Q-Ships Versus U-Boats: America's Secret Project (Hardcover)

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The American effort in World War II to use Q-ships (disguised merchant vessels, intended to provoke submarine attacks and then fight back) is a little-known sidebar to the navy's antisubmarine effort. It now has a proper chronicler in Beyer, the supply officer of one of the two elderly freighters converted for the purpose, U.S.S. Asterion. He chronicles the secret recruiting of the crews and equipping of the ships and their eventual deployment at sea, along with parallel aspects of the careers of the German submariners who ended up fighting them. Neither Q-ship sank a German submarine, although Asterion put up some good fights, and her sister ship Atik was lost with all hands, an episode that the author reconstructs in a fashion both dramatic and plausible. This is one of those Naval Institute volumes that is not really vital to anyone except serious students of naval history but is likely to be the only coverage of its subject for them. Libraries with naval buffs aboard, take note. Roland Green

Product Description

In a desperate attempt to counteract the deadly onslaught of U-boats in the Atlantic, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a secret project in 1942 that called for the use of decoys disguised as merchant ships. These heavily armed warships were referred to as Q-ships, and very little information about them has been recorded over the past fifty years. Now a U.S. naval officer who served in one of the mystery ships, a decoy-configured freighter by the name of USS Asterion, lifts the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the mission for so long. His book examines for the first time the origins and operations of Project LQ, as the secret plan was known.

Described as the most self-destructive operation undertaken by the U.S. Navy in World War II, the project had very limited success. The only surviving officer of a Q-ship to chronicle details of the project, Kenneth Beyer draws on his personal experiences as well as information uncovered during years of research in U.S., British, and German records and interviews with participants on both sides. When readers come to his vivid account of the Asterion's first war patrol and its dramatic meeting with U-123 off the Florida coast, they will quickly understand why Samuel Eliot Morison referred to service in these mystery ships as more hazardous than in any other branch of the navy. And the author's frank analysis of the U.S. Navy's lack of knowledge and skill in antisubmarine tactics early in the war helps explain the U-boats' initial successes against merchantmen along America's Atlantic coast.

In addition to his own ship's operations, Beyer has reconstructed events aboard the other decoy freighter, USS Atik, which sank with all hands during a bitter engagement with U-123. The author's careful examination of U-boat logs has led him to suspect the involvement of a second German submarine, U-105, in the ultimate destruction of the decoy ship. Though all the facts are not known, his plausible account of the loss pays tribute for the first time to the valor of those who sacrificed all. Beyer also takes the reader aboard the U-boats as they hunt and attack their prey, paying particular attention to the legendary U-123 and the incredible skill and luck of its commander, Reinhard Hardegen. Several never-before-published charts of U-boat maneuvers are provided along with an evaluation of specific U-boat attacks.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 236 pages
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press; 2nd Printing edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557500444
• ISBN-13: 978-1557500441
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,108,216 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on the Queen Ships I have ever read!, October 7, 1999

By	Glenn W. Legwen III ([e-mail]) (Vero Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews

I would like to say "Thank You" to Admiral Kenneth M. Beyer for telling the story about my father. The story my father was not willing or able to tell himself. My father was not a flamboyant man and he spent thirty two years of his life in service to his country. I first read about my father's ship the USS Asterion in Michael Gannon's book "Operation Drumbeat." The dramatic true story of Germany's first U-Boat attacks along the American coast in World War II. The true nature of what my father did in 1942/43 did not become abundantly clear to me until after I read Kenneth Beyer's book. I was not born until two year after in 1945. I have contacted Mr. Beyer and talked with him personally even sending him copies of letters my father wrote to his mother (my grandmother) while he was in command of the USS Asterion. The one thing Mr. Beyer did not know was that Harry Hicks, captain of the USS Atik aka SS Carolyn, sunk by U-123 was my father's best friend. They graduated from the Naval Academy together in 1927. They kept in touch with each other throughout the Thirties and in 1942 while at the War College my father was asked if he would like to command a Q-Ship and he said he would if his friend Harry could be in command of one as well. I asked my father about his tour of duty aboard the Asterion and he said he did not care to discuss it other than to say it was a very dangerous assignment. Beyers discription of a confrontation that took place off of Jacksonville Beach between my dad's ship and the United States Coast Guard is vintage Legwen. I saw myself in this roll and I would have done exactly what my father did. You will need to read it for yourself. In the "The Beacon 1927-1962"(a publication of the United States Naval Academy), my father's comments to his fellow classmates are as follows: "I enjoyed the thirty years I spent on active duty and had the pleasure of serving with a grand bunch of people...In fact about the only disagreeable memory I have is not being able to arrive in time to help out my good friend Harry Hicks when he was sunk with all hands about ten days after we sailed on the "Q" Boat venture." Neither my father nor his crew ever received any recognition or so much as a thank you for this voluntary service to their country. One of the momentos that I will cherish as long as I live is a silver water pitcher. It is engraved with the following: To Captain & Mrs. G. Legwen from Crew U.S.S. Asterion May 1943. Captain Legwen died December 12, 1982. He never met his grandsons Glenn W. Legwen IV and William Lee Legwen born after his death.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Foolishly but gallantly sacrificed., January 13, 2003

