Operation Drumbeat combines a history lesson interspersed with an equal number of novel-like chapters. The German U-Boat attacks on shipping along the US Atlantic seaboard during WWII, combined with a focus on German submarine U-123 and its commander Reinhard Hardeman, provides a look at the overall operation from German side of the naval war and the operations and of one specific submarine.
The deeply researched facts, figures and footnotes become a bit ponderous at times, reading like a textbook. Dry, factual, stuffed with information down to the small details. However, the various components of the overall U-boat missions are brought together into one coherent body of knowledge. Some of the most important documents were not made public until the 1970s and 1980s, so this book appears to have an excellent composite from which to draw reasonably good conclusions, which the author does.
The exploits of U-123 and its crew is the highlight of the story, bringing to life the characters, attitudes and environments of the men and their challenging mission. The historical chapters may cause one to close the cover early, but the novelistic chapters on the ship and its crew keep one fixed until the chapter’s end. The book is not written with the style and flourish of a best-selling author, it is written by a college history professor, but the events and the reconstituted crew-talk in the U-123 U-boat’s chapters make it more captivating to read than a lot of fiction. The author reports on both the attacking U-boats and on the attacked ships, drawing from documents and interviews with both sailors and survivors.
Operation Drumbeat is a good read with tons of information and an opportunity to learn about the German submarine attacks on freight and tanker supply ships that transited the US East Coast on 1942. In round numbers, 400 merchant ships were sunk by U-boats with the loss of 5,000 lives. That’s twice the number of souls lost compared to Pearl Harbor, and the tonnage sunk is orders of magnitude higher.
The subtitle “Pearl Harbor of the Atlantic” is appropriate. This was a major conflict, right on US shores and has been somehow not gained the notoriety of some of the other war operations, but it should be among the top 10 in placement of importance. Well, the US was a loser in this specific 1942 conflict. It was one of victory for the German navy on the east coast of the US and it is an era that the US Navy would probably would rather not see highlighted.
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Bruce S Skinner
Never proof read by a human being
Reviewed in Canada on September 11, 2016