The United States experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor but in the period from 1942 to 1943, in Atlantic coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Sinking merchant ships with impunity, German U-boats threatened the lifeline between the United States and Britain, very nearly denying the Allies their springboard onto the European Continent--a loss that would have effectively cost the Allies the war.
In Turning the Tide, author Ed Offley tells the gripping story of how, during a twelve-week period in the spring of 1943, a handful of battle-hardened American, British, and Canadian sailors turned the tide in the Atlantic. Using extensive archival research and interviews with key survivors, Offley places the reader at the heart of the most decisive maritime battle of World War II.

Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic

History

Offley, Ed

Military

Basic Books

In Turning the Tide, military reporter and author Ed Offley presents a rousing military history of the climax of the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II, when a handful of battle-hardened British, Canadian and American sailors successfully beat back the German U-Boats that were threatening the lifeline between the US and Britain. Tens of thousands of merchant seamen, naval gunners, civilian passengers and U-boat crewmen lost their lives in the Battle of the Atlantic, making it the deadliest naval conflict in history—but the losses were high because the stakes were even higher. If the U-boats had managed to sever the lifeline between the U.S. and Great Britain—as they seemed poised to do by late 1942—Germany could have denied the Allies their springboard into the European continent, effectively costing them the war. Using interviews with key survivors on both sides and extensive research in German, British, and American archives, Offley puts the reader into the heart of the pivotal episodes of this critical conflict, showing how the Allies nearly lost—and ultimately regained—victory in both the Atlantic and in Europe itself.

On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel— all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America's east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen's three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen's successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats' success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen's cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic—and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode's survivors. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler's U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.

The Burning Shore: How Hitler’s U-Boats Brought World War II to America

Americas

One Navy admiral called it “one of the greatest unsolved sea mysteries of our era.” The U.S. Navy officially describes it an inexplicable accident. For decades, the real story of the disaster eluded journalists, historians, and the family members of the lost crew. But a small handful of Navy and government officials knew the truth: The sinking of the U.S.S. Scorpion on May 22, 1968, was an act of war. In Scorpion Down, military reporter Ed Offley reveals that the true cause of the Scorpion’s sinking was buried by the U.S. government in an attempt to keep the Cold War from turning hot. For five months, the families of the Scorpion crew waited while the Navy searched feverishly for the missing submarine. For the first time, Offley reveals that entire search was cover-up, devised to conceal that fact that the Scorpion had been torpedoed by the Soviets. In this gripping and controversial book, Offley takes the reader inside the shadowy world of the Cold War military, where rival superpowers fought secret battles far below the surface of the sea.

Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion

Blind Man's "Bluff meets The Hunt for Red October" in the shocking untold story of an American submarine torpedoed at the height of the Cold War - and the forty year cover-up that followed.One Navy admiral called it "one of the greatest unsolved sea mysteries of our era." To this day, the U.S. Navy officially calls it an inexplicable accident. But a small handful of Navy leaders, submariners and intelligence officials from that era have long known otherwise: that the loss of the USS Scorpion (SSN 589) and its crew of 99 men on May 22, 1968, was an act of war. The Scorpion was sunk by a Soviet sub in an act of reprisal for the sinking of the Soviet missile sub K-129, which had gone down in the Pacific just ten weeks before.The Scorpion sinking is not a mystery; it is a Cold War secret that has been buried by both the U.S. and Soviet governments since 1968. At the time, both sides quickly realized that the back-to-back submarine sinkings - if publicly known - could have turned the Cold War into a hot war overnight.For nearly 40 years, the Navy and U.S. intelligence communities have continued to cover up the facts of the Scorpion sinking, citing the need to protect top secret military classification. The full account of its loss has continued to elude and frustrate researchers, journalists and family members of the lost crew - until now.After a quarter century of research, this book is the first to tell the story of what actually happened to the ninety-nine members of the U.S. Navy's elite Submarine Service who disappeared in the service of their country to a watery grave on the ocean floor 11,100 feet down. It reveals that the Navy's official Scorpion story - from the sub's failure to make port to a frantic open-ocean hunt, to a scientific search that ultimately "found" the wreckage, to a Court of Inquiry's carefully-crafted conclusions - was all a lie.

Helps journalists understand military basics, how to organize a military beat, the protocol for interviewing military personnel, and many other issues.

Pen & Sword: A Journalist's Guide to Covering the Military

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Marion Street Press, LLC

The Hunt for Red October meets Blind Man's Bluff in the untold story of an American submarine torpedoed at the height of the Cold Warâ€”and the 40-year cover-up that followed.  The last thing they heard was the faint scree-scree of a high-speed propeller. Then the torpedo hit, the warhead detonated, the ocean thundered in, and 99 men died. On May 22, 1968, an American submarine was sunk by the Soviets as reprisal for the sinking of a Soviet sub just 10 weeks before. The tragic loss of the USS Scorpion and its crew is still described by the U.S. Navy as an "inexplicable accident." In fact, it was a secret buried by both the U.S. and the Soviet governments to prevent the Cold War from turning into World War III.  For nearly 40 years, researchers, journalists, and family members of the lost crew have tried to learn the truth while the Navy and U.S. intelligence communities have covered up the facts. Based on a quarter-century of research, an extraordinary array of new resources, and hundreds of interviews with military personnel with direct connections to the disaster, Scorpion Down is the first book to tell what really happened. It's the first to reveal that the official Scorpion storyâ€”the subâ€™s failure to make port, the frantic open-ocean hunt, the search that ultimately "found" the wreckage, and the Court of Inquiry's carefully crafted conclusionsâ€”was all a lie.

HighBridge Audio

The United States experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, but rather in the period from 1942 to 1943, in the frigid North Atlantic and American coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Nearly seven decades after the event, the Battle of the Atlantic still stands as the longest-running and most lethal clash of arms in naval history. During the entire duration of the conflict, more than 30,264 Allied merchant seamen and hundreds of navy personnel lost their lives.The strategic stakes in the Battle of the Atlantic were immense. If the Axis won, Great Britain could have been starved into submission, the Allies would have been unable to marshal their forces to liberate the Continent, and the Germans likely would have at least engineered a stalemate with the Soviets on the Eastern Front that would have allowed the Nazi regime to remain in power. In Turning the Tide, military reporter and author Ed Offley tells the story of how, during a twelve-week period during the spring of 1943, a handful of battle-hardened British, Canadian and American sailors turned the tide in the Atlantic. Using extensive documents from archives in Germany, Great Britain and the United States, and interviews with key survivors on both sides, Offley puts the reader into the heart of the battle-from the navigation bridges of British and American escort warships, to the main decks and engine rooms of Allied merchant ships in convoy, to the claustrophobic control rooms and wave-swept bridges of the U-boats stalking their prey. He also portrays the vicious bureaucratic struggles that raged behind closed doors at the headquarters of both the Allied and German military services, and the above-Top Secret Allied intelligence campaign to crack the German Naval Enigma codes. A thrilling tale of the decisive naval battle of World War II, Turning the Tide is also a harrowing story of how the Allies nearly lost-and ultimately regained-victory in both the Atlantic and in Europe itself.

Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-Boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic

HighBridge Company

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Offley, Ed. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Offley, Ed

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Offley, Ed. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic

Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic

The Burning Shore: How Hitler’s U-Boats Brought World War II to America

Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion

Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion

Pen & Sword: A Journalist's Guide to Covering the Military

Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion

Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-Boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic