Overview
U-505 was the first enemy warship the US Navy captured at sea since 1812. This is a new account of how Captain Gallery planned and executed the raid on his own initiative, and how his success almost endangered the war against the U-boats. On June 4, 1944 a US Navy antisubmarine task group in the Atlantic captured an enemy U-boat on the high seas. It was not the first time the Allies had taken a German U-boat as a prize, but the capture of U-505 was different. Captain Gallery and his Task Group 22.3 devised a risky plan to capture scuttled U-boats. This book analyses in detail Gallery’s dangerous strategy, using contemporary sources to explore why he thought the reward was worth the risk: instead of attempting to sink the next U-boat that surfaced among them, a destroyer escort would send off its whaleboat. Everyone else was to smother the U-boat with light gunfire to encourage its crew to abandon quickly. Unaware that the Allies had already cracked the German’s codes and the capture of a U-boat could endanger that secret, Gallery hoped to capture the vessel’s codes and coding equipment to read U-boat message traffic. The plan culminated in the capture of U-505 in early June, which nearly caused the exposure of the Bletchley Park codebreaking secret. Featuring contemporary photographs, specially commissioned artwork and 3D maps, this book is a fascinating exploration of one of the most controversial and dangerous raids, which could have changed the outcome of World War II as we know it.
Full Product Details
Author: Mark Lardas ,
Irene Cano Rodríguez
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint: Osprey Publishing
Dimensions:
Width: 18.40cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 24.80cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9781472849366
ISBN 10: 1472849361
Pages: 80
Publication Date: 24 November 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
The author has done an excellent job bringing to life the details of an interesting raid by US Task Group 22.3 under the command of Captain David Gallery USN; clearly a commander worth studying in his own right. It is an accessible, easy read that balances detail to engage the professional with anecdotes to entertain the enthusiast. * The Naval Review *
Author Information
Mark Lardas holds a degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, but spent his early career at the Johnson Space Center doing Space Shuttle structural analysis, and space navigation. An amateur historian and a long-time ship modeler, Mark currently lives and works in League City, Texas. He has written extensively about modeling as well as naval, maritime, and military history.
