Customer Reviews

Verschollen: World War I U-Boat Losses

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As a scuba diver of almost 30 years experience and something of an expert on "shipwrecks," I have visited a small number of submarine wrecks over the years. There is something very different about a wrecked submarine and I found the content of this book to be most informative and in some cases fascinating.

"Verschollen" is the German word used to describe a U-Boat which was lost without trace and, in this book, the author sets out all the available information about 375 such boats. By the very nature of such losses, in some cases, this amount to very little information - after all, U-Boats mysteriously lost at sea at a time of War were not prone to sending back a report explaining what had happened and where. The book itself is hard-back and measures 9¼" x 6¼" containing 330 pages of information. After an informative and very readable, introduction, the lost U-Boats are listed by type; U, UB and UC under which headings the lost vessels appear in numerical order.

Each boat is covered in the same way. The main headings comprise; Boat No, Date Lost, Commander, Location, Position and Disposition followed by a short narrative regarding that final journey. This may be anything from a half page to 2 pages depending on the information available I was particularly impressed by the way in which the account of each separate U-Boat is finished off with mention of the various sources of reference used by the author to determine each fate - as far as anyone can make such a determination. Anything between 2 and 5 separate reference sources from America, Britain and Germany are quoted for each lost boat and these alone betray a thorough job of work from this author.

I would have liked to have seen more photographs - but the book is no less important for that. This book is an invaluable "starting point" for those with an interest in lost U-Boats in addition to being a vital addition to any Scuba Diver's book-shelf.

NM

"Verschollen", by author Dwight R. Messimer, individually details what happened to the submarines that the Germans lost in World War I, to the extent known. The listing for each boat contains information on the type of boat, the commander, where it was lost (with coordinates when possible), and details of its last voyage, among other things. Additionally, if there were survivors and if they later filed a report, the author includes the relevant excerpts dealing with the loss of the boat.

This book is impressively well researched, but is more for the U-Boat specialist reader, or perhaps sport diver, rather than the general layman or history buff, as you obviously go from boat to boat with no overarching theme or storyline, other than the end of the individual boats. As such, the book can be a bit repetitive, and doesn't lend itself to sitting down and reading from cover to cover. I must state, however, that some of the stories for individual boats were extremely interesting and whetted my appetite to find out more about this portion of World War I.

"Verschollen", means "forgotten" in German, but in this case, the word is meant to describe those boats that were lost without a trace. But due to Mr. Messimer's work, these boats are not forgotten, although it is unlikely many of them will ever be found.

Recommended for those with a strong interest in World War 1 German U-Boats.