Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic

Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic

Language: English

Pages: 512

ISBN: 046501397X

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The United States experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor but in the period from 1942 to 1943, in Atlantic coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Sinking merchant ships with impunity, German U-boats threatened the lifeline between the United States and Britain, very nearly denying the Allies their springboard onto the European Continent--a loss that would have effectively cost the Allies the war.

In Turning the Tide, author Ed Offley tells the gripping story of how, during a twelve-week period in the spring of 1943, a handful of battle-hardened American, British, and Canadian sailors turned the tide in the Atlantic. Using extensive archival research and interviews with key survivors, Offley places the reader at the heart of the most decisive maritime battle of World War II.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fog from St. John’s. The only thing that marred the perfect day was that two merchantmen reported mechanical problems, and both detached to return to St. John’s. With the convoy otherwise in good order, the temperatures fair, and the sun warming the faces of the sailors, Gretton now put every crewman on the Duncan not on watch to work completing one last, delayed task. When Gretton and his officers had huddled back in St. John’s to see how they could reduce the destroyer’s excessive weight

180–182; Oribi and Offa search from “Oribi Report”; details on North Britain sinking from “Allied Merchants Hit” at U-boat.net. 14 Escort Group B-7 response to U-707 attack from “Tay Report”; U-514 and Aufferman details from U-boat.net; Vidette hunt for three U-boats from Vidette attack summaries in “B-7 Report,” Appendix B; U-514 damaged from Gannon, Black May, p. 190. U-662 history and Kapitänleutnant Müller background information from U-boat.net; attack on Convoy SL126 from Blair, U-boat War,

the Battle of the Atlantic / Ed Offley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. D770.O36 2011 940.54’293—dc22 2010048097 eISBN : 978-0-465-03164-1

convoy routes, this tactical warning was more than enough to trigger the U-boat redeployment that put Gruppe Raubgraf at right angles to the anticipated convoy course track. Not only were the waters into which SC122 and HX229 were steering alive with hostile U-boats, but these hunters were very much aware of the convoys steaming into their midst. What none of the German commanders knew, however, was that the Allies had intelligence of their own to help counterbalance the German threat. They had

decided to try and save the ship. They managed to extinguish the fire in the hold in fifteen minutes and struggled to restore the steering. The loss of steering aboard the James Oglethorpe proved terrifying to the crewmen who had abandoned the Zaanland. Aboard one lifeboat, Chief Officer P. G. van Altveer was searching for signs of a rescue ship when the 441-foot-long American freighter suddenly loomed up out of the darkness. “I feared that she would overrun us; the accommodation ladder was

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