It took me a while to get into this one as I didn't find the main character---a German U-boat captain---likable, not even by the end. Still Douglas writes excellent World War II naval fiction, as he served on motor torpedo boats during that war and knew what it felt like to kill and have friends killed.
He took a bit of license with this book, as he has numerous German U-boats still working in the North Atlantic in early 1944. They were mostly withdrawn from that area by then. In mid-1943, the Battle of the Atlantic tuned in favor of the Allies and the German U-boats became more the hunted than the hunters. Just in May 1943 alone, the Allies sunk 43 German U-boats. This was when the Allies formed Killer-Hunter groups of fast anti-submarine ships which went where the U-boats were found, and the convoys were often provided with air cover. After that, the Allied navies no longer considered the ships in convoys as victims, but as bait to lure the U-boats in to be sunk.
He took a bit of license with this book, as he has numerous German U-boats still working in the North Atlantic in early 1944. They were mostly withdrawn from that area by then. In mid-1943, the Battle of the Atlantic tuned in favor of the Allies and the German U-boats became more the hunted than the hunters. Just in May 1943 alone, the Allies sunk 43 German U-boats. This was when the Allies formed Killer-Hunter groups of fast anti-submarine ships which went where the U-boats were found, and the convoys were often provided with air cover. After that, the Allied navies no longer considered the ships in convoys as victims, but as bait to lure the U-boats in to be sunk.
