Turning the Tide: How a small band of allied sailors defeated the u-boats and won the Battle of the Atlantic

Turning the Tide: How a small band of allied sailors defeated the u-boats and won the Battle of the Atlantic
by Ed Offley Adult Nonfiction – Upper Level 940.545 O

The Battle of the Atlantic often receives short shrift in histories of WWII. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, it lasted the entire duration of the European war, from 1939 to 1945. Secondly and more importantly, few people who weren't fighting actually saw it. There were no Edward R. Murrows or William L. Shirers broadcasting live from the scene of u-boat attacks. There was no Bill Mauldins drawing cartoons of weary sailors fighting both seasickness and the enemy. Only the sailors along with a few aviators killing or being killed in the middle of a vast ocean.

In Turning the Tide Ed Offley makes a convincing case that this oft-ignored front was in fact the most important in the European Theater. Losing this battle would have forced Britain into starvation and surrender, and without a threat keeping Nazi troops in the west, Russia may have lost or made a deal with Hitler. In any case the results of the war would have been very different.

Rather than cover the entire Battle of the Atlantic, Offley focuses on a few convoys in the spring of 1943 where the allies finally managed to take the iniative and put the u-boats on the defensive for the duration of the war. Offley writes clearly and well; while the names of boats and sailors can get confusing, the main narrative is a real page-turner.