Could someone kindly recommend a good U-Boat novel?

[tiger_tim_34]

I have a couple of good historical books (currently reading 'Business in Great Waters) but would also like to dive into (no pun intended) a really immersive U-Boat novel.

Which would you Kaleuns recommend?

Best regards, and happy hunting to you all

[Myxale]

Well "Das Boot" by Lothar-Günther Buchheim is a good one. :hmm:
This is one of the "you must read" on this board.
It's probably one of the best known U-Books ever. :rock:

Well this is a somewhat baised opinion, but generally you can't do wrong wit this one for starters.
The same goes for the Movie "Das Boot" :hmm:

[KL Seestern]

Well, I think there's one obvious answer to this question: Lothar-Guenther Buchheim's Das Boot, the 1973 novel which inspired the film. It's available in various English translations, of which I have two: one by J. Maxwell Brownjohn (published in 1974) which reads very well but is a little 'loose' with the German, and another recently re-printed in the Cassell Military Paperbacks series (no translator named: just says 'this translation copyright Alfred A. Knopf 1975') which is a little more faithful to the German in some respects (e.g. present tense narration), but annoyingly not in others: all the measurements have been converted into Imperial units, which somewhat ruins the 'immersion' factor (another pun ;) ).

But it's a great novel, whatever translation you can get hold of. Or if you can read German, even better!

[Threadfin]

Iron Coffins is a good novel ;)

[Oleif]

iron coffins

[U-Dog]

Operation Drumbeat reads as well as a novel.

There is on out there about a U-boat stranded off the coast around new orleans and one of the officers falls for a Cajun girl or something like that. Can't seem to find it at the moment tho.

[don1reed]

With Honor in Battle by J.T. McDaniel

U-Boat:Typ XXI

[tiger_tim_34]

*Many* thanks indeedy. As I know the Superbit (Director's Cut) version of Das Boot very well and have just ordered the mini series, I have just placed an Amazon order for Iron Coffins and With Honour in Battle.

Now, all I need is a sufficiently debilitating cold that confines me to bed for a week, yet allows me concentrate on reading. <-- There's GOT to be a market for selling a bug like that. :-)

[Joe S]

Das Boot is a fabulous novel. If you want non-fiction, Operation Drumbeat is excellent and Night Raider of the Atlantic is very good also. For US Sub action, Thunder Below by Fluckey is the best in my opinion. Have Fun, Joe S

[CptGrayWolf]

Iron Coffins is a good novel ;)

:rotfl: Poor Werner...

[tiger_tim_34]

Thanks guys! Starting to look forward to my 3 hour daily commute now. :-)

[PeriscopeDepth]

For non fiction you should also read Doenitz's memoirs, Ten Years and Twenty Days. Provides an interesting insight into the U-boat arm from BdU himself.

PD

[hairydynamicist]

Any of you guys read 'The Real Cruel Sea'? Non-fiction based around the allied merchant navy during the battle of the Atlantic. Not read it myself, but sounds very interesting.

[don1reed]

It's great. The British side of the story from the skipper's point of view from the bridge of the "Compass Rose".

edit: Low budget movie, with Jack Hawkins as the skipper, is also pretty dang good.

Cheers,

[Myszkin]

"Peter Erich Cremer. U-333" by Fritz Brustat-Naval
"Another Place, Another Time" by Werner Hirschmann
"U-38" by Max Valentiner (I WW)

[jaxa]

"Das Boot" - Bible of subsimers, "must read"
"Iron coffins" - probably the best

Myszkin - duże brawa za hasło pod Twoimi postami, chociaż podejrzewam, że wielu z uzytkowników forum będzie miało co do tego wątpliwości

[Myszkin]

"Hirschfeld. The story of a U-Boat NCO 1940-1946" by Geoffrey Brooks - This is a unique book based on a highly secret diary kept by Wolfgang Hirshfeld during the war.

Jaxa - wątpliwości można mieć, ale faktom nie da się zaprzeczyć :)
Pozdrawiam!

[retired1212]

U-571 :rock:

[Ducimus]

U-571 :rock:

Someone get a rope! We's gonna have us a hangin'! :-j


Could someone kindly recommend a good U-Boat novel?

