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War Beneath the Waves: U-Boat Flotilla Flandern Hardcover – May 15, 2017

by Tomas Termote (Author)

4.6 11 ratings

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Amid the stalemate of World War I, one area in which the German military could claim almost complete supremacy was beneath the ocean. In the four years of the war, the U-boats of U-Flottille Flanders alone would sink more than 2,500 Allied ships, sending more than 2.5 million tons of shipping to the bottom. But their victories came at a high cost: as the Royal Navy made taking out U-boats a priority, using mines, nets, aircraft, espionage, and more, and by the end of the war they had sunk eighty percent of the U-boats that operated out of Flemish ports.

This book brings the secret of those sunken subs back to the surface. Underwater archaeologist and naval historian Tomas Termote draws on his countless visits to the wrecks of U-boats to explore topics ranging from their role in the war to the everyday lives of the men on board. Termote illustrates his account with copious underwater photography of the wrecks, and he uses that and new identifications to present the first ever complete account of the fate of every U-boat in the fleet, including boats sunk off the coasts of Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, France, Ireland, Spain, and the United States. The result is a book sure to grip any WWI buff, helping us understand with new clarity one of the crucial theaters of the war.

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About the Author

Tomas Termote is a maritime archaeologist and historian who has worked for companies such as Aquascan Int. (Wales), Deep Sea Exploration (Germany), Arqueonautas (Portugal) in Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark. Since 2008, he has run a self-owned business dealing with Japanese antiquities, as well as being a freelance diver for harbors and lockgates and a crewman for windfarm projects.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 191050064X
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Uniform Press (May 15, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781910500644
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1910500644
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 1 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,002,237 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,056 in World War I History (Books)
- #6,644 in Naval Military History

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4.6 11 ratings

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Charles A. Thompson

A truly wonderful book for those with an appreciation of details

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2017

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A truly wonderful book for those with an appreciation of details. This book covers all you would ever want to know about the Flottilla Flandern. The boats, the ports, the bunkers, details of the boats configuration, operations and loss, personnel, it is all here. This is not an exciting war story, but a detailed analysis of this part of the WWI U-boat war.

4 people found this helpful

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C. Corraliza

Very fine work. Much new to me information

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2018

Very fine work. Much new to me information. A few very slight grammatical errors in the translation. Offset by the excellent presentation, selection of photographs and organization of the work. I pleasure to read and the numerous rare photographs provide insight to the era.

Highly recommend to anyone interested in aspects of German submarine warfare during the Great War.

I would give it 4.90 stars if available. The only reason not 5 is the minor text errors and some footnote omissions.

I understand there may be some errors in the fates of those submarines which went missing. Confirm with other recent sources

One person found this helpful

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Claramee

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2018

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Fantastic. Excellent read.

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2019

First rate scholarship--tells the forgotten story of the U-boat base in Bruges. The author is both a military historian and wreck diver who has visited many of the U-boat wrecks he describes. Recommended to anyone interested in WWI.

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colin jones

but an excellent cover of the subject and well worth a long ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2017

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just redeived fresh off the press . expensive!,yes ,but an excellent cover of the subject and well worth a long read

3 people found this helpful

July Japer

The Complete U-Boat Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 8, 2017

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This is a truly remarkable book but unfortunately it's not quite perfect, hence only four and not five stars. As the author is Belgian, the book has been translated in to English. I'm hugely grateful it has been translated in to English but sadly there are quite a few grammatical errors as a result. The book is also littered with mistakes. For example, the author states that the large U-Cruisers were numbered U-135 to U-150 and the merchant submarines were numbered U-151 to U-157. On the page opposite this information is a photo which the caption states is the U-Cruiser U-157! Another example is a sketch of a UC-II type U-Boat which is incorrectly labelled as a UB-III type. The author also makes some quite wild claims. He states the U-Boats brought the British to the "edge of starvation" and "forced the [British] navy to remain in their harbours". Whilst the former claim is debatable the latter is definitely incorrect. Many of the U-Boats mentioned in the book were in fact sunk by the Royal Navy who clearly hadn't remained in their harbours. He also states the guns on the Zeebrugge Mole were the westernmost German defences. This is clearly incorrect as west of Zeebrugge was the German held port of Ostend which had it's own gun emplacements. There are also a number of contradictions in the book. In the section describing the Drager escape apparatus, the author initially states it could be used at a maximum depth of 30m and could last up to an hour. However, several paragraphs later he states it could operate at depths of up to 60m and could only be used for half an hour.

The preface of the book claims the author is "objective" and "impartial" but I must disagree with this. He describes a number of occasions where captured U-Boat personnel were badly treated by their captors. When Oberleutnant z. S Vicco von der Luhe was captured by the crew of HMS E-34, the author writes that when he refused to tell his captors the identity of his U-Boat they at first put a pistol to his head and threatened to shoot him, and then put his bare feet against an electric heater to torture him and make him talk. The author claims these "facts prove it as a war crime". However, as neither von der Luhe nor the crew of E-34 survived the war it must be queried where these "facts" came from. At best, the account must be classed as hearsay and therefore can't be treated as proof. Another account tells the story of Obermaschinistenmaat Arthur Enigk who, along with a number of colleagues, was rescued by HMS Firedrake and made a prisoner of war. Enigk, who survived the war, stated they were kept in appalling conditions and fed very poor quality food. The author takes this single account as "actual proof that the British had developed an early form of concentration camp and had thought of a psychological style of warfare". Even though I have no doubt that some U-Boat prisoners were treated poorly, I find it very surprising that the author jumps to this conclusion. On the other hand, the book is completely devoid of any accounts of U-Boat men treating their prisoners badly. Are we meant to believe that this didn't happen and every single U-Boat commander was chivalrous to the last? The closest the author comes to this is his retelling of the infamous Charles Fryatt incident. At the end of this account the author simply states Fryatt was "executed by firing squad". Despite being quite willing to claim that the British committed war crimes and used concentration camps he doesn't give his opinion about how Fryatt was dealt with by the Germans.

Despite the above issues, for the most part it really is an excellent book. It's crammed with photographs which are worth buying the book for alone. The amount of information about the Flanders Flotilla is astounding. The book covers in detail the types of U-Boats used, technical details of the U-Boats, uniforms and equipment of the crew, information on the port facilities, crew leisure time, U-Boat tactics and allied countermeasures. At the end of the book the author describes the history and fate of every U-Boat that operated with the flotilla and includes photos of the wrecks of many of them. It's clear the author has put in a huge amount of effort collating the information contained within the book.

Hopefully, all the niggling problems will be rectified in a second edition. However, if a second edition isn't produced then I feel this will become the type of specialist book that in several years time will be changing hands at over £100. Therefore, if you're thinking of buying a copy I'd get it now whilst the price is still reasonable.

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