Word: u-boats
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Instead of one attacking U-boat cruising more or less haphazardly, he used a number of them working as a unit. The wolf pack was expanded; by last year he had the U-boats working in "echelons of divisions," patrolling in three lines or more abreast, the center line ahead of the two flanks, the U-boats strung out in a herringbone pattern astern of the leader. In perfect coordination, this array of underwater raiders lay in wait for convoys previously spotted by scouts or long-range air reconnaissance. By night, submerged, they moved under the convoy. When they came...
...Weapon's Men. Four years ago Doenitz wrote of his crews: "With men who have been tried in long U-boat service you can get the devil himself out of hell. They are soldiers and sailors of the best kind...
...many submarines and men the Nazi U-boat fleet has lost, only the Germans and Allied Intelligence know. According to unofficial Allied estimates, more than 12,000 trained officers and men have been lost or taken prisoner; and crews are more difficult to replace than ships. The U.S., habitually mum on the subject of U-boat sinkings, last week revealed for the first time the capture of a submarine contingent: the Coast Guard cutter Icarus last June depth-charged a U-boat, blew it to the surface, rescued 33 of the crew. The shattered sub sank into the depths which...
...Nazi U-boat crews still have the highest morale of any branch of the German armed forces. They are tough, hardened sailors, inured now to the discomforts and nerve-racking moments of life in the submarines. Doenitz labored to level the usual barriers between officers and men, and there have been no signs of the bitterness which contributed to a revolt of German crews in World...
...such coordination of the blind underwater vessels be achieved. Nerve center of this system was a great camouflaged central control somewhere in occupied Europe, probably in France. The Nazis boasted that Allied bombers frequently flew over this headquarters without recognizing it. Into and out of it flowed messages from U-boats and air reconnaissance in every theater of German naval operations. Routes of convoys were plotted there, location of submarine packs picked out and corresponding orders given for attack. Radio in code and clear was flashed out constantly: on Christmas Eve last year Doenitz himself addressed his U-boat crews...