Torpedo Junction: U-Boat War Off America's East Coast, 1942 - Hardcover

Hickam, Homer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0870217585 ISBN 13: 9780870217586

Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 1989

Slaughter at sea—just miles from U.S. soil!

In 1942 German U-boats turned the shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras into a sea of death. Cruising up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard, they sank 259 ships, littering the waters with cargo and bodies. As astonished civilians witnessed explosions from American beaches, fighting men dubbed the area "Torpedo Junction." And while the U.S. Navy failed to react, a handful of Coast Guard sailors scrambled to the front lines. Outgunned and out-maneuvered, they heroically battled the deadliest fleet of submarines ever launched. Never was Germany closer to winning the war.

In a moving ship-by-ship account of terror and rescue at sea, Homer Hickam chronicles a little-known saga of courage, ingenuity, and triumph in the early years of World War II. From nerve-racking sea duels to the dramatic ordeals of sailors and victims on both sides of the battle, Hickam dramatically captures a war we had to win—because this one hit terrifyingly close to home.

From the Back Cover:

"The best account to date of America's early war against the U-Boat."
--The Journal of Military History

"Homer Hickam is a gifted storyteller...the reader is transported back to those crucial battles at sea to live and die with those seamen."
--The Times-Herald(Newport News, Va.)

"A dramatic end detailed account."
--West Coast Review of Books

About the Author:

Homer H. Hickam, Jr., was born and raised in Coalwood, West Virginia. The author of Torpedo Junction, a Military History Book of the Month Club selection, as well as numerous articles for such publications as Smithsonian Air and Space and American History Illustrated, he is a NASA payload training manager for the International Space Program and lives in Huntsville, Alabama.