Author: Charles River Editors
Narrator: Dan Gallagher
Unabridged: 4 hr 19 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 03/26/2023
During World War I, German U-boats operated solo except on one occasion. Initially, the British and nations supplying England with food and materiel scattered vessels singly across the ocean, making them vulnerable to the lone submarines. However, widespread late war re-adoption of the convoy system tipped the odds in the surface ships' favor, as one U-boat skipper described: “The oceans at once became bare and empty; for long periods at a time the U-boats, operating individually, would see nothing at all; and then suddenly up would loom a huge concourse of ships, thirty or fifty or more of them, surrounded by a strong escort of warships of all types.”
World War I proved the value of submarines, ensuring their widespread employment in the next conflict, and one critical innovation in World War II's Atlantic U-boat operations consisted of wolf-pack tactics, in which Admiral Karl Donitz put great faith: “The greater the number of U-boats that could be brought simultaneously into the attack, the more favorable would become the opportunities offered to each individual attacker.
Meanwhile, submarines exercised a decisive impact on the outcome of the Pacific Theater in World War II. The U.S. submarine fleet, largely though not exclusively under the overall command of Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, strangled the supply lines and shipping traffic of the Empire of Japan. Their commerce raiding crippled both Japan's ability to keep its frontline units supplied and to manufacture the weapons, vessels, and vehicles needed to successfully carry on the struggle. Though constituting only 1.6% of the total U.S. Navy’s tonnage in the Pacific, the submarine fleet inflicted massive losses on the Imperial Japanese Navy and Japan's crucial merchant marine. Submarines sank 55% of the merchant shipping lost, or approximately 1,300 vessels
The enormous loss of life and physical destruction caused by the First World War led people to hope that there would never be another such catastrophe. How then did it come to be that there was a Second World War causing twice as much loss of life a...
World War 2 began on September 1st, 1939, and from its very first fiery shots, it dictated the tempo of this new and modernized form of warfare. It was a war unlike any other. It was the modern war. It superseded the Great War of the early years of ...
The veteran tells his grandson about his World War II experiences, without pathos, but with gripping, brutal honesty.SynopsisThe rulers’ mistakes are paid for with the blood of the people. This is shown in history both recent and ancient, time...
From the deployment of US military forces in Europe and the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 to the surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, the voices of history-makers were heard around the world. This collection contains original remarks and speeche...
World War II redrew the map of the world. No longer would Europe be the center of power. As the continent exhausted itself in yet another war, two new nations with conflicting ideologies were rising to prominence: the United States of America and th...
Nº 20Leyte, Imperial DestinySeveral naval clashes in the Gulf of Leyte led to the liberation of the Philippines. Along with the British victory in Burma, they opened the way to Tokyo.
Nº 19The Agony of the Third ReichThe Battle of the Ardennes (the Battle of the Bulge). Conquest of Berlin. Hitler's death. Surrender and end of the war in Europe.
Nº 17The Battle of KurskThe greatest armored vehicles's battle in history eased the way for the Soviet troops on they road to Berlin.
Explore how D-Day started, the aftermath, and the events in between!D-Day, the Allied invasion of German-held Normandy, was one of the most extraordinary achievements not only of the Second World War, but in the whole of military history. Millions o...