Hitler's 'Wonder' U-Boats: The Birth of the Cold War's Hunter-Killer Submarines

Launched during the last days of the Third Reich in an attempt to restart the Battle of the Atlantic, the majority of the revolutionary Electro-U-boats never saw action. Instead, they became the forebears of the Cold War's much dreaded hunter-killer submarines.

Slotted in among the highly technical information in the German U-boat Museum were some fascinating personal logbook annotations from men who served in these boats. These non-technical, human anecdotes form the core of this book. Rather than compiling a technical treatise, Hitler's 'Wonder' U-Boats makes maximum use of the personal accounts to tell the human story of how this new generation of submarines went to war under the incredibly harsh conditions that prevailed at the time.

Accompanied by more than 100 images, this unique operational information is mirrored with similar reports from conventional snorkel-fitted U-boats, which were at sea at about the same time, to provide a good comparison with earlier types. The result is a work that makes it easy to appreciate the improvements that were made in such an incredibly short period of time to place the Electro-U-boat among the great technical achievements of the 20th century.