Publisher Description
From the acclaimed military history author, this action-packed World War II history describes the Allies’ brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler’s surface fleet.
The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler’s four capital warships — Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean — roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them “targets of supreme consequence.”
The campaign against Hitler’s surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who “sunk the Bismarck” and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler’s iron sea.
Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.
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Winston Churchill’s greatest fear in World War II was of losing the battle of the Atlantic and Britain being starved into surrender. I felt tingles down my spine when I read of the feats of so very many ordinary men and women from so many walks of life who sank Hitler’s battle fleet, and stopped that from happening…. Read’s Iron Sea, with its scholarly research and scintillating prose style, will leave you full of pride for that extraordinary generation and their staggering achievement.
—
Andrew Roberts, award-winning and bestselling author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny
