The burning shore
Subtitle: how Hitler's U-boats brought World War II to America
By: Ed Offley
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 312
ISBN-13: 9780465029617
Subjects: Campaigns; Submarine; Submarines (Ships); Naval History; World War, 1939-1945; Naval operations; German Naval operations; History
Description: "On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel--all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America's East Coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen's three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the Eastern Seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen's successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats' success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen's cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic--and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode's survivors. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler's U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-296) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: The Battle Offshore; title: Preparing to Fight; title: The Gathering Storm; title: First Moves; title: War in the Ether; title: Operation Drumbeat; title: Horrific Losses; title: Paranoia; title: Unprepared Defenders; title: To America, With Mines; title: The War Comes Home; title: Hunter and Hunted; title: The Ordeal; title: Epilogue; title: Glossary.