The "Second Happy Time" was the informal name given to the phase of the battle of the Atlantic when German U-boats attacked both merchant and U.S. naval vessels along America's east coast. With tankers burning and petrol rationing in New York City, the U.S. Navy seemed powerless to stop the deprivations of Hitler's marauding U-boats. Ken Brown seeks to explain how the United States responded to these deadly assaults and looks at the steps that the Navy Department took to train the men, harness the scientists, and make the organizational changes that were required to defeat the German threat.

A deeply researched and engaging account of the use of U-Boats in the First World War. The focus touches on both diplomatic and economic aspects as well as the tactical and strategic use of the U-boats. The book also examines the role played by US president Woodrow Wilson and his response to American shipping being sunk by U-boats and how that ultimately forced his hand to declare war on Germany.

In 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area "Torpedo Junction." And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful of Coast Guard sailors scrambled to the front lines. Outgunned and out-maneuvered, they heroically battled the deadliest fleet of submarines ever launched. Never was Germany closer to winning the war. In a moving ship-by-ship account of terror and rescue at sea, Homer Hickam chronicles a little-known saga of courage, ingenuity, and triumph in the early years of World War II. From nerve-racking sea duels to the dramatic ordeals of sailors and victims on both sides of the battle, Hickam dramatically captures a war we had to win--because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.

On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel— all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701. In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America’s east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen’s three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen’s successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats’ success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen’s cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic—and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode’s survivors. A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler’s U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.

From January to July 1942, more than seventy-five ships sank to North Carolina's "Graveyard of the Atlantic" off the coast of the Outer Banks. German U-boats sank ships in some of the most harrowing sea fighting close to America's shore. Germany's Operation Drumbeat, led by Admiral Karl Donitz, brought fear to the local communities. A Standard oil tanker sank just sixty miles from Cape Hatteras. The U-85 was the first U-boat sunk by American surface forces, and local divers later discovered a rare Enigma machine aboard. Author Jim Bunch traces the destructive history of world war on the shores of the Outer Banks.

A study of the British Royal Navy’s activities in the Indian Ocean during World War II, led by Admiral Sir James Somerville. The story of the British Eastern Fleet, which operated in the Indian Ocean against Japan, has rarely been told. Although it was the largest fleet deployed by the Royal Navy prior to 1945 and played a vital part in the theatre it was sent to protect, it has no place in the popular consciousness of the naval history of the Second World War. So Charles Stephenson’s deeply researched and absorbing narrative gives this forgotten fleet the recognition it deserves. British pre-war naval planning for the Far East is part of the story, as is the disastrous loss of the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse in 1941, but the body of the book focuses on the new fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir James Somerville, and its operations against the Japanese navy and aircraft as well as Japanese and German submarines. Later in the war, once the fleet had been reinforced with an American aircraft carrier, it was strong enough to take more aggressive actions against the Japanese, and these are described in vivid detail. Charles Stephenson’s authoritative study should appeal to readers who have a special interest in the war with Japan, in naval history more generally and Royal Navy in particular. Praise forThe Eastern Fleet and the Indian Ocean, 1942–1944 “This meticulously researched, outstandingly clear, well written and absorbing account is long overdue and will most likely become a standard work. The text is most helpfully supported by over 80 pages of detailed end notes referenced to each chapter and a detailed index. This is not only a book for naval historians but also for anyone with an interest in the War in the Indian Ocean region. Highly recommended.” —Military Historical Society “I enjoyed this book – it gives us an account of an often neglected part of the war at sea, and of the achievements of Admiral Somerville, who kept his fleet intact in the face of a potentially overwhelming opponent, then was willing to acknowledge that his fleet needed to improve massively before it could take on the Japanese.” —Dr John Rickard, author and webmaster of the ‘Military History Encyclopedia on the Web’

An account of Germany's little known U-boat campaign against merchant shipping along the North American Atlantic coast during the first six months of 1942. It also documents the failure of the US Navy to meet the German attack.