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Excellent Sunday Express

This is a startling and at times harrowing study of just how close Britain came to defeat in the Second World War. Goering's Luftwaffe may have failed to break the people's spirit with their night-after-night blitzes, but Admiral Doenitz's U-boats came within an ace of starving the nation into submission. Details of the critical situation were kept from the British public during wartime, but afterwards Winston Churchill admitted that the battle for control of the north Atlantic had frightened him more than anything else throughout the entire conflict. This absorbing book - which accompanies a major BBC TV series - shows us how the Royal and merchant navies fell prey to the Atlantic U-boat menace over a period of more than three years both before and after America's entry into the war. During that time the Allies lost 15 million tons of shipping and 40,000 lives, plus a colossal amount of food and other essential supplies. Viewed in that context, this long but little-understood battle could truly be said to have had greater significance than the Dunkirk retreat or the aerial Battle of Britain. Drawing on first-hand testimony from both sides, Andrew Williams examines the terrifying journey faced by every convoy of supplies to set sail across the Atlantic. In the U-boats, the sailors were even more vulnerable as the Allies hit back. Life in the 'iron coffins' was claustrophobic and stressful. The average life span of a submariner could be measured in months. The photographs accompanying the text are among the most dramatic you will find from the Second World War. If ever razor-sharp conflict was captured on film, this is it. Williams's great skill is in allowing the protagonists to tell their own stories, which say far more than mere statistics ever could. As a reference book of the Second World War, this is essential reading. (Kirkus UK)

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