Battleground Atlantic: How the Sinking of a Single Japanese Submarine Assured the Outcome of World War - Hardcover

Billings, Richard N.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0451217667 ISBN 13: 9780451217660

Publisher: NAL Hardcover, 2006

Synopsis

A chronicle of a little-known event of World War II provides an in-depth account of the June 1944 sinking by U.S. Navy warplanes of a Japanese submarine, a ship carrying the ingredients of a radiological bomb, purchased from the Germans, that had been intended for use in an attack on the California coast. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Richard N. Billings is a former Life magazine Pentagon correspondent and the author of six previous nonfiction books.

Reviews

Billings promises more than he delivers in this scattershot account of the Japanese submarine I-52, which American warplanes sank in June 1944 off the Cape Verde Islands. The author claims the I-52 was transporting two tons of gold bullion to Germany as payment for Nazi weapons and 500 kilograms of uranium oxide. Billings asserts that the purchase was part of a Japanese plan to drop a radiological (dirty) bomb on Los Angeles or San Francisco in a desperate attempt to stave off defeat. The Germans finally shipped the uranium oxide in April 1945 on board the submarine U-234, which surrendered to the USS Sutton on May 15 in the south Atlantic. This makes for an intriguing tale, but the evidence to support it is thin—the I-52's gold was never found and Japanese atomic bomb experimentation is unconfirmed. Billings compensates by eking drama out of salvager Paul Tidwell's unsuccessful efforts to recover the gold after he discovered the I-52 in 1995, and by padding the account with extraneous details of WWII military history. Billings, a former Life magazine editor and author (Schirra's Space), raises important questions, but doesn't provide convincing answers. (Apr.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: NAL Hardcover
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451217667
• ISBN 13: 9780451217660
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320