Laconia incident - A High-Risk Military Rescue Operation of WWII Under The Line of Fire

Laconia incident - A High-Risk Military Rescue Operation of WWII Under The Line of Fire PDF Author: Edgar Wollstone
Publisher: AJS
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
The years 1939-1945 is etched on the minds of many for myriad reasons. It was an epoch of terrible chaos, devastating loss, and inexplicable horror. The Second World War was wreaking havoc all over the world. Several events have shaken the collective conscience of mankind. Hitler’s pathological hatred for the Jews, the holocaust, the Auschwitz concentration camps and its horrors, the atomic bomb and its long-term detrimental repercussions, the economic perils, rampant epidemics, severe shortage of food and supplies, deaths due to starvation, etc. are well known dark pages of history. Though these events have been repeated ad nauseum, they still don’t fail to send shivers down one’s spine. But the Laconia Incident that transpired on the eve of September 12th, 1942, stood apart in its scale and tragedy. An armed British ship was intercepted by a German U-boat. The teal waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific was no safer for anybody. It was replete with U-boats and submarines that took the cover of darkness and the sinister waves to waylay enemy ships. They waited in stealth to pounce on the enemy and scuttle the ship on sight. The Laconia Incident is a bone-chilling tale of tragic killing of hundreds of people when a German U-boat torpedoed a British armed ship. The RMS Laconia was unescorted and a sitting duck to the German U-boat. The commanding officer ordered it to be torpedoed. The orders were carried out in an instant. When the German commanding officer Captain Hartenstein surfaced the submarine hoping to collect any intelligence from the sinking ship, he was appalled by the innumerable upturned faces dotting the violent shark-infested sea. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were scrambling for life. What should the German captain do? Should he rescue the enemy civilians? Should he execute the dictator Fuhrer’s orders of eliminating all survivors? Should he follow the calls of his heart and embark on a near-impossible rescue mission? The Captain unlike his Fuhrer had his heart in the right place. He dared to carry out a mission to save the enemy jeopardizing his own life and career. And for this act of humanity and compassion, will he be honored or cursed? Read the book to know the tragic story of the Laconia Incident and the German Captain Hartenstein who risked his own life and career to rescue the enemy.

Laconia incident - A High-Risk Military Rescue Operation of WWII Under The Line of Fire

Laconia incident - A High-Risk Military Rescue Operation of WWII Under The Line of Fire PDF Author: Edgar Wollstone
Publisher: AJS
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 43

Get Book Here

Book Description
The years 1939-1945 is etched on the minds of many for myriad reasons. It was an epoch of terrible chaos, devastating loss, and inexplicable horror. The Second World War was wreaking havoc all over the world. Several events have shaken the collective conscience of mankind. Hitler’s pathological hatred for the Jews, the holocaust, the Auschwitz concentration camps and its horrors, the atomic bomb and its long-term detrimental repercussions, the economic perils, rampant epidemics, severe shortage of food and supplies, deaths due to starvation, etc. are well known dark pages of history. Though these events have been repeated ad nauseum, they still don’t fail to send shivers down one’s spine. But the Laconia Incident that transpired on the eve of September 12th, 1942, stood apart in its scale and tragedy. An armed British ship was intercepted by a German U-boat. The teal waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific was no safer for anybody. It was replete with U-boats and submarines that took the cover of darkness and the sinister waves to waylay enemy ships. They waited in stealth to pounce on the enemy and scuttle the ship on sight. The Laconia Incident is a bone-chilling tale of tragic killing of hundreds of people when a German U-boat torpedoed a British armed ship. The RMS Laconia was unescorted and a sitting duck to the German U-boat. The commanding officer ordered it to be torpedoed. The orders were carried out in an instant. When the German commanding officer Captain Hartenstein surfaced the submarine hoping to collect any intelligence from the sinking ship, he was appalled by the innumerable upturned faces dotting the violent shark-infested sea. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were scrambling for life. What should the German captain do? Should he rescue the enemy civilians? Should he execute the dictator Fuhrer’s orders of eliminating all survivors? Should he follow the calls of his heart and embark on a near-impossible rescue mission? The Captain unlike his Fuhrer had his heart in the right place. He dared to carry out a mission to save the enemy jeopardizing his own life and career. And for this act of humanity and compassion, will he be honored or cursed? Read the book to know the tragic story of the Laconia Incident and the German Captain Hartenstein who risked his own life and career to rescue the enemy.

