Hundreds if not thousands of books exist with U-boats and the U-boat war as the subject, and thousands if not millions of readers devour books about U-boats and the U-boat war. Even before the Second World War ended, books about U-boats began to appear and many of them proved enormously popular. Since that time, a steady stream of "U-books" has flowed into bookstores and libraries; the second half of the 1990s in particular witnessed a surge in new U-boat books, including some of the most important works on that subject to date as well as some considerably less useful dreck. For casual fans and hardcore U-boat junkies alike, it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff when confronting so many books of such varying quality published in the last fifty or sixty years.
   From that huge body of work we've tried to select a small set of books representing the creme de la creme. For anyone studying U-boat operations in World War II, this is the ultimate core of titles that must reside on a bookshelf close at hand. There are plenty of other excellent works on the subject, but this key collection forms the ultimate U-boat resource.
   Interestingly, some distinct patterns emerged after this collection had been winnowed from hundreds of titles to the final eight. Four of them were originally published in German. Six of them were published in the second half of the 1990s. And five of them were published by Naval Institute Press.
   Whatever their origin, we think we can safely say these are the ultimate English-language U-boat books, and they are all resources that will not be eclipsed any time soon. If you've not yet read them, do so. If they're not yet on your bookshelf, put them there.

Blair jr, Clay. Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942. New York: Random House, 1996.

Blair jr, Clay. Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted, 1932-1945. New York: Random House, 1998. If you can only read or own two books about U-boats, make it Clay Blair's two-volume history. After his spectacular success with Silent Victory, the history of US sub ops, the far larger scope of the U-boat war might make these two volumes seem a bit drier and more impersonal, but it's hard to believe anyone will ever be able to produce a more comprehensive and comprehensible account of so many submarines, so many skippers, so many patrols, and so many sinkings. Blair also takes the somewhat unconventional—and, in some circles, somewhat unpopular—view that the U-boats never came close to strangling the Allies' oceanic supply lines.

Hessler, Gunter. The U-Boat War in the Atlantic, 1939-1945. London: HMSO, 1989. Hessler, Karl Doenitz's chief of operations and son-in-law, wrote this book (actually a boxed set containing an oversized volume and a folio of diagrams and maps) with the assistance of Jurgen Rohwer shortly after the war at the behest of the British Admiralty. The result is a data-heavy package with an astonishingly frank assessment of how the U-boat war looked from the perspective of Doenitz's HQ. Outstanding fold-out diagrams visually charting the course of U-boat ops throughout the war.

Niestle, Axel. German U-Boat Losses during World War II: Details of Destruction. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Limited strictly to data about the circumstances under which each U-boat was lost, but by far the best coverage of that material.

Rohwer, Jurgen. Axis Submarine Successes of World War II, 1939-1945. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999. The revised edition of Rohwer's 1983 book. Ocean-by-ocean, day-by-day details on every U-boat success (plus Italian and Japanese submarine successes) during the war. All presented in tabular format for quick access with easy-to-read data, codes, and notations cross-referenced and indexed.

Rossler, Eberhard. The U-Boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981. Recently reprinted, this is the standard technical reference book containing everything there is to know about the design and construction of all classes of U-boats, their machinery, equipment, and weapons.

Wynn, Kenneth. U-Boat Operations of the Second World War, volume 1: U1 - U510. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

Wynn, Kenneth. U-Boat Operations of the Second World War, volume 2: U511 - UIT25. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. If you can own only four books about U-boats, grab Blair's two-volume set and this two-volume set by Kenneth Wynn. For every submarine built or seized by the Kriegsmarine, these volumes provide tabular data in a consistent, easy-to-find, and easy-to-read format: U-boat number; type; builder and yard; dates for keel laid, launched, and commissioned; fate (mostly sunk, with date and location); number, location, and dates for flotilla service; commanders (with dates); number of patrols; number of ships sunk (with tonnage) and damaged; and even Feldpost number. Additional narrative describes the events of each sailing in considerable detail with anywhere from a paragraph to a full column of text.

Reviewed 7 June 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Bill Stone
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission of Stone & Stone