By	Dr. Frank Stech (Glenndale, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

...

Q-ships were ineffective in the First World War, and obsolete in an era of unrestricted submarine warfare. But President Roosevelt insisted the U.S. Navy try Q-ships against the Nazi threat. It might perhaps be new to the young U-boat captains. Admiral E. J. King, commander of the U.S. Fleet, recognized the futility of the Q-ship concept, but lacking any real anti-submarine capabilities, King diplomatically complied: "the president had requested Q-ships, and Q-ships he would get," Beyer wrote in his Q-ships versus U-boats. King had two small freighters and a tanker converted and outfitted as Q-ships (USS Atik, Asterion, and Big Horn), invested minimal resources, and sent them in harm's way. The Q-ships were not expected to "last longer than a month after commencement of assigned duties," and indeed proved a futile and ineffective, albeit gallant, offensive gesture.

In his "Q-ships versus U-boats" Beyer (who served as Asterion's supply officer) uses American and German official records, and the memories, letters, and memorabilia of the veterans of Asterion and the families of the Atik crewmen to reconstruct a speculative account of the battle of Atik with U-105 and U-123. His "nonfiction fiction" fits the record to a dramatized rendering, based on Beyer's knowledge and imagination. This mixing history with fiction is the first problem with Beyer's book. The second is the dry and awkward writing. While flawed, Beyer's memoir fills a niche, and describes the minor role of America's Q-ships in the western Atlantic, holding on against the predations of the U-boats through the dark days of 1942... The Q-ships received none of the fused all-source operational intelligence that one year later would become essential to victory over the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. No effort was made to exploit the U-boat captains' fallacious but ubiquitous fears, for example, by simulating Q-ship operations more widely, or making their existence public. To the contrary, the Q-ship operations remained classified long after the war. Like their counterparts in the Great War, the Q-ships lacked any effective mechanism to force U-boats to the surface, or even excite their interest. Only one of the three U.S. Q-ships was sure-fire U-boat bait: a high-value tanker. But this was happenstance; the Q-ships' designs were not based on any careful assessment of U-boat vulnerabilities to deception.

The Q-ships were a lost opportunity to effectively bait the U-boats to the surface. The British code breakers in the spring of 1941 had already seen the utility of cutting out German weather ships to capture their cryptographic materials. Royal Navy task forces in the spring of 1941 captured München and Lauenburg with their code keys, at about the same time HMS Bulldog fortuitously seized U-110 and her Enigma code machine, rotors, and keys. The Germans were just as intensely interested in British and American merchant codes, and read the Allied convoy codes until mid-1943. The Kriegsmarine surface raiders frequently made captures and seized intelligence materials.

The U.S. Navy might have baited and trolled Q-ships, enticing U-boats to the surface to attempt such a capture. But the U.S. Navy hatched no such ruses or deception schemes. America's few WWII Q-ships, basically window-dressing, essentially were sacrificed.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally I Read About My Grandfather's Role on the Asterion!, September 3, 1999

By	Guy Tirk (Springfield, VA USA) - See all my reviews

A super book on an overlooked part of the Battle of the Atlantic --- the U.S. Q-Ships. Moreover, thanks to Kenneth Beyer, the families of men on the "Secret Ships" Asterion and Atik have a reference that documents what their parents and, in my case, grandparents accomplished, endured and gave in a little documented aspect of the Battle of the Atlantic.

I knew my Mother's Father, Guy Brown Ray, was an officer aboard the Asterion but little else until Mr. Beyer's book.

Mr. Beyer -- THANK YOU!!!