RAIDERS OF THE DEEP

AUTHOR - Lowell Thomas

PUBLICATION - William Heinemann Ltd. London Crown Library edition 1930

CONDITION - Good condition, some bumping and rubbing at top and bottom of spine and corners. Blue cloth is a little age discoloured. Inside has expected age discolouration and some foxing especially on endpapers and adjacent pages, and page block edges. Binding shaky but intact. No dustwrapper.

PRICE - $32

DESCRIPTION - This 1928 bestseller by the internationally renowned journalist Lowell Thomas was the first American account of German submariners to offer a sympathetic, behind-the-scenes look at the men who prowled the English Channel, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean in U-boats. Thomas was widely known for his news dispatches from the battlefields of World War I. This vivid portrait of undersea warfare revealed details of the new technology. Thomas allows his subjects to tell their stories in their own words, rendering an infinitely interesting look at the challenges of life aboard these early submarines. Their dramatic oral histories tell of Walther Schwieger's sinking of the Lusitania, of the seven U-boat raiders sent to lay mines across the Atlantic and sink merchant ships off the coast of the United States, and of the German U-9 which had been shadowing three British Cruisers patrolling the North Sea torpedoed and sunk all three before breakfast. By mid-morning, the Cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy lay at the bottom of the North Sea, 1500 British seamen were dead and the triumphant U-boat commander would go on to be made a Knight-Commander of the Iron Cross. The triple sinking caused an outrage at the time and accusations were flung at Prince Louis of Battenburg (the First Sea Lord) and Winston Churchill. A Court of Enquiry followed, but as the pace of the war stepped up and rigorous censorship followed, the incident was all but forgotten. However, the sinking was to reshape tactics for every navy in the world.

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