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Hitler's 'Wonder' U-Boats (Hardback)

The Birth of the Cold War's Hunter Killer Submarines

Maritime Military > Frontline Books > Frontline: WWII Military > Post-WWII Warfare > Cold War WWII > Hitler & the Third Reich

By Jak P. Mallmann Showell
Frontline Books
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781526724809
Published: 9th April 2018

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Launched during the last days of the Third Reich in an attempt to restart the Battle of the Atlantic, the majority of these revolutionary Electro-U-boats never saw action. Instead they became the forebears of the Cold War’s much dreaded hunter killer submarines.

The massive Type XXI was planned to replace the conventional ‘Atlantic’ U-boat that had seen service so far in the war. The Type XXIII was a smaller coastal version. The new Electo-U-boats were the first submarines to operate primarily submerged, as opposed to spending large periods of time on the surface. Hitler’s new designs utilized huge number of batteries to improve the time they could spend underwater, as much as several days, and only needed to surface to periscope depth for recharging via a schnorkel.

The idea for this book came about when the author was asked to sort through files in the German U-boat Museum. Slotted in among the highly technical information were some fascinating personal logbook annotations from men who served in these boats. These non-technical, human anecdotes have been transformed to form the core of this book.

Rather than compiling a technical treatise, this book makes maximum use of the personal accounts to tell the human story of how this new generation of submarines went to war under the incredibly harsh conditions that prevailed at the time. Accompanied by more than 100 images, this unique operational information is mirrored with similar reports from conventional schnorkel-fitted U-boats, which were at sea at about the same time, to provide a comparison with earlier types. It is, therefore, possible to appreciate the improvements in German U-boat design that were made in such an incredibly short period of time to place the electro-U-boat among the great technical achievements of the 20th Century.

Referenced in article, Sent to the bottom as featured by

The Armourer, April 2021

As featured by

Ships Monthly, July 2019

A good read for the general reader and expert alike.

Miniature Wargames, December 2018 – reviewed by Martin S. Pike

As featured by

Ships Monthly, August 2018

A certainly recommendable volume because it is a real thorough work on this subject.

STORIA militare, June 2018
 Jak P. Mallmann Showell

About Jak P. Mallmann Showell

Jak P. Mallmann Showell has produced more than forty books about naval operations during the Second World War, including Hitlers U-Boat Bases, Enigma U-Boats: Breaking the Code and U-Boat Command and the Battle of the Atlantic.

Perfect Partner

U-Boats at War in 100 Objects, 1939–1945 (Hardback)

‘The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril,’ wrote Winston Churchill in his history of the Second World War. ‘I was even more anxious about this battle than I had been about the glorious air fight called the Battle of Britain.” In reality, the Kriegsmarine had been woefully unprepared for the war into which it was thrown. The Command-in-Chief of submarines, Karl Dönitz, himself a verteran U-boat captain from the First World War, felt that he could bring Britain to its knees with a fleet of 300 U-Boats. But when war broke out, he had just twenty-four…

By Gordon Williamson

Click here to buy both titles for £35.00
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