Hunters and Killers Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943
Norman Polmar and Edward Whitman. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2015. 224 pp. Photos. Illus. Notes. Index. $44.95.
Reviewed by Colonel John J. Abbatiello, U.S. Air Force (Ret.)
In a sweeping, well-written narrative, Norman Polmar and Edward Whitman provide a long overdue survey of a key issue in the field of naval history: anti-submarine warfare (ASW). In Hunters and Killers Volume 1, the authors trace the development of weapon systems, tactical methods, and associated issues—such as intelligence and political context—from the American Revolution through the height of World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic. If the future Volume 2 provides the same descriptive quality, Polmar and Whitman will largely succeed in achieving their aim of filling a gap in the existing literature by providing “the entire history of ASW” across about 240 years of experience.
Norman Polmar is a familiar name to Naval History readers. He is a leading analyst and author of naval, aviation, and defense technology issues, and he has written or coauthored more than 50 books on these subjects. Edward Whitman is an expert in electrical engineering who worked for the U.S. Navy as a civil servant for 40 years, having held many senior positions in the Navy and Department of Defense. The authors’ expertise is thus complementary and provides the reader with clear explanations of key ASW technologies throughout the book.
Hunters and Killers opens with a delightful narrative of early submarine technology and countermeasures starting with David Bushnell’s Turtle of 1775–76, developments during the Civil War, and John Holland’s more modern submarine designs of the late 19th century.
The authors then devote three chapters to World War I, where most modern ASW technologies were either employed in their first iterations or at least experimented with in combat conditions. Germany’s U-boat campaigns were threats that the Entente Allies absolutely had to defeat to avoid disaster, and the British devoted significant national resources to this effort. Technical developments included weaponry such as depth charges, depth bombs, and bomb throwers; detection systems exemplified by early hydrophones and radio direction finders; and new craft to carry these systems such as Flower-class sloops, P-class small escorts, and a host of new airship, seaplane, and flying-boat designs. Tactically, the British employed patrolling the sea lanes, attacking U-boat bases, and finally organizing convoys to defeat the threat. In an interesting tactical innovation, they even experimented with using their own submarines to hunt U-boats.
The authors then move on to a thorough description of active sonar development, known in Britain as “ASDIC.” Experimentation actually began during World War I. In addition to British and American sonar efforts, Polmar and Whitman describe developments in radar with explanations of how these early technologies actually worked in clear language. But the authors carefully explain how these technological developments fit into the larger tactical and strategic contexts as the major powers postured their submarine and ASW forces in the 1930s.
The final portion of Volume 1 zeroes in on the Battle of the Atlantic from 1939 to 1943. Early British countermeasures against U-boats were largely ineffective, to include obsolescent aircraft armed with poorly designed bombs and no radar. France’s defeat provided German naval and air units with easier access to the mid-Atlantic, where the British struggled to protect their convoys from U-boat “Wolfpacks.” Code-breaking, increased escort and aircraft production, better radar and radio direction finding, and new training and tactics all contributed to a key turning point in favor of the Allies in mid-1943. Chief among these developments were escort carriers, Enigma, and support groups to hunt down concentrations of U-boats. After heavy losses to his submarine forces, German Admiral Karl Dönitz recalled his U-boats on 24 May 1943 to await the fielding of new submarine designs and weaponry.
It is clear from the notes that the authors rely on standard published sources such as Arthur Marder and Paul Halpern’s work on World War I and Clay Blair and Samuel Eliot Morison’s research on World War II. Throughout the narrative, there are admirable references to key primary documents from archives in Britain and the United States. Disappointingly, the authors largely ignore more recent scholarship on various aspects of early ASW published during the last ten years. Nevertheless, Hunters and Killers Volume 1 provides a thorough narrative of ASW’s history from the colonial period to 1943. It is a superb reference work, and we should look forward to Volume 2’s publication to complete the story.
German U-Boat Ace Adalbert Schnee: The Patrols of U-201 in World War II
Luc Braeuer. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2015. 95 pp. Illus. Maps. $29.99.
German U Boat Ace Rolf Mützelburg: The Patrols of U-203 in World War II
Luc Braeuer. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 2015. 88 pp. Illus. Maps. $29.99.
Reviewed by Timothy P. Mulligan
In the historiography of the Battle of the Atlantic, studies of the top-scoring U-boat “aces” have always occupied a certain pride of place. This is neither surprising nor inappropriate, as 30 German submarine commanders accounted for nearly 30 percent of all Allied merchant ships sunk during World War II. Recent literature has focused more on the Allied measures, technologies, and human resources that frustrated the great majority of U-boat captains throughout the conflict. Now French historian Luc Braeuer has revived the tradition with a series of lavishly illustrated summaries of selected U-boat aces’ combat patrols. (This reviewer has assisted Mr. Braeuer with his research into one such subject.)
Braeuer, whose French-language works include multi-volume photohistories of the U-boat bases at Lorient, Brest, and St. Nazaire, first published French editions of his studies of aces Adalbert “Adi” Schnee and Rolf Mützelburg in 2012 and 2013, respectively. His subjects have much in common: Both were born in 1913, earned their principal successes as captains of Type VIIC submarines from the spring of 1941 through the summer of 1942, operated out of St. Nazaire and Brest as part of the First U-Boat Flotilla, were awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross on 15 July 1942, and their U-boats were built at the same shipyard in Kiel. Schnee’s confirmed successes (24 ships/98,565 tons sunk, 3 ships/28,820 tons damaged) somewhat exceeded Mützelburg’s (19 ships/81,961 tons sunk, 3 ships/10,013 tons damaged), but most important, he survived the war, accepting a staff post at Admiral Karl Dönitz’s headquarters in October 1942. Mützelburg died accidentally on board U-203 when he struck his head against the hull while diving from the conning tower for a swim on 11 September 1942.
Both volumes follow the same format. Brief preliminary sections describe each officer’s prewar naval career, early wartime service, and commissioning of the primary submarine. Every operational patrol is reviewed, with details of attacks made on Allied vessels. The written text carefully distinguishes between claimed and actual sinkings, sometimes recording the fates of the merchant crews. By contrast, depth-charge attacks by Allied warships and aircraft are noted but generally unidentified. Neither book includes an index.
The outstanding feature of both books consists of previously unpublished photographs. Relying on the unique collections of the Deutsches U-Boot Museum (previously the U-Boot-Archive), supplemented by his own and other private holdings, Braeuer presents a fascinating mix of more than 200 photographs and illustrations for each account—not only the standard posed portraits of Schnee and Mützelburg, interior and exterior views of their U-boats, and dockside welcoming ceremonies as the submarines return, but also images of some of the merchant ships that fell victim to their torpedoes, and reproductions of route charts and torpedo–attack sketches taken from the U-boats’ war diaries. The American edition enhances the photographs through high-quality glossy paper.
Braeuer moreover displays the capacity to evolve. Where the earlier work on Schnee lacks any bibliography, the Mützelburg study includes a list of secondary sources used, as well as more illustrations, despite the book’s shorter length. The latter include a German navy quadrant chart for the North Atlantic, necessary for textual location references but omitted in the Schnee account.
Beyond occasional spelling errors, the volumes suffer from chronically poor translation, possibly reflecting the transition from German to French to English. Sometimes this involves awkward phraseology (e.g., an area “supervised” by British aviation instead of “controlled,” “declared” instead of “claimed,” “equalized” instead of “equaled,” all on pages 16 and 17 of the Schnee account). Other examples actually convey erroneous information: a Sperrbrecher is misidentified as a “blockade-runner” (p. 36 of Schnee), “warship” is mistranslated as “battleship” (p. 81 of Schnee), and what is obviously a reference to Gruppenhorchgerät, a U-boat’s underwater acoustic equipment, is mistakenly rendered as “sonar” (p. 28 of Mützelburg). Hermann Kottmann, who succeeded Mützelburg as commander of U-203, is incorrectly listed as having “graduated in 1936,” but he only began his officer’s education and training in 1936 (p. 77 of Mützelburg). Schnee is also described as firing on a target “at a distance of 40 miles” (p. 25 of Schnee).
