* The tenth volume in Samuel Eliot Morison's classic History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II focuses on the war on enemy submarines, a war fought up and down the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Brazil Allied shipping was in a desperate situation in 1942, as the Germans were building U-boats faster than the British and the Americans could sink them. By the summer of 1943, however, the tide had turned, and Germany had lost the strategic initiative in the Atlantic. This is the story of the great offensive that allowed the Western Allies to gain the upper hand in the Atlantic war. Morison describes the development of new weapons on both sides that revolutionised the art of antisubmarine warfare: acoustic torpedoes, guided missiles, the hedgehog, the snorkel, the airborne microwave radar, the sonobuoy, and the "huff-duff" or high-frequency direction-finder. With thrilling immediacy, he chronicles air attacks on U-boats in the Bay of Biscay, hunter-killer groups that protected escort carriers by hunting down wolf-packs of German submarines, skirmishes conducted by radar under cover of darkness and heavy fog, and the dramatic sinking of the Scharnhorst in the North Atlantic. Bristling with action as well as fascinating technical detail, Morison's account brilliantly conveys the interplay of suspense and surprise as first one side, then the other gained the advantage.

Author Biography

Samuel Eliot Morison, an eminent Harvard professor, was appointed by his close friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to write the history of U.S. naval operations during World War II after convincing the president that too many wartime histories were written after the fact or from a distance. Morison called his classic work a shooting historyA" of World War II, because it was documented by historical observation during each specific naval operation in the Atlantic and Pacific. Hailed for its accuracy, narrative pace, and detail, this monumental work presents a complete record of the U.S. Navy's war at sea, covering the strategic planning, battle tactics, and technological advances, as well as the heroic actions of American sailors.