Morgan Daniel - U-Boat attack logs : a complete record of warship sinkings from original sources 1939-1945

No lengthy exercise in historical research can reach completion without the help of a disproportionately large number of people and institutions and this book has perhaps incurred a greater debt than most. In addition to assistance with specific entries offered by many individuals throughout the world (listed below), the authors would like to begin by recording their particular gratitude to a number of specialists and institutions who have been invaluable to the project as a whole for more than a decade.

Under the stewardship of Capt. Christopher Page the Naval Historical Branch of the Ministry of Defence in Portsmouth (formerly London) has provided full access to its U-Boot-Waffe collection including the microfilmed Kriegstagebcher which form the heart of this volume. In particular, Kate Brett (formerly Tildesley), Curator of the NHB, has spent countless hours tracking down related Allied material from that institutions wider collections while offering her professional insight into the many problems raised by the project. This book could not have assumed its present dimension without her active assistance and the personal interest she has taken in it, and its our hope that she will find the result to be an adequate recompense for her generosity over so many years.

Thomas Weis, head of the Marinearchiv of the Bibliothek fr Zeitgeschichte at the Wrttembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart, has made a similar contribution from the German side, not only devoting much time to our visits but also supplying documents and photos from his collections while providing access to the Sammlung Rohwer, the accumulation of naval material assembled by Professor Jrgen Rohwer over many decades at the BfZ. Beyond many other kindnesses Prof. Rohwer has done us and our work the honour of writing the Foreword. Elsewhere in Germany, the authors are indebted to Horst Bredow, founder of the remarkable Deutsches U-Boot Museum-Archiv (formerly U-Boot-Archiv) in Cuxhaven-Altenbruch, Lower Saxony, a unique collection of private records and published sources filed by U-boat. This material has offered an essential complement to the formal primary documentation of the period and our thanks to him and to his erstwhile colleague Horst Schwenk for making it available to us on many occasions. Our gratitude also to the Bundesarchiv-Militrarchiv in Freiburg im Breisgau (especially Jana Brabant and Andrea Meier) and to the Bildarchiv of the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (especially Aileen Tomcek). A particular word of thanks to Gumundur Helgason and his remarkable uboat.net for much generous assistance down the years. On the Allied side, our thanks also to Michael McAloon, Stephen Prince and Jock Gardner at the NHB, to Jenny Wraight and Iain MacKenzie at the Admiralty Library, and to the staff of The National Archives (formerly The Public Record Office) at Kew, London; the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, London; the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth; the Naval Studies Library of Plymouth City Library; the Service Historique de la Marine, Paris (especially Mme Patricia Dussard); the National Archives of Canada, Ottawa (especially Ken McLeod); the Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC (especially Ms. Heidi Myers); and the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland where Patrick Osborne and Dr. Tim Mulligan went to great lengths to locate documentation on US sinkings for us. Information and assistance on the three Soviet entries was kindly provided by Miroslav Morozov of Moscow, and on Royal Navy sinkings in the Arctic by Cdr W. E. Grenfell RN of Havant, Hants. And UCLAs Young Research Library has again proved a superb and generous resource of secondary material. To them all our thanks and gratitude.

Equally, the process of translating the Kriegstagebcher could not have been accomplished without much assistance over many years and from many quarters. Our thanks go to Horst Bredow, Kate Brett, Oblt.z.S. Claus-Peter Carlsen, Walter Cloots, Rainer Kolbicz, Dr Tim Mulligan, Kptlt Kurt Petersen, Herbert Ritschel, Professor Jrgen Rohwer, the late Vizeadmiral Horst von Schroeter, Jak P. Mallmann Showell, Jrgen Weber and Thomas Weis. Our particular thanks to Glyn Jones who performed a valuable and painstaking bilingual edit of each excerpt, and to Jak Showell for most generous assistance with technical matters as the volume came full term. The maps were rendered by Yee-Ping Cho of Los Angeles, Calif. who in addition lent much technical assistance with photos. Great as the help has been, it goes without saying that any remaining errors are ours and ours alone.

Beyond those mentioned above, assistance and information has been gratefully received in connection with specific entries from the following individuals: interview with former crewmen of U380 at UBAC (now DUBMA) in May 2001.

Finally, we would like to thank our families and friends past and present who have shared the journey over many years and through many vicissitudes, and who in their different ways have each helped bring the ship into harbour. Mention of friends of course puts each author in mind of the other, separated always by geography and occasionally by trenchant disagreement but forever joined by that which gave the project life and brought it to completion. Dein wahrer Freund ist, wer dich sehn lsst deine Flecken und sie dir tilgen hilft, eh Feinde sie entdecken.

DANIEL MORGAN AND BRUCE TAYLOR

LONDON AND LOS ANGELES

Citations from documents and reproductions of images held by The National Archives, Kew, London are Crown Copyright. Photos credited IWM are reproduced by permission of the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, London. The copyright of much of the remainder rests either with their authors or their descendants. Citations from these and from books and articles are acknowledged by inclusion in the Select Bibliography, the list of Sources at the close of each entry and/or in the Acknowledgements above. Credits are given after each photo where it has been possible to establish either the source or the copyright with certainty. Extensive efforts have been made to locate copyright holders and these are invited to contact the authors with proof of copyright.