Hitler's Secret Pirate Fleet: The Deadliest Ships Of World War Ii

Rating:
Summary: Secret pirate fleet manned by chivalrous corsairs
Review: From 1940 to 1943 nine German surface raiders (Atlantis, Orion, Widder, Thor, Pinguin, Komet, Kormoran, Michel, and Stier) effectively used deception against both merchantmen and warships. These disguised auxiliary cruisers sank or captured 140 ships (including the cruiser HMAS Sydney), totaling over one million tons, and greatly disrupted British and American shipping in the South Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Duffy's "Hitler's Secret Pirate Fleet: The Deadliest Ships of World War II" is well titled; the German raiders were far more lethal than the average U-boat and about half as effective as Germany's top twenty U-boats and best submarine aces.
The German raiders were well armed: all carried half a dozen 5.9 inch guns, 1-2 seaplanes, 5-8 anti-aircraft guns, torpedo tubes, and mines. Deceptive tactics were standard procedure: false flags, deceptive signals, radio jamming (to smother warning and distress broadcasts), stealthy stalking, smoke and false fires, crewmen dressed as women pushing baby carriages. Every week or two the raiders would alter their identities; Atlantis could successfully imitate 26 other vessels. The raiders stayed at sea for months (Atlantis for 622 days, five of the nine for over a year; in contrast a long U-boat deployment was 200 days), rendezvousing with supply ships and tanker U-boats, and sending prize crews and prisoners to Axis ports on captured ships.
Early Allied mistakes aided the raiders. Since raiders jammed the distress calls of their victims, the British Admiralty instructed all merchantmen hearing a distress call being jammed to send their own position and the bearing to the jammed transmission. This located all the merchantmen in a raider's vicinity. The raiders soon sent fake distress calls, jammed them, and then waited for the merchantmen in the vicinity to send their positions and bearings to the supposed distress call. Raiders would cover each other by sending multiple false distress calls to hide a real one.
The raiders' deceptive tricks (and the inattention of their opponents) yielded some stunning victories. For example, the Kormoran, disguised as a Dutch freighter, played an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with HMAS Sydney, hoisting tangled signal flags, garbling identification messages, playing dumb to Sidney's challenges, until Kormoran closed to within a kilometer of Sydney. The Kormoran then ran up the swastika, dropped its camouflage screens and destroyed Sydney's bridge and two forward gun turrets in 30 seconds. Sydney eventually sank with all hands, the worst naval loss in Australian history.
The German raiders' war was (for the Kriesmarine) relatively long; by May 1943 the Michel was Germany's last warship on the high seas. On the night of September 29, 1943, she accidentally but successfully sailed through the middle of an entire U.S. Navy Task Force. In October 1943, Michel's stealth and deception tricks finally failed her. The USS Tarpon torpedoed the last German commerce raider outside Tokyo Bay. But while Nazi Germany's grandiose pocket battleships and battleships were swiftly dispatched (Graf Spee, Bismarck) or bottled up (Tirpitz, Scharnehorst, Prince Eugen), her inexpensive commerce raiders effectively prowled the sea lanes for years. Deception trumped firepower, until bested by counter-deception.
Duffy provides detailed accounts of each raider, every engagement, even the various animals captured from the raiders' prizes. In the tradition of Jean Laffite, raider captains and crews displayed an almost 18th Century gallantry, the stuff of adventure films (after the war De Laurentiis produced Under Ten Flags, based on the exploits of the raider Atlantis). Captured crewmen and passengers were uniformly well treated, sharing the quarters, rations, and entertainments of their German capturers. These tales of raiders' and their crews are well told; Duffy paints richly colored portraits of Hitler's secret pirate fleet and these chivalrous corsairs.

Rating:
Summary: These ships were not glorious - but they were very effective
Review: They were nine ordinary freighters armed with torpedo tubes, 5.9in guns and anti-aircraft guns - all of which were concealed from view. With the ability to change their own ship's profile and, therefore, their own apparent identity, these nine were Germany's secret commerce raiders of the high seas during WW2. They were pirates in the true and historic sense of the word and were even more successful than Germany's best U-Boats. Imagine a disguised freighter with guns hidden behind false panels able to sink an Australian Cruiser with far greater fire power - using nothing more than sheer guile, surprise, and expert gunnery. To this day, the remains of HMAS Sydney has not been found.

"Hitler's Secret Pirate Fleet" is a hard back book measuring 9½" x 6¼" containing 200 pages of fascinating information about those nine ships - all of which have a compelling story to tell. Commencing with the "Atlantis" - the secret name given to the Goldenfels upon her conversion for such war duties, the author commences the story of this ship at the end - with an exciting and very readable account of her loss at the hands of HMS Devonshire. In so doing he has skilfully hooked the reader into wanting to know more and, just as soon as the Atlantis disappears beneath the waves, we are treated to her story - right from her launch. It really is fascinating stuff.

Covering the; Atlantis, Orion, Widder, Thor, Pinguin, Komet, Kormoran, Michel and Stier - in that order, the author reveals the war time exploits of these vessels in great detail and retains his readable style of writing throughout. A few map outlines dotted throughout the book help to convey a feeling of where the relevant actions took place. There is a small selection of photographs in the middle of the book and whilst I would have liked to see more, I do appreciate that 7 of the vessels in question were eventually sunk in action and that, coupled with the very nature of their business, meant that few photographs were ever likely to be available in any event.

Altogether, a most competent piece of work and an excellent book for any long journey.

NM

Rating:
Summary: Honorable men serving a dishororable regime
Review: With only one exception, the captains of the Kreigsmarine's Commerce Raiders were fine men. They did their job as they were sworn to do, despite having to serve under the Swastika flag.
This book shows (in excellent detail) the cruises of these Commerce Raiders and makes interesting reading to aspiring scholars of maritime military history.