The Burning Shore: How Hitler's U-Boats Brought World War II to America (Library)
On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun on Virginia Beach, a massive fireball erupted from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. By the next day, three ships lay at the bottom of the channel, victims of Lieutenant-Commander Horst Degen and his crew on the German submarine U-701.
In The Burning Shore, acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of Degen's rampage along the American coast and of US Lieutenant Harry J. Kane's quest to bring him down. Since the beginning of 1942, German U-boats had prowled the waters of the Atlantic, sinking merchant ships and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from the United States to Great Britain. But when Kane and his crew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore that summer, the ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic-and the beginning of an unlikely friendship between the two rival commanders.
A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, The Burning Shore describes how a small band of mariners and aviators drove Hitler's wolf packs from America's home waters.
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Robertson Dean has played leading roles on and off Broadway and at dozens of regional theaters throughout the country. He has a BA from Tufts University and an MFA from Yale. His audiobook narration has garnered ten AudioFile Earphones Awards. He now lives in Los Angeles, where he works in film and television in addition to narrating.
We have a special appreciation for dramatic stories of untold wartime heroism, and Ed Offley's gripping tale does not disappoint. Veering from the well-worn paths of World War II's European and Pacific Theaters, Offley's The Burning Shore breaks new ground in its description of the German U-boat invasion of America's Eastern Seaboard in 1942, and the courageous efforts by an undermanned United States military to prevent the Nazis from crippling our war efforts in the Atlantic. Bravo.
-- "Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, New York Times bestselling authors "Offley, a specialist in underwater operations, evokes the environment of U-boats that were themselves obsolescent-small, cramped, and operating at the limits of their effective range.
-- "Publishers Weekly"An authoritative work on the awful, early effectiveness of German U-boats in disrupting shipping traffic off the east coast of the United States...A knowledgeable overview and exciting re-creation of the final U-701 attack and defeat.
-- "Kirkus Reviews"An oft-told tale, but Offley, who has spent decades researching it, makes the U-boat war new again by focusing on two central characters-a USAAF bomber pilot and the captain of the German submarine he sank. A terrifying evocation of what can happen when America lets its guard down.
-- "David Poyer, author of The Witness of the Whale"
