Lawrence Paterson - U-Boats in the Mediterranean: 1941-1944

First Skyhorse printing 2019.

First published 2007 in the US by Naval Institute Press and in the UK by Chatham publishing.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

ISBN: 978-1-5107-3163-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-3167-7

Printed in the United States of America

As ALWAYS THIS BOOK could not have been written without the help, support and encouragement of many people. I would like to especially thank Sarah, Meg, James and Ernie of the Paterson Clan. Also special thanks to Audrey Mumbles Paterson and Don Mr Mumbles, Ray and Phylly Paterson. My gratitude also goes to Graham Course Im a Brummie Jinks, Bernadette Hardaker, Tony Iommi, John Osbourne, Terry Butler, Bill Ward, Eric Singer, Tony Martin, Neil Murray, Ian Gillan, Ronald James Padavona, Michael Leventhal, Rob Gardiner and all the staff at Chatham/Greenhill, Chokehold, Graham von Pentz, Paul Robbie, Dominic Mather, Carlito Warner, Jrgen Weber and the U-Bootkameradschaft Mnchen, Cozy Powell (RIP), Eddie Naughton, Mike, Sheila, Mitch and Claire French, Maggie Oirish Bidmead and Martin Tidpit the Handy Towell.

From the ranks of the Kriegsmarine and Allied navies there are many veterans and their families who have helped with time and patience as I have tried to piece together this and other stories. Of the many people who have put up with my endless enquiries I would especially like to mention Jrgen and Esther Oesten, Inge and the late Ludwig Stoll, Gerhard and Traudl Buske, Georg and Frau Hgel, Georg and Frau Seitz, Gesa Suhren, Hanne Suhren, Karl and Annie Waldeck, Hans-Peter and Frau Carlsen and Volkmaar Knig.

If there is anybody that I have not included in this list and should have, then please rest assured that it is an unintentional oversight and I hope that you will forgive me.

As a brief preface I would like to clarify for the reader that although the naval war in the Mediterranean was a complex web of interwoven services and branches of many nations armed forces, this book is not a general study of the Mediterranean war. To do so would require many more pages and the ability to place the air, ground and naval forces into their correct contexts to a degree of completeness that space and the focus of this study will not freely allow. This is a book that deals with the deployment of what would eventually become sixty-two combat U-boats of the Kriegsmarine. Where applicable I have of course related it to other services of the Wehrmacht and their struggles on land, at sea or in the air and often it is necessary to place the U-boat mens presence into a political and strategic context. However, those men and their Type VII boats remain the core of this story. This book follows the experiences of the 23rd and 29th U-Flotillas who brought Dnitzs creed of aggressive submarine warfare into the Mediterranean, an expanse of water that has been fought over since the beginning of recorded history.