Submarine Conflict 1939 - 1945
This book is the first to cover all the major submarine campaigns in the Second World War, and to describe in detail the operations of the British, American, German, Japanese and Italian submarine and anti-submarine forces. It also gives an intensely vivid sense of what it was like to be a submariner: living in cramped and primitive conditions, subject to claustrophobia and sudden attack. It captures the pitilessness of the war and the terrifying imminence of death.
Peter Padfield uncovers much that is new. He shows us the decision-makers, the ordinary crew members, the 'ace' commanders. he reveals the margin by which Britain escaped defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic, the feats of their submarines in the Pacific and, finally, the triumph of US submarines which, had it been achieved earlier, might have made the atomic bombs unnecessary.
