The Iron Sea
How the Allies Hunted and Destroyed Hitler's Warships
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
From the acclaimed military history author, this action-packed World War II history describes the Allies' brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler's surface fleet.
The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships -- Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean -- roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence."
The campaign against Hitler's surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.
Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Read (Winston Churchill Reporting) delivers an action-packed and vividly written rundown of how Allied forces sank Germany's four most dangerous battleships during WWII. The Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Bismarck, and Tirpitz "posed a mortal threat to Britain's survival," Read writes, endangering the island nation's access to food and raw materials as well as its ability to supply the Allied war effort overseas. After the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and its destroyer escorts, killing more than 1,500 British sailors and airmen, Read notes, the German ships went on to destroy or seize "more than 115,000 tons of Allied shipping" over a two-month period in 1941. Read also describes the sinking of HMS Hood by the Bismarck ("vertical to the sea like some massive gray tombstone, she loitered for a moment before slipping beneath the waves"), and the public calls for revenge that led to an all-out effort to discover and sink the German warship. A daring attack on the dry-docked Tirpitz by British commandos failed, but RAF bombers eventually destroyed it in 1944. Drawing on firsthand accounts from Allied and German sources, Read recreates the demise of each German warship in gripping, often poignant, prose. WWII buffs and naval history fans will be spellbound.
