BUSINESS IN GREAT WATERS - The U-Boat Wars 19l6-l945 by Terraine, John

1989, London, Leo Cooper, UK first edition, hard bound in dust jacket, Fine/Fine condition, 6 1/4 x 9 1/4, xx, 84l pp, 51 illus, 19 maps, many appendices, extensive notes, bibliog & index.-----------------------------------------------------------"Business in Great Waters" is the first book to describe in detail and to analyse in depth the entire history of submarine warfare in both World Wars. Following the practise which has earned him an unrivalled position among today's military historians, John Terraine concentrates first and foremost upon the combatants themselves; in the current vernacular, he sees the action "from where it was at" on sea and in the air, and his wide research over many years into the other three main factors in the equation, the political, the military and the technological, enable him to set the scene in its overall context and show how potentially lethal the U-boat threat was to Great Britain in both wars. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------He examines in detail the convoy system and explains how it was that so well tried and tested a practice found such disfavour in so many eyes for so long. He examines the role of Intelligence and he shows how the Anglo-American entry into Europe in 1944 would have been impossible until the U-boat menace had been overcome. Vital also to a clear understanding of the drama are the men who played their various parts, the U-boats themselves, the ships and aircraft of the antagonists, the weapons with which they fought and the devices both employed in order to outwit each other. These are the subjects of John Terraine's panoptic scrutiny in the masterly survey of a "centre of gravity" in two World Wars.