The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships -- Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean -- roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who sunk the Bismarck and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.
In The Iron Sea, Simon Read takes readers into true stories of anti-Nazi swashbuckling adventure. This is a recounting of the bloody and complicated allied effort to sink the four major German battleships of World War II ... Read's book is an exciting read. His narrative easily accessible and representative of obvious passion for the subject ... Relying on official reports, eyewitness testimony, and order of battle details, The Iron Sea illuminates the battles which broke the back of Germany's power projection fleet ... Read masters the difficult art of elucidating, but also navigating us through, the chaos behind smoke-filled battles ... Read's book is well worth the read. An enjoyable testimony, The Iron Sea will appeal to military history readers, both expert and casual. It reminds us that the defeat of this greatest threat to humanity was not easily won.
Here, journalist Read (Winston Churchill Reporting) makes a compelling case for the Allies’ naval engagements to be better understood in order to gain a greater perspective of the war. In this latest work, the author provides a vivid and detailed analysis of the most significant events of the surface campaigns between the British and German fleets from 1940 to 1944 ... His narration [...] make[s] for fascinating reading. The fast-paced narrative draws on a solid foundation of primary sources ... Though accessible, the prose is sometimes bogged down in excessive details that seek to provide a full accounting of the war ... Overall, an engaging history recommended for all U.S. history and World War II collections.
Historian Read (Winston Churchill Reporting) delivers an action-packed and vividly written rundown of how Allied forces sank Germany’s four most dangerous battleships during WWII ... Drawing on firsthand accounts from Allied and German sources, Read recreates the demise of each German warship in gripping, often poignant, prose. WWII buffs and naval history fans will be spellbound.
