German Navy in World War II

Arthur Barker. Very Good/Good. 1970. Hard Cover. 8v0 021317961X Dust jacket, closed tears, price clipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Illustrated with 40 black and white photographs and 6 maps. 274 pages clean and tight. In the calm midday of 2t June, 1919, the proudest ships of the Kaiser's Imperial High Seas Fleet, many of them veterans of the titanic Battle of Jutland, sank to their final resting place in the British harbour of Scapa Flow - not victims of enemy shells but scuttled by their own crews, in a final defiant act to cheat the Allies of the spoils of war. That day of magnificent despair marked the end of the old German Navy - and the beginning of a new one that, just twenty years later, was again to put the Allies to the ultimate test. In this dramatic and perceptive account of a vital phase of World War II, Edward P. Von der Porten traces the development of the new Navy during the prewar years and describes the secret building programmes that contravened the Treaty of Versailles. Despite all preparations the Navy was not ready when the war came. The admirals did not expect it to reach a position of strength until 1944 but Hitler's aggressive moves led to war in 1939. The important strategic and tactical decisions of the war, and the thinking behind them are clearly revealed: the early reliance on long-range raiders, such as the Deutschland and the Graf Spee, to disrupt Allied shipping; the escalation of submarine operations from conduct in accordance with international rules to unrestricted warfare; the attempt to salvage the Mediterranean campaign by committing submarines to that sea at the expense of the more important campaign in the Atlantic; and the fateful restrictions on new submarine research and construction. The Navy's role in the invasion of Norway - a classic meshing of sea, land and air forces - is shown, as well as its crucial part in the invasion that did not take place: Operation Sea Lion, Hitler's plan for invading England. .