The best description of the climax of the Atlantic War in the spring of 1943. After this battle, the U-boat service was unable to seriously interfere with build-up of men and materiel in Britain. The system of convoy protection is clearly explained, and in this period, the forces available for mercantile protection had become large enough for effective action against the U-boat threat. Middlebrook is a patriotic Brit, and his story reflects this, but his pride is justifiable. ( )

It would be difficult to imagine a more complete analysis of the events describe herein than that produced by Middlebrook. To get this amazing amount of information from the actual participants, he interview 100's of them. He even tells us how he found them so many years after the events took place. The subject of the book is the the battle that took place in March, 1943 between Convoys CS.122 and HX.229 and many German U-Boats and how this was the last time the U-Boats had the upper hand. From tactics learned in this battle and the fact that if the Allies did not look to new tactics, the Battle of the Atlantic would be lost and so from this point on the U-boats would suffer huge losses. Despite all the detail, Middlebrook manages to make this a page turner. Numerous appendices list all ships, U-boats and many of he personal involved in the battle. ( )