General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: New book on U-boat crews
Posted by:
Ken Dunn
()
Date: November 05, 2007 11:08PM
Hi Jukka,
Well I just got my (English language) copy of “U-boote Crewsâ€. The good news is that it only cost $28.35 U.S. and shipping was free at (the American) amazon.com. The paper it is printed on is indeed high quality and that allows better quality photos to look very good.
It has a number of photos I had never seen (and I own over 100 U-boat related books already) and some good information I hadn’t known too. However it also has a number of photos that I have seen many times before.
I have only skimmed it as it just arrived but already I have found some errors (something you rarely find in a Showell book). The first one I noticed is in the caption of a photo showing survivors on the deck of a U-boat identified as U-68 towing some lifeboats. The caption reads “After torpedoing the Atlantis, U-68 recovered the prisoners, some of whom were towed behind in their lifeboatsâ€. Well U-68 certainly didn’t torpedo the German raider Atlantis, U-68 wasn’t even there at the time she was attacked and sunk by the Brits with gunfire – U-126 was. After U-126 rescued all of the survivors and took them to the Python, the Python was sunk by yet another British warship and U-68 ended up towing some of the lifeboats from Python. Whoever wrote that caption didn’t have a clue…..
I have one other Histories & Collections book in my collection (Dalliès-Labourdette, Jean-Philippe. U-Boote 1935-1945 The History of the Kriegsmarine U-Boats. Paris: Histories & Collections, 1996. ISBN: 2-908182-42-4) and it is also printed on high quality paper and also contains a number of errors.
That being said the new (to me) photos & new (to me) information in “U-boote Crews†make the book worth the money to me. Others will have to decide for themselves though.
It does irritate me that they frequently use one photo to cover up part of another photo making it difficult to scan the photo being partially covered up. Of course this is copyrighted material & photos aren’t supposed to be scanned without the permission of the copyright holder but it bothers me none the less.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
Well I just got my (English language) copy of “U-boote Crewsâ€. The good news is that it only cost $28.35 U.S. and shipping was free at (the American) amazon.com. The paper it is printed on is indeed high quality and that allows better quality photos to look very good.
It has a number of photos I had never seen (and I own over 100 U-boat related books already) and some good information I hadn’t known too. However it also has a number of photos that I have seen many times before.
I have only skimmed it as it just arrived but already I have found some errors (something you rarely find in a Showell book). The first one I noticed is in the caption of a photo showing survivors on the deck of a U-boat identified as U-68 towing some lifeboats. The caption reads “After torpedoing the Atlantis, U-68 recovered the prisoners, some of whom were towed behind in their lifeboatsâ€. Well U-68 certainly didn’t torpedo the German raider Atlantis, U-68 wasn’t even there at the time she was attacked and sunk by the Brits with gunfire – U-126 was. After U-126 rescued all of the survivors and took them to the Python, the Python was sunk by yet another British warship and U-68 ended up towing some of the lifeboats from Python. Whoever wrote that caption didn’t have a clue…..
I have one other Histories & Collections book in my collection (Dalliès-Labourdette, Jean-Philippe. U-Boote 1935-1945 The History of the Kriegsmarine U-Boats. Paris: Histories & Collections, 1996. ISBN: 2-908182-42-4) and it is also printed on high quality paper and also contains a number of errors.
That being said the new (to me) photos & new (to me) information in “U-boote Crews†make the book worth the money to me. Others will have to decide for themselves though.
It does irritate me that they frequently use one photo to cover up part of another photo making it difficult to scan the photo being partially covered up. Of course this is copyrighted material & photos aren’t supposed to be scanned without the permission of the copyright holder but it bothers me none the less.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
