Lardas, Mark/Groult, Edouard A. (Illustr.) U-Boat vs Royal Navy Capital Ship 1939–45

During the Second World War, more than half of the losses of British capital ships were attributed to submarines, as German U-boats sought to decimate the Royal Navy's powerful surface fleet. With specially commissioned illustrations and maps, as well as archive photographs, this study explains how German submarines sank five of Britain's most important surface ships in four years of naval warfare. The aircraft carrier HMS Courageous was sunk on 17 September 1939 during a submarine patrol by U-29. On 14 October 1939, U-47 broke through the defences of Scapa Flow and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak. On 14 November 1941, U-81 sank HMS Ark Royal as the aircraft carrier was returning to Gibraltar. On 25 November 1941, U-331 sank HMS Barham off Egypt. The last British capital ship to be sunk by German U-boats was the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, which was torpedoed by U-73 on 11 August 1942 while en route to Malta. In this book, Mark Lardas traces the origins, development and combat performance of the U-boats in the Kriegsmarine's attacks on British capital ships, as well as the Royal Navy's efforts to defend its battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers against the U-boat threat. In addition to the five battles that led to the sinking, he also examines the near misses in which the Royal Navy's capital ships gained the upper hand over the U-boats.