U-Boats Offshore When Hitler Struck America

May 13, 2010
By

Non-Fiction
Edwin P. Hayt
Reviewed by Casey Ford
Rated 4 out of 5 Stars

1001191025World War II, the greatest war the world has ever seen. What comes to mind on this subject? The beaches of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, Pearl Harbor. These are all true, but there is one front that very few people know about: the East Coast of America. That’s right; the United States almost lost the war for the allies because we couldn’t defend our own front yard. The first confrontations were in the mid-Atlantic near Greenland. These incidents were put under wraps and only a handful of Americans knew about them and that technically, there was a sea war going on.

The word “war” barely crossed American minds. Sure there was one in Europe but the possibility of that spreading to the US was remote. But, on December 8th, the US declared war on Japan and Germany and Italy were soon to do the same to the US. On December 9th, Admiral Doenitz sent six U-boats to attack the American coast between the St. Lawrence River and Cape Hatteras. As he suspected, the American anti-submarine patrol vessels were less than adequate and in the seventeen days that the U-boats had been off the coast, thirteen vessels had been sunk. Hundreds of more vessels would be sunk or damaged by the end of the war. This book contains the rest of the story of the West-Atlantic front and more true stories of the brave ships that crossed and patrolled it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes naval war history. It contains many exciting and detailed stories about U-boats off shore. Edwin Hoyt has really done his homework. Hoyt has also written many other books that involve the military including The Battle of Britain and The Carrier War.

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