Braeuer misses a real opportunity to discuss Mützelburg’s reckless penchant for diving off his conning tower by not using the memoirs of Reinhard “Teddy” Suhren, whose U-564 rendezvoused with U-203 on 23 July 1942. Mützelburg’s headfirst dives made Suhren’s “hair stand on end,” and he cautioned Mützelberg against the risky practice. But the latter brushed it off with a smile, remarking that he had done it many times. There is even a photograph of Mützelburg in the act of diving, possibly taken by Suhren, in Lawrence Paterson’s First U-Boat Flotilla (Naval Institute Press, 2002).
This reflects another general problem with both books: the lack of greater context. Schnee’s and Mützelburg’s successes in 1941–42 are not contrasted against U-boat averages for that period, nor is the gradual upgrading of Allied convoy escorts discussed. The Allied seizure of Kriegsmarine cipher materials from U-110 in May 1941 is noted, but no illustrations of translated radio intercepts from U-201 and U-203 are included. Schnee’s role as a staff officer during the later convoy battles represents another missed opportunity, with only a brief mention. Most surprisingly, there are no comments by fellow officers and submariners regarding these two aces’ characters and personalities, or examples of their relationships with their crews. The key question remains: What made them aces?
We may hope that future volumes in Braeuer’s series will go farther to inform us not only what these men did, but who they were.
The Last Big Gun: At War & at Sea with HMS Belfast
Brian Lavery. London: The Pool of London Press, 2015. 352 pp. Illus. Maps. Index. Biblio. $36.95.
Reviewed by Andrew Lambert
Brian Lavery, the author of Churchill’s Navy and a series of books on British naval personnel, has written a classic ship biography, melding the technical, design, operational, and human histories of the 10,000-ton light cruiser HMS Belfast with ample insight from her officers and men across a long and varied career. The fact that she survived ensured Lavery’s access to a rich trove of oral and written testimonies to complement official archives.
In The Last Big Gun, the author tracks the ebb and flow of morale across the Belfast’s many commissions; each of her captains imposed his own preferences on the ship, and was met with varying responses from the lower deck. Many of them had powerful and unconventional personalities and understood the importance of getting the job done. Meanwhile, Admiral Sir “Bob” Burnett, whose flag she carried when the Scharnhost was sunk, demonstrated that fine commanders often emerge from the less glamorous branches of service—in his case, physical training. While the sailors liked to “grouse” about their superiors and anything else that they disliked, many retained powerful memories of comradeship, combat, and thrilling runs ashore.
The only British warship named for the capital city of Northern Ireland, the Belfast was built by Harland & Wolff, and sent to serve with the best wishes of her namesake city. Her design, a product of the last round of interwar arms limitation, combined a displacement of 10,000 tons with 12 6-inch guns for surface combat and 12 4-inch guns for antiaircraft fire. She was the last and largest of the Town class—spacious, seaworthy, and fast ships that had a good balance of speed, firepower, and protection. Cruisers were the backbone of Britain’s war at sea, and paid a heavy price: Half of the class was lost to air and submarine attacks. However, as the Belfast demonstrated, they were tough.
The Last Big Gun begins with a bang. On 21 November 1939, a massive bottom-lying magnetic mine gravely damaged the brand-new Belfast when she headed out on patrol from the Firth of Forth. One sailor died of his injuries. With her keel bent out of shape and the underwater portion of the hull destroyed, repairs took three years to accomplish, as more pressing tasks constantly diverted resources. She went back to war in 1943 as part of the British Home Fleet, escorting convoys to the Soviet Union. That December she took a prominent part in the destruction of the German battleship Scharnhorst. After escorting the carrier strike that disabled the last Nazi capital ship, the Tirpitz, she was refitted and retrained to provide inshore fire support. She led the big ships into place off Gold and Sword beaches on D-Day, providing vital counterbattery and counterforce shoots that helped British troops get ashore and drive inland, and her fire broke up enemy counterattacks.
Another refit for Pacific service delayed the Belfast’s arrival at Sydney until the war was over, when she took a key role in recovering British POWs and detainees, reoccupying possessions, and rebuilding regional influence. On the two latter missions, her crew was met with overt hostility from the United States, which was so anxious to finish off the British Empire that it ended up bolstering those of China and Russia. Within a few years the outbreak of war in Korea had identified the real enemies of Western values and restored the wartime Anglo-American alliance. The Belfast was one of the first warships to respond to the conflict. After a refit she returned to support the landings at Wonsan and conduct a number of shore bombardments. In 1963 she served as floating barracks for sailors at Portsmouth, but the scrapman’s torch awaited.
