U-Boat War Patrol: The Hidden Photographic Diary of U-564 - Lawrence Paterson [epub]

This book is unique in that it charts a complete history of a single patrol and provides a new insight into life aboard through the successes and trials of U-564. Photographed during the summer of 1942 by an onboard war correspondent they show a U-Boat in action in the Atlantic and Caribbean, as the Kriegsmarine teetered on the verge of what turned out to be its ultimate downfall. The crew is shown in virtually every station and several other U-Boats and their commanders feature as they gather to re-supply or to attack.

The Three Black Cat motif of Reinhard 'Teddy' Suhren's U-564 is among the most famous in the illustrious history of Germany's U-Boats of World War II. Suhren himself ranks in the top tier of U-Boat commanders along with the likes of Prien and Kretschmer and his name still raises a smile among veterans of the service for his infamously anti-establishment attitude that saw a meteoric rise to U-Boat command and the receipt of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves.

The photographs were 'liberated' from U-564's concrete pen in Brest in 1945. They have been kept in a shoebox under a bed for the best part of sixty years and now, through the painstaking research of Lawrence Patterson and the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, are to be published for the first time. Patterson has pieced together the stories of Teddy Suhren and U-564 and provides detailed accompanying captions explaining many of the photos and a history of the boat, her crew and their illustrious and much-loved commander.

Lawrence Paterson is a member of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum's Archive Group specializing in U-boat and Kriegsmarine research, past president of the Brittany Marine Research Society, and the author of First U-Boat Flotilla and Second U-Boat Flotilla.