Black May - Softcover

Gannon, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440235642 ISBN 13: 9780440235644

Publisher: Dell, 1999

Synopsis

The turning point of the U-boat war is vividly chronicled, taking readers on a thrilling ride through the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, the year the Allies used new tactics, equipment, and ships to destroy forty-one submarines, damage thirty-seven, and turn back the Nazi assault on Allied shipping. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

After a year of terrorizing ships off the coast of the United States, the tide turned against the U-boats in May 1943 when Allied forces sank 41 vessels and damaged 37 others. This frenzy of activity essentially reopened the North Atlantic to merchant shipping and helped clear a path for the Allies' final assault on Europe the following year. Michael Gannon tells his story with wonderful anecdotes from all perspectives--in one scene, he describes a surfaced U-boat crew standing on deck and watching automobile headlights shine through the blackness of night from the New Jersey shore. Few people realize that German naval vessels actually came so close to the United States, but they did--until, as Gannon tells the story, they were finally pushed away, once and for all, in a single hectic month of combat. Although Black May is something of a sequel to Gannon's extraordinary Operation Drumbeat, which described the German's initial successes, it stands on its own as a brilliant work of naval history. --John J. Miller

From the Back Cover:

For two years the German U-boats--the most powerful underwater force ever assembled--turned the seas of the Atlantic into a killing field. Now it was May 1943. The year the Allies struck back. The year the tide of war turned forever.

In one extraordinary month, using new tactics, new weapons, and the coordinated forces of a new generation of submarine hunters, the Allies destroyed 41 U-boats and damaged 37 others in the North Atlantic--sending the Nazi U-boat wolf pack running. Here, distinguished naval historian Michael Gannon captures this epic battle and those who shaped it, from the men who made key command decisions to the sailors trapped inside the steel-hulled U-boats as they were pounded by Allied depth charges. Drawing on never-before-released transcripts of secretly recorded conversations of U-boat POWs, this is the epic story of two powerful enemies going head-to-head in a desperate naval battle, and why one side emerged the victor and the other the vanquished.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0440235642
• ISBN 13: 9780440235644
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576