Wolfpacks At War: The U-Boat Experience in World War II [Hardcover]

Jak Showell (Author)

Book Description

Series: At War | Publication Date: November 21, 2003

The product of fifteen years' research, here is the history of the camps to which captured Allied aircrew were sent in the early years of the war. Run by the Germany army, despite the Geneva Convention's decree that aircrew should be the responsibility of the Luftwaffe, their story has been neglected in the concentration on Stalag Luft III and VI in which aircrew officers were assembled from 1942 onwards. 4 maps. 32pp b/w photos. 296 pages. Hardback

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jak Mallmann Showell lives in Kent. His father was Diesel Obermaschinist Jak Mallmann who was lost at sea on his 13th operational tour with U377. As Britain's foremost expert on the history of U-boat activities in the war, he has also written Under the Swastika, U-Boats at War: Landings on Hostile Shores and Enigma U-Boats, which have all been published by Ian Allan Publishing.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Ian Allan Publishing; First Edition edition (November 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0711029288
• ISBN-13: 978-0711029286
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 8.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,052,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Submariner's Collectible, March 20, 2003

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Dr. Victor S. Alpher (Austin, Texas, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wolfpacks At War: The U-Boat Experience in World War II (Hardcover)

This is a necessary book for anyone with interest in the underpinnings of the esprit de corps of the U-Boot Waffe during World War II. The author's father was a diesel mechanic lost at sea in his 13th operational U-Boat tour. Individual submarines rarely made war patrols in the double digits before succumbing to sinking or debilitation; at the end of the war, most were scuttled by their crews.

In addition to numerous color and black and white photographs, color reproductions of panels from the 5th U-Boat Flotilla's visitor's book, along with statistics on individual U-Boat crews (survivors, war patrols, killed in action) bring the reader fairly close to a variety of experiences common to all submariners (e.g. rituals for crossing the equator, training trials, experiences on leave, the social climate of the bases).

This is no glorification of the Third Reich--if anything, it shows, like the film Das Boot (highly recommended), the isolation and challenges of maintaining a no-frills environment in which a crew of usually 45 or so men, from officers to diesel mechanics, had to maintain operational readiness in the context of long periods of dull routine punctuated by brief periods of extreme violence and fear of death--something like laying across a subway railway track with no knowledge of the time of the coming of the next train, and a screwdriver with which to attempt to derail it.

From this came initial notoriety of great accomplishment early in the war (measured by tonnage sunk), to near suicide missions by 1943, when Allied radar, sonar, and bombing was too much for these vessels that could mainly do battle only when surfaced and powered by diesel engines, and when submerged had to operate primarily on recharged electric motors (until the addition of the "schnorchel" which allowed use of diesel engines while still submerged).

As a stand-alone work, it is neither exhaustive nor definitive, but within a collection of war diaries, film, and other analyses of performance may give one the sense of opportunity given to men from many different backgrounds to merge into a fighting unit, with a much greater than 50/50 chance of certain death. It shows again how, in wartime, soldiers are fighting for each other as much as for any ethereal cause other than survival.