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Summary: Black May
Review: A wonderful story of the story of the U-boats. A must for Das Boot fans. Full boat discriptions of boats, people and battles such as ONS-5.
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Summary: A thoroughly researched historical thesis
Review: About half of this book is factual accounts of major U-Boat battles of this month and frankly gets old at times. This is more than made up for by the rest of the book which gives insight in to just how and why the German Navy lost the U-Boat war. Gannon has done a superb job of pulling together pieces of data (such as code breaking, technological advances, and inept military leadership) and forming a convincing picture of the hows and whys behind Germany's U-Boat downfall at the hands of the Allies. I especially liked the chapter of transcriptions of U-Boat POWs' conversations with other prisoners recorded by the British. The intricate detail of Allied technological advances and especially the mathematically derived strategies of the Allies were a rich portion of this historical account and have probably not been matched in any other texts easily obtained by the general public. If you liked "Blind Man's Bluff", you'll probably enjoy this one too even though this one is geared more to the submarine history and technology enthusiast.
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Summary: Epic defeat of the Nazi Unterseebooten
Review: BLACK MAY tells of the epic defeat of the Nazi unterseebooten in May, 1943. The Nazis ended the month of April, 1943 winning the Battle of the Atlantic in what they called "The Happy Time". One month later the U-boat forces were reeling. The Bay of Biscay which led to the great submarine pens on the French coast (which no doubt some of you bombed) was now a death trap for subs. Were you stationed by the North Atlantic, the Canadian Maritimes, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Cornwall or any of the other bases which provided air cover for slow moving convoys. Then you know what it was like to hunt and try to destroy the deadly subs. PBYs, Halifax bombers and the mighty Liberators turned the tide against the Enemy. The British even modified Libs to VLF Liberators. Very Long Range. Three fuel tanks were installed in the bomb bay and just one for anti-sub weapons. Missions were frequently 20 hours in length. The mighty pocket battleship Bismarck was so damaged by Faery Swordfish Mark 1 fabric covered biplanes that it could only steer in circles. It was sunk by a pack of British cruisers and other warships. The British also had great success with undersized war ships which some wag named the "flower" class. All the vessels bore names of flowers. Can't you just see a Monty Python skit where the Python crowd is standing over a chart table and the commander is saying "Violet, you follow Rose and Ivy, pay particular attention to any periscopes you see." Or picture a seaman's bar in Liverpool and in walk a bunch of tars from Flower Class warships. The beer fumes are thicker than a Newfie fog. "Eh, mate, wot ship you from?" "Pansy!" "Wot you say?" The sailors answer in unison. "Buttercup!", "Daffodill!" "Forget-Me-Not!" "Damn right I won't . Put up yer dukes!" POW! POW! SMASH!" The author doesn't describe the problems of Flower Class crews as I have but he does say the men had less and less trouble in port as their sub-killing reputation grew. Forty-one U-Boats were sunk in May, 1943, and 37 others were damaged and had to flee to the sub pens. Yankee shipyards were turning out Liberty ships faster than the Germans could sink them. Escort carriers appeared to provide further air cover and the Liberators kept the subs submerged and unable to fight at their maximum potential. Worse luck for the Germans was the loss of so many experienced crews. The fighting caliber dropped dramatically as losses mounted. Among those lost was the younger son of U-boat Admiral Doenitz. Chickens coming home to roost. Remember experiencing or reading about missions where 10% or more of bombers were knocked from the sky? The death rate for Germans who served on subs was 70%. That's right. Only 30% survived the war.
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Summary: A Black May It Was.
Review: Michael Gannon is a fine writer, and his subject matter lends itself to his style. One can almost imagine what it was like to sit inside that steel tube waiting for death from above. And you can't help but admire the courage of these German sailors, who crewed the boats. Most were not Nazis, but rather, ordinary seamen fighting for their country, not their fuhrer. Yet they shipped out over and over again, until over 30,000 of them were dead. A loss rate of over 75%.
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Summary: A Black May It Was.
Review: Michael Gannon is a fine writer, and his subject matter lends itself to his style. One can almost imagine what it was like to sit inside that steel tube waiting for death from above. And you can't help but admire the courage of these German sailors, who crewed the boats. Most were not Nazis, but rather, ordinary seamen fighting for their country, not their fuhrer. Yet they shipped out over and over again, until over 30,000 of them were dead. A loss rate of over 75%.
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Summary: essential reading about the world war II u-boat battle
Review: Mr. Gannon has written the definitive account of the U-boat battle in the North Atlantic during World War II. He admirably recounts the methods used by the Allies to detect and kill submarines, but also reflects upon the human side - the sounds of smashed ships and subs breaking up, the brutal weather conditions that affected both sides and the hideous realities of war. I've been reading about U-boats for more than 35 years, and this is the leading book on the subject.
