr about his service as a junior officer on the German disguised commerce raider Atlantis in 1940-41, is a superb example of `how-to-write-a-good memoir. Not only does the author a great many interesting details that are omitted in more operationally-driven histories of the Atlantis, but he reached out to some of his former adversaries after the war in order to gain greater understanding about the events he participated in. Mohr manages to bring the crew of Germany's most successful raider to life and depict them as individuals, ranging from a few trouble-makers to characters such as the explosives expert, the ship's pilot, the ship's surgeon and of course the well-known Captain Bernhard Rogge. Overall, this is a well-written and interesting memoir that adds a great deal to our understanding of Germany's anti-commerce operations in the Second World War.
Phantom Raider is divided into 26 short chapters and has 205 pages of narrative. The author provides 27 B/W photos but no maps or appendices - it's a rather no frills book. That aside, the narrative is coherent and flows at an almost movie-script pace. The author begins with the conversion of the Atlantis from a civilian freighter at Bremen in the winter of 1939/40 and discusses the initial training of the crew. Mohr is a bit self-effacing at times, in that he gives a few details that his background was far from the norm for a Kriegsmarine Leutnant - he had a PhD and spoke a number of languages. He adds humor noting the lengthy discussions about exactly what kind of paintings should go on the wardroom rooms; nothing to remind home-sick sailors of Germany, nothing racy to remind them of women. Once Atlantis was at sea and had to regularly change its disguise he notes the difficulty of re-painting a ship's hull in the middle of the Atlantic. Once Atlantis starts capturing Allied merchantmen on the high seas, Mohr brings the reader right along, describing boarding parties in which the author participated. He provides all sorts of rich details about raider operations, many of which don't appear in other accounts. Even Rogge's Scottish terrier `Ferry,' the ship's mascot, is mentioned.
Mohr spends a good deal of time discussing the effect of the unprecedented 622-day long patrol on the morale of the Atlantis' crew. Fortunately, he doesn't try to white-wash events and mentions several instances of indiscipline among the crew. He also discusses relations with captured British prisoners, who enjoyed a more civil relationship with their captors than was the norm. According to Mohr, water shortages and dull diets were the main bane of the cruise, aside from the constant apprehension about a British cruiser appearing suddenly. As part of his duties, Mohr regularly listened to British BBC reports - Atlantis had to be aware if the ships that they were pretending to be was sunk elsewhere - which enabled him to realize that German wartime propaganda was getting increasingly worse by 1941. To his credit, Mohr is frank that he was a loyal German officer and doesn't try to pretend that he was against the regime, but he succeeds in showing that the crew of the Atlantis was not so isolated that they didn't realize the war was going against Germany. Based both on Mohr's account and post-war accounts by former British prisoners, it is apparent that Atlantis fought about as `clean' a war as it was possible to fight and far outside the norm for other theaters of the war.
Another interesting part of the book which is barely mentioned in other accounts about the Atlantis went to the isolated Kerguelen Island and ran aground. Mohr describes how seriously damaged the ship was and this nearly ended their war career there. The last part of the book is the most exciting, where Mohr describes the sinking of the Atlantis by the British cruiser Devonshire in November and how he eventually made it back to France aboard an Italian submarine. Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable naval memoir and while it could stand to be updated with an appendix or map, it still packs far more veritas than many of the hastily-thrown-together Second World War memoirs we see appearing these days.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential WWII Navy History, February 16, 2007
This review is from: Phantom Raider: Nazi Germany's Most Successful Surface Raider (Fortunes of War) (Paperback)
Written by the Atlantis' Executive Officer. Excellent book. An essential WWII history. Nice binding. High seas exploits in wartime.
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