The United States experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor but in the period from 1942 to 1943, in Atlantic coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Sinking merchant ships with impunity, German U-boats threatened the lifeline between the United States and Britain, very nearly denying the Allies their springboard onto the European continent--a loss that would have effectively cost the Allies...

"The first complete history of the U-boat war in its entirety, a story which began on the very first day of hostilities in 1939 and did not end until the final torpedo sinking on 7 May 1945. It details the Wehrmacht's disastrous decision to despatch Dönitz's U-boats to the Mediterranean; the actions of U-boats at the extremities of the Eastern Front, where, despite the legendary destruction of the PQ17 convoy, they failed to turn the tide of war;...

"On December 7, 1941, even as Japanese carrier-launched aircraft flew toward Pearl Harbor, a small American cargo ship chartered by the Army reported that it was under attack from a submarine halfway between Seattle and Honolulu. After that one cryptic message, the humble lumber carrier Cynthia Olson and her crew vanished without a trace, sparking one of the most enduring nautical mysteries of the war. What happened to the ill-fated ship? What happened...

One of the indelible images of World War II is of an explosion at sea-- a U-boat attack, a ship in flames, and an ocean full of men swimming for their lives. The Mathews Men tells the story of what it was like to be on those ships in an almost unknown epic sea battle that took place just off the coast of America. Its heroes were the men of the U.S. Merchant Marine, celebrated at long last in this book. Mathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost...