U-boat War off the U. S. Coast, 1942-45, Volume 2: Ebb Tide, Collapse, and Fall, May 1942 to May 1945 by Paul Branch

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The U-boat War off the U.S. Coast, 1942–45 is a narrative history of the naval oper- ations and warfare fought off the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States during World War II. German U-boat submarines initially achieved great success in destroying Allied shipping off the East Coast in early 1942. However, this success began to wane by May 1942 as the U.S. Navy began to gain control of the situation through increased forces and the inauguration of coastal convoys. The resulting drop in success forced the Germans open a second front—the untouched shipping in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the northern Caribbean. The heavy ship losses began again until the Navy was finally able to inaugurate a comprehensive interlocking system of coastal convoys embracing the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the East Coast by the end of the summer of 1942. This brought an end to the formal U-boat offensive in U.S. waters, although individual U-boats continued to keep pressure on American defenses throughout the rest of the war. Until now, the Battle of the Atlantic as fought in American waters has received only limited coverage despite the intense fighting and naval operations that characterized it. The U-boat War provides a comprehensive detailed account from the perspective of individual merchant and navy ships and U-boats to chronicle their operations in American waters during three years of war, highlighting the links that bind them together using source materials and original documents from both sides. This second volume of the two-volume set begins with the Germans opening a sec- ond front in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean in May 1942 and follows its progress until the end of the formal U-boat offensive after the summer of 1942. Thereafter, the narrative follows the German strategy of containment to tie up Allied resources with nuisance raids and mining operations in U.S. waters in a downhill struggle until the final bitter denouement of the U-boat war in May 1945.