The Battle of the Atlantic started with the war in Europe in 1939 and continued until Nazi Germany surrendered in 1945. This was, in effect, a single military campaign of six years, the longest of World War II. The German navy, and U-boats in particular, hunted Allied merchant shipping vessels up and down the Atlantic coast and across the perilous North Atlantic. Until September 1941, the merchant mariners relied upon the military ships and aircraft of Great Britain and Canada for protection, but beginning that ...
The Battle of the Atlantic started with the war in Europe in 1939 and continued until Nazi Germany surrendered in 1945. This was, in effect, a single military campaign of six years, the longest of World War II. The German navy, and U-boats in particular, hunted Allied merchant shipping vessels up and down the Atlantic coast and across the perilous North Atlantic. Until September 1941, the merchant mariners relied upon the military ships and aircraft of Great Britain and Canada for protection, but beginning that fall—even before the bombing of Pearl Harbor—U.S. forces joined the escorts. Battle for the North Atlantic recounts the brave and tragic stories of the civilian mariners who guided the merchant ships across the cold and unforgiving ocean. Illustrated throughout with more than three hundred photos, John R. Bruning celebrates these often-forgotten heroes who supplied the Allied forces in Europe with the materiel needed to win the war.
John R. Bruning (Independence, OR) has been a professional military historian and writer since 1990. He is the author of Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea, Jungle Ace, Elusive Glory, Ship Strike Pacific, Luck of the Draw, The Devil’s Sandbox: With the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry at War in Iraq, and The Battle of the Bulge. He served as an embedded civilian historian with the 2/162 during Operation Southern Comfort, the post–Hurricane Katrina relief operation in New Orleans. Bruning also has numerous articles, documentaries, multimedia CD-ROM programs, flight simulators, and museum displays to his credit.
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