However, the Belfast was ultimately saved because she was the last British wartime cruiser and her war record was impressive. In 1971 she was brought up the River Thames, under the iconic Tower Bridge, and moored in the historic Pool of London on the south bank of the river, directly opposite William the Conqueror’s Tower of London. Preserved as she was when she left service in the 1960s (with a post-war superstructure, and lattice masts, but decked out in 1943-era camouflage), the Belfast has her forward turrets trained on a spot suspiciously close to the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon. A quarter of a million visitors a year reflect the enduring appeal of this spectacular ship in a unique location. No one interested in warships and naval history should miss the opportunity to marvel at Britain’s last big-gun warship, complete with her original mechanical fire-control computer.
The Last Big Gun, a well paced, lively, and essentially human sea story, will delight veterans and novices alike.
United States Coast Guard Leaders and Missions, 1790 to the Present
Thomas P. Olstrom and John J. Galluzzo. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. 211 pp. Index. Biblio. Notes. Illus. $39.95.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Krystyn Pecora, U.S. Coast Guard
Volumes of literature have been dedicated to the battles and strategy of the U.S. Navy and its personnel. However, the works regarding its seagoing sibling, the U.S. Coast Guard, remain sparse. The small, prideful service is an amalgamation of five government agencies combined in 1915, each agency bringing its own legacy to the organization from as far back to 1789. The impact of each of these agencies on the fledgling nation are ripe for historical research, and a review of the leadership that guided the service to its present day configuration merits consideration. The service has seen its challenges in the past 225 years with leaders warding off attempts to absorb the U.S. Coast Guard into the U.S. Navy, handling unplanned transfers between three different departments, and managing continuously constrained budgets.
United States Coast Guard Leaders and Missions, 1790 to the Present guides the reader through the service’s history, starting first with the stories of three of the five agencies—the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, U.S. Lighthouse Service, and the U.S. Life-Saving Service—and then discussing the history and leadership after the 1915 grouping. Adequately covering such an ambitious concept within 211 pages would be a challenge for most, as it limits the depth in which the true historical context of events can be explored. While this approach lends to a fairly quick read, its length detracts from the potential success of the piece. Eras in service history are reduced to paragraph-long sentences listing notable historical events, and discussions of certain commandants read like extended command biographies, making the overall readability of the book challenging. In such an abbreviated format, the writing would benefit from strict chronological organization; however, Thomas P. Olstrom and John J. Galluzzo depart from the order of events to expand on various topics, leading to repetitive passages as the same topic is invariably reintroduced later on in the service’s historical timeline.
Given the wealth of history suitable for investigation, the reliance on secondary sources as well as various uscg.mil websites as the foundation for the authors’ research is disappointing. One would hope the vast U.S. Coast Guard archives maintained in Washington, D.C., would have been tapped beyond the documents of three commandants in the 21st century. Yet this downfall paradoxically reflects the book’s strongest suit, as it best serves as a suitable introduction to other examples of U.S. Coast Guard historical literature and possible topics for potential authors looking to delve into the small service’s history for the first time. That being said, readers new to U.S. Coast Guard history should not consider this work authoritative, as there are factual errors scattered throughout the book. Most notably, the authors wrongfully claim that the Revenue Cutter Pickering was one of the original ten cutters constructed, and they combine Dr. Samuel J. Call and First Lieutenant David H. Jarvis into Dr. Jarvis when discussing the 1897–1898 Overland Expedition.
The premise of this book, which was presumably an attempt to understand leadership decisions in a historical context, is a worthy approach. However, the book fails to present insight into leadership decisions or an original contribution to the historical field. While one does not wish to discourage forays into U.S. Coast Guard historical research, the authors would be well-advised for any future efforts to determine their desired audience, tailor their focus accordingly, and insist on a fastidious editor. Ultimately, in a field of history that would benefit from more research and publication, this is a discouraging addition.