num_pages: 304
description: From Simon Read, author of stirring works of military history, the action-packed story of the Allies' brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler's surface fleet.The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships-Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean-roamed the wind-swept waves between Great Britain and the United States, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the waves could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence."The campaign against Hitler's warships would continue into the dying days of the World War II and involve everything from massive battleships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.
title: The Iron Sea: How the Allies Hunted and Destroyed Hitler's Warships
publisher: Hachette Books