Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR ED OFFLEYS
TURNING THE TIDE:
As important and engaging as the sweep and generalities of the largest naval campaign in history are, the bulk of this book, and Offleys signal contribution, is his first-hand, blow-by-blow descriptions of some of the deadliest and most game-changing encounters of the Atlantic war.... Turning the Tide... belongs on the bookshelves of professional historians or of general readers attempting to understand a central campaign in the most horrific war in human history.
American Spectator
In this volume the author has selected a series of stories that both explicate and dramatize the most fateful months of the Allied-German battle for control of the North Atlantic in World War II. I am confident that the reader will find, as I did, his stories to be both engagingly written and compelling in effect.
Michael Gannon, author ofOperation DrumbeatandBlack May
Long before there was D-Day, there was D-Day in the North Atlantic Ocean for England. In Turning the Tide, Ed Offley delivers the definitive bible of how the Allies in March and May of 1943 turned defeat into victory against an armada of German U-boats determined to strangle resupply lines to England. The book delivers high suspense on the storm-tossed North Atlantic by taking readers inside the U-boats and the Allied convoys as well as American, English and German high commands racing for technological advantage at sea. In the end, Offleys masterful account not only probes what gave each side an edge but reveals the bravado it took for a rather small group of Allied and German sailors to fight to the death in one of historys great naval struggles.
Carl LaVO, author ofBack from the Deep,Slade Cutter, andThe Galloping Ghost
Offley tackles a complex and difficult campaign spanning months across a vast ocean and involving a myriad of actors, and turns it into a compelling piece of writing. In a field where the outcomes of battles are often treated as mere statisticsof tonnages sunk or shipping safely escortedor as evidence of the impact of technology, Offleys Atlantic tale is full of people wrestling with the sea, the enemy and their fate. In the end, Turning the Tide captures the human dimension of the crisis of the Atlantic war in the spring of 1943 in a way no one has for nearly forty years. And it is a welcome reminder that the Atlantic war lay at the heart of Allied victory in World War II.
Marc Milner, University of New Brunswick,author ofNorth Atlantic RunandThe Battle of the Atlantic
WWII buffs can glory in [Turning the Tide].
San Antonio Express
[An] excellent new book.... Offley describes in clear and wonderful detail how the Allies did it.... [His] writing is superb, and his research in the text and in the appendices are clear and to the point.
Virginia Gazette
Panama City Beach resident Ed Offleys new book Turning the Tide is a story few know in the history of World War II. The cat-and-mouse tale played out in the book in dark seas, during treacherous storms has first-hand accounts told by those [who] saw the battles up close and personal with real life-and-death consequences.
Panama City News Herald
As Ed Offley shows in this detailed and compelling book, a combination of technology and tactics enabled the Allies to turn the tide in the longest and most deadly naval battles ever fought.... He brings his naval expertise to bear in describing each sides actions and perspectives during those pivotal encounters. Moreover, he does a masterful job of detailing the horrors of battle as brave men fought each other with fire and steel and also fought the ferocious and frigid waves in which many of them drowned.
Virginian-Pilot
Offley re-creates the perilous journeys during the Battle of the Atlanticjourneys that cost the lives of tens of thousands of sailorsmerchant seamen, U.S. Navy personnel and the crews of German
U-boats.Roanoke Times
[A] great historical account... [a] disturbing, fantastic new book.... Offley has sifted through a towering heap of official records, read a librarys worth of histories, even interviewed surviving U-boat sailors. Hes brought all that formidable research together, crafted it with a very considerable degree of narrative skill, and produced a volume worthy to stand with Gunter Hesslers The U-Boat War in the Atlantic: 1939-1945 or Clay Blairs magnificent 2-volume Hitlers U-Boat War. In passage after passage, he brings the submarine experienceAllied and Axis alikevividly to life.... Offley is keenly attuned to the give and take of the Battle of the Atlantic... and hes adept at painting quick portraits of determinationand braveryon both sides of that battle.... Readers of serious, well-done history shouldnt miss it.
Open Letters Monthly
Offleys story... has all the guts and glory of the best World War II novels. Here, the heroes are real in this most important battle.... From the admirals to the ordinary seamen, Offley gives us the whole story, but he also manages to capture the intimate danger of pushing a small ship through treacherous seas while someone is shooting at you.
Florida Times-Union
[A] thorough and scrupulous operational history.... Turning the Tide ably sketches in the background and then sends the reader out on board two convoys in March 1943.... Offley recounts the struggle of ONS5 meticulously. We follow each merchant vessel and each U-boat and understand what they are up to; but we also get a sense of what it must have been like for the submariner in his dank little world and the watchman on his sleet-flailed bridge.... [A] valuable book.
Naval InstituteProceedings
[An] exciting narrative of a critical turning point in the Second World War. Focusing on a brief period in 1943, the work examines the efforts of navy submarine hunters from Britain, Canada and the United States to break the grip of German U-boats on the critical shipping lanes of the North Atlantic.... [A] gripping account of this important key to the eventual Allied victory in the war.
Book News
Among the revelations in this engrossing book are the facts that German U-boats stalked the entire eastern coastline of North America, penetrating the mouth of the Mississippi River and the Chesapeake Bay and that 70 per cent of the Germans volunteering for the U-Boat Force did not come back.
History Wire
Offley meticulously re-creates the terrifying U-boat assaults during this pivotal spring... and explains how the Allies turned the tide of the years-long battle.... An intensely focused account that cuts through the battles sprawl and duration, supplying the general reader with an appreciation of its character and importance.
Kirkus Reviews
This is an account of the crucial convoy battles of March to May 1943 that saw Allied naval escorts and air power finally subdue the deadly Kriegsmarine subs. Offley... shows how the battle was very much a mind game, each side trying to outfox the other.
Library Journal
[Offley] focuses on individual combatants, from the lowest ranks to the highest, emphasizing the human elements and making for an extremely readable text that should appeal to neophytes as well as professionals.
