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  • The Encyclopedia of U-Boats: From 1904 to the Present
  • Eric C. Rust
The Encyclopedia of U-Boats: From 1904 to the Present. By Eberhard Möller and Werner Brack. Translated by Andrea Battson and Roger Chesneau. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2005. ISBN 1-85367-623-3. Photographs. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Sources. Pp. 239. $39.95.

Originally published in German in 2002, Eberhard Möller and Werner Brack have put together an attractive volume packed with historical, operational, and technical data on U-boats under the Kaiser, under Hitler, and in the Federal German Navy since 1945. Möller, a former Kriegsmarine U-boat engineer, has published several works on the technical aspects of German naval construction, while Brack brings a lifelong fascination with matters maritime to the project and is responsible for the book's superb photographic illustrations and line drawings.

While statistical information on the U-boat campaigns in both World Wars is widely available, few books supply the sweeping overview with well-researched supporting details such as this Encyclopedia provides. After a segment on early submarines, the authors offer statistical and historical data along with design information for every U-boat commissioned into the three German navies since 1904 (the East German navy did not develop a submarine component) and those built for foreign countries. Each boat's fate is covered in a brief note. It includes the number of fatalities and survivors and the location of the loss, but unfortunately does not mention precisely who or what was responsible for the boat's destruction or who its last commanding officer was. In virtually every case the information offered matches that contained in pertinent statistical works on the subject and thus represents up-to-date scholarship.

While predictably boats on active duty and their fates make up the bulk of the book, the authors add sections on U-boat projects never carried out; on captured submarines in German service; on miniature submarines; on machinery, sensors, weaponry, and propulsion; on U-boat "aces" in both wars and their exploits; and on sundry subjects such as U-boat decoys; U-boat tankers; concrete shelters; operations in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; commercial submarines in World War I; U-boats still on display at various locations in Europe and the United States; and the submarines of the [End Page 851] Austro-Hungarian Navy. Notes and a somewhat meager bibliography of mainly German works round out the volume.

Given the authors' backgrounds, it should not surprise that the work's greatest strength lies in its wealth of technical data, especially on propulsion systems, and in its hundreds of excellent black-and-white photographs, most of them never published before. An attentive reader will quickly discover that the U-boats' essential characteristics were in place by the end of World War I, that few truly revolutionary features were added before the Type XXI and XXIII designs late in World War II, and that experiments in propulsion technology, weaponry, boat design, and guidance systems continue to this day, with Germany retaining a leading role in the nonnuclear field. The same reader may regret that the authors keep their references to other navies and their experiences with submarines to a minimum; but then this is an encyclopedia on the history of German U-boats, not an exhaustive treatment of underwater craft in general.

In short, Möller and Brack fill in a gap in the existing literature with a well-conceived and nicely appointed book that should find a space on many scholars' shelves as well as on the coffee tables of a more general audience.

Eric C. Rust
Baylor University
Waco, Texas
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