[Sailor Steve]

War Beneath The Sea, by Peter Padfield. I just finished it, and I can't recommend it enough. It doesn't have the depth of Blair's books or the breadth of Roscoe, but it is very readable and contains the stories of all the major commands, including the accomplishments of the British submarines in the North Sea, Med and Pacific (including the X-craft), as well as the Japanese successes and failures.

Things I didn't know:

1) At the same time the British were being amazed that BdU never realized they were reading the Enigma codes, they also never once considered that B-Dienst was reading their signals!

2) I guess I was spoiled by SH1, and assumed that the Americans always had a waterproof TBT, but according to Padfield the first US boats fitted with a surface relay system at all had something similar to the German UZO, with regular binoculars being fitted into a control system that relayed the bearing down to the TDC, and that not until early in 1944!

3) In spite of the successes of US boats against Japanese shipping, US high command never had a German-style policy of an all-out anti-merchant war. Enemy warships were always the first priority. If the Americans had followed the German example they might have starved Japan by the end of 1943.

All this is speculation of course, but Padfield makes a good case. Overall the book is very detailed for only 500 pages.

I learned a lot from this book. Get it and read it; it's a good one!