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Heinz Schaeffer, "U-Boat 977: The U-Boat that Escaped to Argentina (Fortunes of War)"

This was first published in English in 1952 amid great controversy. Nicholas Monsarrat, author of "The Cruel Sea" and veteran of service in anti-submarine corvettes wrote a double-edged sword of an introduction - rubbishing the claims of the recently beaten Germans that "they didn't know what was going on in Nazi Germany" but acknowledging that Schaeffer had written an excellent, and at that point unique account of the training, missions and lives of the U-boot crews. The book is fascinating, far from politically correct in the modern sense, and a window into the lives of the young German sailors who took on the Atlantic and the allied navies and air forces. Their efforts to strangle the economy of Britain and later to stop the supply of materiel to American and Russian forces were doomed to failure. They were overwhelmed by the superior economy and production skills of America, and rapidly lost out in the technological battles of radar, underwater ordnance and communications security. At the end of the war Schaeffer was in command of U-977 and rather than surrender to the Americans or British, he and what was left of his crew decided to make for Argentina. The trip included an astonishing period of sixty-six days under water, evading allied navies by means of using the newly fitted schnorkel - at the time a very uncomfortable and unpleasant experience for the crew as the submarine was frequently filled with diesel fumes and there was constantly changing air pressure in the boat as the snort valves opened and shut. They finally sailed into Mar del Plata on the 17th August 1945, more than three months after the end of the war in Europe. It was this voyage that prompted many tabloid media to claim Hitler, Eva Brown and Bormann had escaped from Germany on U-977. Schaeffer and his crew were interrogated by the Argentineans, Americans and British until even the most paranoid investigator was convinced that there was no basis for the story. Not quite four stars.

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