Fonthill Media, would very much like to announce the publication of Jak P. Mallmann Showell’s U-boats of the Second World War: Their Longest Voyages.

U-boats of the Second World War
Their Longest Voyages
by Jak P. Mallmann Showell

Publication: 31 August 2017
Price: £18.99/$29.95
ISBN: 978-1-78155-634-4
Size: 234 x 156 mm
Binding: Paperback
Extent: 240 pages
Illustrations: 98 mono
Rights: World, all languages

U-boats, each one not much longer than four European articulated lorries with up to sixty men inside them, sailed the far-off seas to reap havoc in hot inhospitable waters. The air forces and navies from Britain, the United States and other colonial countries followed to make this a daring and death-threatening venture. The facts of what the U-boats achieved against massive odds have been told before, but U-boats of the Second World War: Their Longest Voyages is different: it concentrates more on how it was done; how the men survived; how they lived and died; and how they still found time to carry out their orders. This gripping book is based on masses of previously unpublished documents from the German U-boat Museum, many of them written during or shortly after the war by men who survived this bitter conflict. This is the story of how specially built long-range U-boats started out one step ahead of the Allied navies and air power, how they fell one step behind, and how they finally vanished into the depths of the deepest oceans. This is a remarkable story of endurance, courage and comradeship that terrified the world for the most critical period of the Second World War.

• Text based on previously unpublished accounts from the German U-boat Museum and fresh material from the Government Code and Cypher School Naval Histories
• Original research with extracts from official operations, diaries and published memoirs
• Written with help from the German U-boat Museum and Bletchley Park in the UK
• Illustrated with new and rarely seen photographs

Jak P. Mallmann Showell, son of a U-boat diesel mechanic who was killed in action, has produced more than forty books about naval activities during the Second World War. His research is based on original first-hand documents such as wartime logs, accounts written shortly after the events, and on many personal interviews. Born in Hamburg in 1944, Showell grew up amidst the ruins of a great firestorm, came to London in 1954, and has lived in England ever since. He is the English language representative for the German U-boat Museum (formerly U-Boot-Archiv) in Cuxhaven and has been awarded the Silver U-boat Badge by the German Submariners’ Association in Munich for furthering international relations and maintaining naval traditions.