My order at Borders has come in:
http://www.uboatwaffe.net/books/steelboat.gif

I just havent had a chance to pick it up yet.

To wet your whistle, heres a 10 page excerpt from it.
http://www.uboatwaffe.net/books/books.cgi?a=4


Theres another one out there, i dunno where it is, theres like two excerpts from the book you can read on the net,

[Ping Jockey]

Operation Drumbeat :up: :up: :up:

[Seminole]

For a novel Big Sharks and Little Fish would be hard to beat. It is a fictional account of a group of young roughneck German sailors and follows their lives from able seamen on mine sweepers in the early war North Sea through their training as cadets to become U-Boat officers.

If I remember correctly it was written by a real life U-Boat submariner and I suspect the things he writes about actually happened to him. I took it to be a fair glimpse into how the war affected these men.

[JScones]

My order at Borders has come in:
http://www.uboatwaffe.net/books/steelboat.gif

I just havent had a chance to pick it up yet.

To wet your whistle, heres a 10 page excerpt from it.
http://www.uboatwaffe.net/books/books.cgi?a=4
Thanks for the link...I might just have to buy this one.

[CCIP]

Grey Wolf, Grey Sea by E.B. Gasaway

Wonderful book about a Type IX boat's entire career, relatively concise but detailed - and really just awesome read, very well-written. Still my favorite :up:

[Tigrone]

"The Key", aka "Stella," by Jan deHartog
"The Enemy Below" by D.A. Raynor

Both became major motion pictures.

My all time favorite is "The Good Shepherd" by C.S. Forester.

[perisher]

Any of you guys read 'The Real Cruel Sea'? Non-fiction based around the allied merchant navy during the battle of the Atlantic. Not read it myself, but sounds very interesting.

Not to be confused with Monserrat's "The Cruel Sea", 'The Real Cruel Sea' by Richard Woodman, a professional mariner and an excellent writer, gives the merchant seaman's view of the Battle of the Atlantic. There's no glory here, just the war through the eyes of the targets.

[tiger_tim_34]

Just started reading 'Iron Coffins'. :up:

[perisher]

John Biggins' "A Sailor of Austria" is an excellent novel about First World War submarine combat. Seen from the prespective of the Austro-Hungarian Navy it is informative, accurate and, at times, very funny. It's the best submarine novel that I have ever read. :up:

[Swede]

Mein Kampf

It can be interpeted in a way so that you think its about subs. Especially if you dont understand german

[ParaB]

Buchheim's "The Fortress" is also IMO a very interesting novel. Lots of Uboat stuff of course but also a look at the situation in France before and after the invasion in Normandy.

And if you're interested in what happened to the Kaleun of U-96 after WW2, read the last part of the trilogy, "The Goodbye".

[Ducimus]

My order at Borders has come in:
http://www.uboatwaffe.net/books/steelboat.gif

I just havent had a chance to pick it up yet.

To wet your whistle, heres a 10 page excerpt from it.
http://www.uboatwaffe.net/books/books.cgi?a=4
Thanks for the link...I might just have to buy this one.

Well so far im into chapter 2. He gives a real good account of life on a uboat as so far. Some of the details he gives really sticks in your mind. His first war patrol was to the south atlantic in the waters off of freetown. His descriptions of the eniroment were really vivid.

I particuarly enjoyed this part about eggs. Yess, eggs. He says in the chilly north atlantic, they'd last anywhere from 2 to 3 months before going rotton. On U505's outsdet they had 3000 of them onboard, and theyd rott in 2 or 3 weeks in the humid south atlantic , espcially inside a sweltering uboat pressure hull. So they had to scarf down 3000 eggs in two weeks. blech. The heat inside a uboat was intense. WHen they dived the water would cool down the hull, but it would create condensation. he said he had "rain water" dripping into his books while reading or what not.

Lots of other small details, really good reading as so far. He even went into talking uboat school at the time. Pretty intense training, with a high washout rate.

[tiger_tim_34]

Mein Kampf

It can be interpeted in a way so that you think its about subs. Especially if you dont understand german

That was funny. :)