Edgehill Publications - The Grey Wolves Echoes from WWII (2007) Part 2 Nowhere to Hide

This is the tragic story of the U-boats at war. Brave men fighting a losing battle against odds they could never hope to overcome. Out-numbered, out-gunned and out-thought, the U-boats were justifiably known to their crews as 'iron coffins'. Somehow the U-boat fleet rose to the challenge and even managed a brief flicker of success before their inevitable fate enveloped them. The U-boat war encompassed a campaign that began on the first day of the European war and lasted for six years, involved thousands of ships and stretched over thousands of square miles of ocean, in more than 100 convoy battles and perhaps 1,000 single-ship encounters. In the 68 months of World War II, 2,775 Allied merchant ships were sunk for the loss of 781 U-boats. This is the story of that massive encounter from the German perspective. Grey Wolves captures life on board a U-boat, first hand accounts in text, letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, relaying tales of the mundane and the routine, dramatic and heroic; the fear and resilience of every crew member, from Kapitainleutnant to Mechaniker. It is a vivid, brutally realistic portrait of the men who fought and died beneath the surface of the Atlantic in what was, perhaps, the most critical battle of the war.

Written by Michael Leighton; Produced and Directed by Paul Dunn; Edgehill/Storm Bird Production

Part 2 Nowhere to Hide

Hitler was the proof that Germans did not understand the sea. Fortunately for him, his submariners did, and he had good reason to hand out awards to his U-Boat commanders. They had been preparing for war against England following the anglo german naval agreement of 1935. When war broke out, only 57 U-Boats were available. He persuaded engineers that more boats were urgently required. Even so, the small, outgunned German fleet managed to strike painful blows to Great Britain by aiming directly for its soft underbelly. The Germans almost succeeded in cutting off Great Britain's shipping lanes, and thus its supply of fuel and raw materials. The German U-boat onslaught against British merchant ships during the autumn of 1940 was highly successful because the attacks were made on the surface at night and from such close range that a single torpedo would sink a ship. Soon, though, Allied technology was able to detect U-boats at night, and new convoy techniques, combined with powerfully-armed, fast modern aircraft searching the seas, meant that by 1941 it was clear that Germany was losing the war at sea. Something had to be done. The new generation of attack U-boats that had been introduced since Hitler came to power needed urgent improvement. This is the story of the Types II, VII and IX that had already become the 'workhorse' of the Kriegsmarine's submarine fleet and continued to put out to sea to attack Allied shipping right up to the end of the war.

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