Naval Accidents, 1945-1988

Naval Accidents, 1945-1988 PDF Author: William M. Arkin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Marine accidents
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description


Lifeboat

Lifeboat PDF Author: John R. Stilgoe
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813922218
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
The fire extinguisher; the airline safety card; the lifeboat. Until September 11, 2001, most Americans paid homage to these appurtenances of disaster with a sidelong glance, if at all. But John Stilgoe has been thinking about lifeboats ever since he listened with his father as the kitchen radio announced that the liner Lakonia had caught fire and sunk in the Atlantic. It was Christmas 1963, and airline travel and Cold War paranoia had made the images of an ocean liner's distress--the air force dropping supplies in the dark, a freighter collecting survivors from lifeboats--seem like echoes of a bygone era. But Stilgoe, already a passionate reader and an aficionado of small-boat navigation, began to delve into accounts of other disasters at sea. What he found was a trunkful of hair-raising stories--of shipwreck, salvation, seamanship brilliant and inept, noble sacrifice, insanity, cannibalism, courage and cravenness, even scandal. In nonfiction accounts and in the works of Conrad, Melville, and Tomlinson, fear and survival animate and degrade human nature, in the microcosm of an open boat as in society at large. How lifeboats are made, rigged, and captained, Stilgoe discovered, and how accounts of their use or misuse are put down, says much about the culture and circumstances from which they are launched. In the hands of a skillful historian such as Stilgoe, the lifeboat becomes a symbol of human optimism, of engineering ingenuity, of bureaucratic regulation, of fear and frailty. Woven through Lifeboat are good old-fashioned yarns, thrilling tales of adventure that will quicken the pulse of readers who have enjoyed the novels of Patrick O'Brian, Crabwalk by G nter Grass, or works of nonfiction such as The Perfect Storm and In the Heart of the Sea. But Stilgoe, whose other works have plumbed suburban culture, locomotives, and the shore, is ultimately after bigger fish. Through the humble, much-ignored lifeboat, its design and navigation and the stories of its ultimate purpose, he has found a peculiar lens on roughly the past two centuries of human history, particularly the war-tossed, technology-driven history of man and the sea.

Battle

Battle PDF Author: John Toland
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803299680
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 543

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Book Description
"The perspective of 15 years, painstaking research, thousands of interviews, extensive analysis and evaluation, and the creative talent of John Toland [paint] the epic struggle on an immense canvas. . . . Toland writes with the authority of a man who was there. . . . He tastes the bitterness of defeat of those who surrendered and writes as if he had the benefit of the eyes and ears of soldiers and generals on the other side of the line. . . . If you could read only one book to understand generals and GIs and what their different wars were like this is the book."--Chicago Sunday Tribune "The author has devoted years to studying memoirs, interviewing veterans and consulting military documents, both German and American. He also has revisited the old battlefields in Belgium and Luxembourg. . . . Toland has told the whole story with dramatic realism. . . . It is a story of panic, terror and of high-hearted courage."--New York Times Book Review "For the first time in the growing literature of World War II, the inspiring story of the stubborn, lonely, dogged battle of the Americans locked in this tragic salient is told. . . . gripping . . . You cannot put it down once you start it."--San Francisco Chronicle

To the Last Man :.

To the Last Man :. PDF Author: Jonathan D. Bratten
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Iron Coffins

Iron Coffins PDF Author: Herbert A. Werner
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9780306811609
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
The former German U-boat commander Herbert Werner navigates readers through the waters of World War II, recounting four years of the most significant and savage battles. By war's end, 28,000 out of 39,000 German sailors had disappeared beneath the waves.

Marine Fire Prevention, Firefighting and Fire Safety

Marine Fire Prevention, Firefighting and Fire Safety PDF Author: Maritime Training Advisory Board (U.S.)
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 0788104780
Category : Ships
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
A comprehensive training and reference manual used as a textbook in maritime institutions. Addresses the prevention, control, and extinguishing of fires aboard commercial vessels and on offshore drilling rigs. Includes chapters on emergency procedures and equipment as well as case studies of past shipboard fires. Generously illustrated with drawings, photos, diagrams, tables, and checklists. Recommended reading for all maritime personnel and kept both in shipboard reference libraries and in the offices of maritime executives.

The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations

The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Maritime law
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description


The Finest Hours

The Finest Hours PDF Author: Michael J. Tougias
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 150110683X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The 1952 Coast Guard mission to save the crews of two oil tankers that were torn in half by the force of one of New England's worst nor'easters.

Silent Hunters

Silent Hunters PDF Author: Theodore P. Savas
Publisher: Savas Publishing
ISBN: 1940669006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The compelling true stories of six little-known U-boat commanders and their dramatic WWII careers. When World War II erupted across Europe in 1939, Germany knew it couldn’t hope to compete with the Royal Navy in a head-to-head naval war. Left with no viable alternatives, the U-Bootwaffe wagered everything on the submarine in a desperate attempt to sink more tonnage than the Allies could construct. Some of these “silent hunters” who slipped out of their shelters along Europe's shores to stalk their prey have enjoyed considerable recognition in the years since. While most aspects of the bitter struggle have been told and retold from both the Axis and Allied points of view, the careers of some highly effective U-boat commanders have languished in undeserved obscurity. The profiles of six such commanders are presented in this collection of essays. They include Englebert Endrass, whose spectacular career before being lost off the coast of Gibraltar is described here by his best friend and fellow ace Enrich Topp, who wrote this while on his fifteenth War Patrol; Karl-Friedrich Merten, who was ranked among the war’s top tonnage aces; Ralph Kapitsky, whose U-615 suicidal surface-to-air battle in the Caribbean allowed many of his fellow submariners to escape into the Atlantic; Fritz Guggenberger, who sank an aircraft carrier and organized the biggest POW escape attempt in American history; Victor Oehrn, a former staff officer of Karl Dönitz's; and Heinz Eck, who was executed by the British. Includes photographs