Customer Reviews

Wolf: U-Boat Commanders in World War II

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Wolf is a departure from many of the submarine books of WWII. Rather than being a cold, dry, analysis of tonnage sunk and mission totals, it looks at the careers of a dozen U-Boat commanders as personal stories, warts and all. Starting with the illegal re-establishment of the Kriegsmarine's U-Boat fleet and particularly the early training, it progresses through the waves of new commanders who took over as their predecessors were either killed or transferred to desk jobs.

Vause divides these waves into those who started in U-Boats before the war, those who joined up early and achieved commands in the early days of the war and finally, those who were fed piecemeal into the mincing machine that was the last two years of the Battle of the Atlantic. It was in these final two years when the U-Bootwaffe suffered its worst casualties. For the uninitiated, 36,000 German sailors went to war in U-Boats and 32,000 did not return, the worst casualties of any combat group in WWII.

The highlight of the book for me was the odyssey of Victor Oehrn who, strangely for a submariner, was captured by Australian infantry in the North African desert! Without wishing to spoil the story, I can honestly say it would be worthy of a movie script and is very well presented by the author.

A great primer for anyone wishing to familiarise themselves with the U-Boat campaign of WWII, it is not intended to be a definitive work and does not get bogged down in cold analysis. Such books have their place but this is the alternative. At times funny, often sad but usually very insightful, it must be recommended very highly.

Before reading any factual book, I always glance through the pictures and images. Only very rarely do I learn something important from this initial familiarisation. On this occasion I learned that an unofficial war between the US Navy and German submarines had been ongoing for several months before Pearl Harbour. Perhaps more importantly, apart from the portrait of Dönitz, I did not recognise any of the other photographs used.

This is a book about the men who manned Germany's submarines - her U Boats. It seeks to expose their character, their weaknesses and their strengths - the very "what it was" that made them successful and made them national heroes and occasionally national villains. There are those with whom even the casual reader of U Boat history will be familiar - Prien, Kretschmer and Schepke for example. Then there are those whose exploits, in some cases, were even greater or perhaps more dastardly but, for whatever reason, kept their own personal periscope of exposure well below the surface at all times and are, therefore, less well known - Weddigen (who, in an obsolete, gas-powered U Boat, sank the 3 Cruisers HMS' Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue within 90 minutes in September 1914 and escaped without a scratch), Schwieger (who infamously sank the Lusitania in May 1915 killing 1,198 people) and Lemp (who, within 6 hours of war being declared, sank the Athenia in 1939 and, breaking every rule of warfare imaginable, killed 128 people) to name but six.

It is that indefinable quality which binds together men from diverse backgrounds with very different attitudes, hopes and aspirations to perform a common task. That is what this book is all about and is, therefore essential reading for those with an interest in the U Boat.

On the down side, I found the Athenia's 128 death toll described as "several hundred" - something which may (or may not) reveal a lack of attention to fine detail during the author's research. In addition, that perennial favourite of mine is the inclusion of the hyphen between "U" and "Boat." Whilst many will regard this as VERY "picky-picky," it is a fact that the hyphen does not appear after the letter "U" in connection with U Boats anywhere in original German documents but was added by English language writers. This is not a book about U Boat commanders from a British or American perspective, it is researched in Germany with a cast of former U Boat commanders and it tells their story. Consequently, U Boat, U21 and U47 are quite correct. U-Boat, U-21 and U-47 are incorrect.

Whilst I may be surprised this was not spotted during research in Germany, it should not be allowed to mar the readers enjoyment of the work.

NM

Very well written. Was very complimentary to his first on Wolfgang Luth. I would recommend this to any WWII naval history buff of the North Atlantic, or more serious information finder of the times and places. I hope Mr. Vause continues his work, as patiently as I will wait.

this book brings back some of the mystery to the U-boat and its crews.For a long time The Boat was seen as a "one size fits all" description of U-boat warfare. This book presents the different personalities of U-Boat commanders and its not difficult to imagine each would run his boat in a different manner.Also it is pointed out that the Boat was written by Bucheim who was never in actual combat by being depth charged,but who witnessed a sinking or two. The chapter where former U-boat commander Merten gets into a shouting match with Bucheim was particularly interesting.Merten is not presented as a Nazi or war-glorifier,but was offended by Bucheim's portrayal of U-boat crews as a bunch of post-traumatic,ribald,hopeless,submariners. According to Merten that may be accurrate for that boat,but not all the boats.The crew on the Boat definitely suffers a morale problem in the the movie and I had never seen this aspect previously,a person would wonder if they would be more vulnerable for a trip to,"Davy Jones Locker" As Vause points out in his book Das Boat is based on fact but it is not factual,it is a surrealist picture.I rewatched the movie and when I saw the scene where The Boat meets another Type VII on the seas, I wondered what might be going on inside that other sub.A whole different crew with a whole different way of playing their role.On the other hand and more realistically,they're probably surprised to see another U-boat that hasn't been yet sunk.Almost as surprised that they themselves are in fact still alive!!Could be time for another movie on this.Sort of makes Hemmingways "Old Man" of the sea and his fish troubles seem insignificant.

i enjoyed this book because it points out the different personalities of the U-boat commanders as opposed to accounts that have a "one size fits all",seen one u-boater seen them all interpretation.The chapter where former U-boat commander Merten gets into a shouting match with author of Das Boot,Mr. Buchheim,was particularly enlightening.As Buchheim descends into profanity you wonder which nerve Merten has struck.The book breaks down the U-boat war into different periods and after reading this book you will have to ask yourself if Buchheim's crew on Das Boot might be more surreal than real as was the movie Apocolypse Now in regard to the Vietnam War.Objecting to one scene in the Boat,Merten says,"I'm sure no U-boat captain ever had to use a gun to get a sailor to perform his duty".The shaky "Johan" on Das Boot quivering in fear is as fictional as Kurtz in Apocolypse Now?But if Johann did not exist in reality he would have needed to be invented anyway.Johan adds some humanity to the story we can all identify with even if his action seems selfish and endangers the crew.And I'll bet down in the deep bowels of some U-Boat there were other "Johanns";true stories we could only imagine.

Good book. Interviews with Jurgen Oesten complement Harold J. McCormick's "Two Years Behind the Mast: An American Landlubber at Sea in World War II." Anyone who has read that book knows that Commander Oesten sunk McCormick's Liberty ship on July 23, 1944. For some reason, however, McCormick's book is not cited in Vause's bibliography