From the very beginning of World War II, the German U-boats proved their worth, attacking Atlantic shipping and imposing a trangulating blockade on Allied supply lines that seriously degraded Britain’s ability to wage war. In the Pacific theatre, US Navy submarines terrorised Japanese shipping, sinking over 1,000 ships, including a battleship, eight carriers and 11 heavy cruisers.

Arranged by country and by date, this book offers a detailed guide to the major types of submarine to serve in World War II. Find out about German U-boat U-47’s daring raid on the British naval base at Scapa Flow in October 1939, where it sank the battleship Royal Oak; marvel at the power of the German U-boat Wolf Packs, who sunk 32 Allied ships from Convoy SC-7 in just two days in 1940; learn about the Japanese I-19, which sunk the USS Wasp and USS O’Brien with a remarkable single salvo of six torpedoes in 1942; explore the German Type XXI diesel-electric Elektroboot, the first type designed to operate primarily submerged; wonder at the Japanese I-400 class carrier-submarine, which was equipped with floatplanes; and discover how U-boat U-405 was destroyed by a combination of small arms fire and ramming by American destroyer USS Borie in one of the most dramatic surface encounters of the war.

Illustrated with more than 100 vivid artworks, Technical Guide: Submarines of World War II is an essential reference guide for modellers and naval warfare enthusiasts.

E.V. Martindale specialises in maritime, engineering and railway history and has written and contributed to numerous books on these subjects over the last 30 years. He lives in England.