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Summary: Author proves epochal importance of Battle of the Atlantic
Review: September 26, 1998. Black May; ISBN 0-06-017819-1 In fascinating detail, Gannon takes you through a pivotal and epochal aspect of World War II that most interested laymen (like me) have only a foggy idea about - the battles over the Allies' Atlantic merchant shipsand the Germans and their U-boat fleet. For example I used to wonder, but no more, why the Allies didn't just put everything in airplanes and fly them over to England, avoiding all the U-boats. The first thing I experienced as I read the book was that no thought of mine went unthought by the participants in that long and painful series of events. That was satisfying to realize. When the author mentioned a particular problem one or the other side was facing at the moment, you say to yourself, well, why don't they try this or that - it seemed obvious? Invariably, either the idea WAS then tried, or it was deliberately not tried after usually careful amalysis at the time. For example, Gannon relates coutnless incidents in which attacking aircraft dropped depth charges on diving U-boat submarines. The probability of sinking or harming the boat (as U-boats were called) from such a single attack was not very high So you say to yourself, why not manufacture a "bomb" that would be capable of following the diving sub so that evasion would be impossible? Enter the homing torpedo bomb, which was designed to follow the "cavitation" noise made by the U-boat's propellors. All the U-boat had to do if attacked by this device was to shut down its propellors until the device passed out of danger. So the problem at first became one of hiding from the Germans that such a device was being used when it was being used. Thus, aircraft were instructed not to drop this new invention unless the U-boat's hatch (in the conning tower) was closed, lest the Germans see that what was being dropped. I think he mentioned that the German high command never even found out about the device until after the war! In general, the author has succeeded in several things. The first, in my opinion, is that the Battle of the Atlantic deserves to be seen for what it really was - the equivalent of any other set of operations and battles during the war in overall strategic importance to the final outcome. He mentions Kursk and Stalingrad. There's no question the author is correct. I would argue further that it was even more important than all other operations of the war, because regardless if the Germans had won or lost in the East, the Allies eventual unstoppable strength would have continued as long as the ocean war was won. `The difficulty, or part of it anyway, is placing an exact geographical site of the Battle of the Atlantic - they talk of longitudes and latitudes, but people don't usually relate to that very well as "sites." His book more than adequately demonstrates the absolute truth that either the war would have gone on for many years more, or that even we might not have won the war at all, without the gradual overtaking in the numbers game of continual supply versus continual destruction of our supply train until, after a certain, long-awaited time, the cost for the Germans eventually became two U-boats sunk for every merchant ship sunk - obviously not a way to win a war. The second is the managerial focus of the Allies in eventually coordinating everything that turned out to work, and to discard, by and large, that which didn't work well.. Once most of these elements were in place, the inevitable tide turned. What did these things consist of? Very many things - a combination of good military leaderhip, the willingness of the Allies to really be allies, the high level of required technical education, the wonderful ingenuity of British and American scientists to always seem to be one step (or more) ahead of the Germans (e.g., 10 centimeter, and later, 3 cm radar), HF/DF, Enigma decryption) and the enormous, still unbelievable, related industrial output of hte United States. I don't think the author gave this particular example, but I believe that at the height of the war, America was launching three Liberty SHIPS a DAY! (I couldn't build a rowboat in a year!) That number alone meant doom for the German side. To make this great book even greater, I would recommend in a subsequent edition a chapter that would explain in a lot more detail several nautical terms that either are not currently explained at all or not fully-enough explained. The glossary should be a lot fuller. For example, toward the end of the book (probably earlier too, where it is probably defined) the term OS occurs, referring to a rank of a U-boat officer. It's not in the glossary, and the reader forgets what it stands for. In addition to the wonderful German grid maps provided, a superimposed grid of lat. and long. would be helpful. Much of what he wrote only whetted my appetite for more.
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Summary: An historical account of the War against U-Boats
Review: This book is not written as a novel, and would be a disappointment for someone looking for an easy reading book. It is an historical account of events related to the war against German U-Boats in the Bay of Biscay and the North Atlantic, with emphasis on the turning of the tide against the German submarine service in May 1943. It is well reseached but sometimes digresses a little too much into minute detail. It also skips around a bit, and drops back to explain various developments. It is a good account for someone interested in the background details as well as the details of various actions that took place.
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Summary: An excellent but exhaustive history of the defeat of U-boats
Review: This is an excellent history of the defeat of Germany's U-Boats. Germany believed that it was on the verge of winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Then, disaster struck the U-Boats. The German submariners dubbed the month of May, 1943, "Black May", because of the incredible reversal of fortune they had sustained. Gannon's book shows the reader, in extreme detail, how this turn of events occurred. Anyone interested in the U-Boat war in the Atlantic should read this book. Black May is full of detailed information on all of the technical systems which resulted in the ultimated defeat of the U-Boats. The author concentrates on telling the story of the fate of a small number of convoys, as opposed to an in-depth examination of each and every German loss during the climax of the Battle of the Atlantic. The result gives this history a truly personal feel, and gives readers a good sense of what convoy duty was like. Readers should be warned that Black May is not an easy read, but it is well worth it for any WWII history buff.
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Summary: Good but not Great
Review: This was a fairly good good book that extensively details the Battle of the Atlantic's turning point in May 1943. This book almost exclusively deals with the events of that month and refers to previous and later times only when important to the events that occured that May. If you are looking for general history of the Battle of the Atlantic from start to finish this book will not serve that purpose. This is an excellent book for someone to read who has a great interest in uboat warfare and already has a good basic knowlegde of the Battle of the Atlantic to gain further insite into that battle. It is not a "Uboats for Dummies" book. Being an ex-Navy man who served on a destroyer during the cold war chasing "Ruskie" submarines around the ocean, I enjoyed Mr. Gannons thoroughness of the technical details of detection equipment and weaponry. A must have for world war II buffs in general and uboat buffs in particular. Probably not too interesting for anyone else.
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