U-Boat Hunters: Code Breakers, Divers and the Defeat of the U-Boats 1914-1918

Rating:
Summary: A Mistitled, Difficult-to-Follow Book
Review: Personally, I was disappointed in this book. The book's subtitle "Code Breakers, Divers, and the Defeat of the U-Boats, 1914-1918" led me to believe this would be a more comprehensive treatment of the WWI anti-submarine campaign. Instead, I found lots of very short, clipped individual accounts which certainly lacked a coherent, intelligible, smoothly-flowing narrative. I found it confusing. The book makes countless references to German ciphers, marine locations, personalities, and individual German submarines. Unfortunately, it fails to present these references in an intelligible manner. For example, the book needs a chronological chart for the German ciphers, numerous maritime maps for the geographical references, and an explicit explanation of the differences between U, UB, UC boats, including mission types, armament, displacement, etc. Also, the book lacks an effective, overall analysis of how the anti-submarine campaign was conducted and led.

This work is really a reference book, not a narrative history. It lists underseas cable-cutting operations, salvage diving operations (and cipher recoveries) on U-boat wrecks, and numerous accounts of U-boat sinkings. The last third of the book is set in a much more readable, interesting narrative format. Perhaps the book's greatest strength is that it was well-researched from multiple, mostly British sources, and documented with many explanatory notes.

In summary, this book is a good supplementary reference work on the anti-submarine campaign during WWI. However, this book is quite difficult to follow if you are not already throughly familiar with German codes, maritime geography, and the German submarine classes. Don't make this the first book you read on the WWI submarine campaign. A better title for this book would have been "List of WWI German submarine sinkings, mining actions, cable-cutting operations, and cipher recovery efforts".