In 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area "Torpedo Junction." And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful of Coast Guard sailors scrambled to the front lines. Outgunned and out-maneuvered, they heroically battled the deadliest fleet of submarines ever launched. Never was Germany closer to winning the war. In a moving ship-by-ship account of terror and rescue at sea, Homer Hickam chronicles a little-known saga of courage, ingenuity, and triumph in the early years of World War II. From nerve-racking sea duels to the dramatic ordeals of sailors and victims on both sides of the battle, Hickam dramatically captures a war we had to win--because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.

In the tradition of Shadow Divers, this is the gripping true account of the search for German U-boat U-550, the last unfound, diveable wreck of a U-boat off the United States coast, and the battle in which it was sunk. On April 16, 1944, the SS Pan Pennsylvania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-550 off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. In return the sub was driven to the surface with depth charges, and then sent to the bottom of the ocean by three destroyer escorts that were guarding the naval convoy. For more than sixty years the location of the U-boat’s wreck eluded divers. In 2012, a team found it—the last undiscovered U-boat in dive-able waters off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, more than three hundred feet below the surface. This is the story of their twenty-year quest to find this "Holy Grail" of deep-sea diving and their tenacious efforts to dive on this treacherous wreck—and of the stunning clash at sea that sealed its doom and brought the Battle of the Atlantic to America’s doorstep.

Melanie Wiggins interviewed seventeen men of the enlisted ranks, along with five commanders, to take readers into the terrifying world of underwater warfare, where every single crewman made a crucial difference in the fate of his boat."--BOOK JACKET.

In 1915, Harold Auten was one of the first officers selected for Q-Ship service. As one of the pioneers, he helped develop the design and tactics of Q-ships. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his involvement in a fierce encounter with a U-boat off Start Point in July 1918.

Between 1942 and 1943, 24 German submarines entered the Gulf of Mexico and attached American ships. American response was chaotic until organized.

Recounts the 1991 discovery of a sunken German U-boat by two recreational scuba divers, tracing how they devoted the following six years to researching the identities of the submarine and its crew, correcting historical texts and breaking new grounds in the world of diving along the way. Reprint.

From the summer of 1942 until the end of 1943, Ernest Hemingway spent much of his time patrolling the Gulf Stream and the waters off Cuba’s north shore in his fishing boat, Pilar. He was looking for German submarines. These patrols were sanctioned and managed by the US Navy and were a small but useful part of anti-submarine warfare at a time when U boat attacks against merchant shipping in the Gulf and the Caribbean were taking horrific tolls. While almost no attention has been paid to these patrols, other than casual mention in biographies, they were a useful military contribution as well as a central event (to Hemingway) around which important historical, literary, and biographical themes revolve.

Lawrence Paterson is an author and historian.

Reinhard ‘Teddy’ Suhren fired more successful torpedo shots than any other man during the war, many before he even became a U-boat commander. He was also the U-boat service’s most irreverent and rebellious commander; his lack of a military bearing was a constant source of friction with higher authority. Valued for his good humour and ability to lead, his nickname was acquired because he marched like a teddy-bear. Despite his refusal to conform to the rigid thought-patterns of National Socialism, his operational successes protected him, and he found himself accepted in the highest circles of power in Germany. He was one of the lucky third of all U-boat crewmen who survived the war, largely because his abilities led to a senior land-based command. He was also one of the first to publish his reminiscences, his account being typically forthright – its German title, Nasses Eichenlaub, suggesting that although he was decorated with the Oak Leaves, he was always in hot water. He died in 1984 but interest in his career was revitalized by the discovery of photographs documenting one of his operations in U 564, published with great success in 2004 as U-Boat War Patrol by Lawrence Patterson.