Word: u-boat
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...Only three months ago he replaced Erich Raeder as the head of Hitler's Navy, and the shift in command was a tip-off on the Nazis' future strategy. For Karl Doenitz was a submariner from away back. A submariner he remained, in personal command of the U-boat fleet...
...recognized that Germany's hope on the high seas, in this war as in the last, lay in the slender, lonely little craft effectively typed "torpedo carriers." When he took the supreme command, he pledged: "The entire German Navy will henceforth be put into the service of inexorable U-boat warfare." From his headquarters somewhere in Axis Europe last week, Doenitz wielded a potent weapon...
...began to forge his weapon. Part by part, in dispersed and hidden shops, he and his men built a few U-boats and cached them in packing crates under the noses of Allied investigators. To train his first recruits, Doenitz established an institute which he blandly named "school for defense against submarines." When, in June 1935, Hitler's naval treaty with the British released the Reich from some of the Versailles restrictions, Doenitz was ready. By October his first flotilla was afloat. He was still bound to keep his visible U-boat fleet within limits, but by expanding...
...headquarters is a fantastic structure, designed to resemble a warship on land. His office has a few pieces of period furniture, a broad expanse of bookshelves filled with tomes on naval history. Scattered about are gaily colored, crude models of the ships which one of his U-boats sank on a successful cruise. On the wall behind him is a portrait of his revered predecessor, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who ardently advocated unrestricted U-boat warfare 26 years...
...Doenitz is still vigorous (despite gastric ulcers). By radio, his U-boat commanders can always get in touch with him. He is frequently on the move between his headquarters, the fleet's ports and production centers, but he knows exactly what actions are taking place. When a U-boat comes into port, Doenitz is frequently there to greet the commander. He carefully studies the logs of the cruises, notes every detail of combat, and applies their lessons in future orders...