Big Guns in the Atlantic

Více o knize

At the outbreak of World War II, the German Kriegsmarine had a small U-boat fleet that faced challenges in reaching Britain's North Atlantic convoy routes. To address this, larger surface warships like the armored cruiser Deutschland and the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were deployed as commerce raiders against Allied convoys, yielding mixed results but demonstrating the potential of such operations. The fall of France, Denmark, and Norway in early 1940 significantly changed the strategic landscape, making the Atlantic more accessible. Throughout 1940, cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper conducted moderately successful sorties. By year-end, with increasing British mercantile losses, plans for a larger raid emerged, culminating in Operation Berlin—the Kriegsmarine's most extensive North Atlantic sortie. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated for two months, sinking 22 Allied merchant ships and severely disrupting British supply lines. Following this success, Admiral Lütjens was tasked with a similar mission using the new battleship Bismarck. These early raids illustrated the effectiveness and risks of German surface ships as commerce raiders. This work offers a detailed analysis of the Kriegsmarine's Atlantic operations from 1939 to 1941, appealing to those interested in World War II and Germany's naval history.