The Iron Sea
How the Allies Hunted and Destroyed Hitler's Warships
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Narrated by:
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Raphael Corkhill
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By:
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Simon Read
About this listen
From the acclaimed military history author, this action-packed World War II history describes the Allies' brutal naval engagements and daring harbor raids to destroy the backbone of Hitler's surface fleet.
The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships - Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean - roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence".
The campaign against Hitler's surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German-occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea.
Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts, and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.
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Critic reviews
"Winston Churchill's greatest fear in World War II was of losing the battle of the Atlantic and Britain being starved into surrender. I felt tingles down my spine when I read of the feats of so very many ordinary men and women from so many walks of life who sank Hitler's battle fleet, and stopped that from happening.... Read's Iron Sea, with its scholarly research and scintillating prose style, will leave you full of pride for that extraordinary generation and their staggering achievement." (Andrew Roberts, award-winning and best-selling author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny)
"Prepare to journey back in time to the perilous early years of the Second World War, where Britain's lifelines depended on the destruction of four mighty German surface ships. Simon Read brilliantly retells the stories of the hunt for Hitler's warships in a single volume, which is crisply researched and brimming with vivid prose." (Patrick K. O'Donnell, best-selling author of Washington's Immortals and The Unknowns)
"Simon Read's The Iron Sea is a riveting fast-paced drama about the havoc Hitler's surface fleet caused the Allies in World War II. Expertly researched and finely written this is a major new contribution to WW2 military history. Highly recommended!" (Douglas Brinkley, New York Times best-selling author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race)
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Story
In May 1941 the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy's pursuit and subsequent destruction of the Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare. In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of the Second World War, Iain Ballantyne draws extensively on the graphic eyewitness testimony of veterans to construct a thrilling story, mainly from the point of view of the British battleships, cruisers, and destroyers involved.
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1960 a young boy became awed
- By torpedo alley on 10-02-19
By: Iain Ballantyne
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Bismarck
- The Final Days of Germany's Greatest Battleship
- By: Niklas Zetterling, Michael Tamelander
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The sinking of the German battleship Bismarck - a masterpiece of engineering, well-armored with a main artillery of eight 15-inch guns - was one of the most dramatic events of World War II. She left the port of Gotenhafen for her first operation on the night of 18 May 1941, yet was almost immediately discovered by Norwegian resistance and Allied air reconnaissance. British battlecruiser Hood was quickly dispatched from Scapa Flow to intercept the Bismarck, together with new battleship Prince of Wales.
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A must read for any WWII Naval Historian!
- By Rick on 10-14-13
By: Niklas Zetterling, and others
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Days of Steel Rain
- The Epic Story of a WWII Vengeance Ship in the Year of the Kamikaze
- By: Brent E. Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Sprawling across the Pacific, this untold story follows the crew of the newly-built "vengeance ship" USS Astoria, named for her sunken predecessor lost earlier in the war. At its center lies US Navy Captain George Dyer, who vowed to return to action after suffering a horrific wound. He accepted the ship's command in 1944, knowing it would be his last chance to avenge his injuries and salvage his career. Yet with the nation's resources and personnel stretched thin by the war, he found that just getting the ship into action would prove to be a battle.
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The Other Side of the Story: USS Astoria CL-90
- By Mike Williams on 11-16-21
By: Brent E. Jones
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Blazing Star, Setting Sun
- The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign November 1942-March 1943
- By: Jeffrey Cox
- Narrated by: Lance C Fuller
- Length: 24 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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By the end of February 1944, thanks to hard-fought and costly American victories in the first and second naval battles of Guadalcanal, the battle of Empress Augusta Bay and the battle of Cape St George, the Japanese would no longer hold the materiel or skilled manpower advantage. From this point on, although the war was still a long way from being won, the American star was unquestionably on the ascendant, slowly, but surely, edging Japanese imperialism towards its sunset.
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Narrator Ruined the Book
- By Duncan on 08-20-20
By: Jeffrey Cox
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The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
- The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Told from the point of view of the men who waged this steel-shattering battle, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors captures Navy pilots attacking enemy battleships with makeshift weapons and sacrificial valor, a veteran commander improvising tactics never taught in Annapolis, and young crews from across America rising to an impossible challenge.
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Outstanding
- By John on 04-17-04
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The Ghost Ships of Archangel
- The Arctic Voyage That Defied the Nazis
- By: William Geroux
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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On the fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic separated from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice field of the North Pole, seeking safety from Nazi bombers and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and giant bergs. Despite the risks, they had a better chance of survival than the rest of Convoy PQ-17, a fleet of 35 cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel - the limited help Roosevelt and Churchill extended to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to maintain their fragile alliance.
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A lot of chaff
- By J. Willson on 02-01-22
By: William Geroux
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Sink ‘Em All
- Submarine Warfare in the Pacific
- By: Charles A. Lockwood
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Sink 'Em All was originally published in 1951 by Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, the US Navy commander of the Pacific submarine fleet during World War II. Lockwood, in his leadership role, knew the skippers and crews of the submarines and retells their wartime successes and tragedies with an intimacy and realism often missing in second-hand accounts.
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Best of the best
- By Robert on 08-29-18
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Battle of Surigao Strait
- Twentieth-Century Battles
- By: Anthony P. Tully
- Narrated by: Gary Roelofs
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Surigao Strait in the Philippine Islands was the scene of a major battleship duel during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Because the battle was fought at night and had few survivors on the Japanese side, the events of that naval engagement have been passed down in garbled accounts. Anthony P. Tully pulls together all of the existing documentary material, including newly discovered accounts and a careful analysis of U.S. Navy action reports, to create a new and more detailed description of the action.
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A Much Needed History!
- By Chiefkent on 09-09-14
By: Anthony P. Tully
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Neptune's Inferno
- The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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With The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, James D. Hornfischer created essential and enduring narratives about America’s World War II Navy, works of unique immediacy distinguished by rich portraits of ordinary men in extremis and exclusive new information. Now he does the same for the deadliest, most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war: Guadalcanal. Neptune’s Inferno is at once the most epic and the most intimate account ever written of the contest for control of the seaways of the Solomon Islands.
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The WWII Pacific Theater Explodes In My Lazy Chair
- By Rum Runner on 03-01-11
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Turning the Tide
- How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-Boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic
- By: Ed Offley
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The U.S. experienced its most harrowing military disaster of World War II not in 1941 at Pearl Harbor, but rather in the period from 1942 to 1943, in the frigid North Atlantic and American coastal waters from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Nearly seven decades after the event, the Battle of the Atlantic still stands as the longest-running and most lethal clash of arms in naval history.
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Just The Facts
- By PismoPat on 05-15-11
By: Ed Offley
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The Twilight Warriors
- The Deadliest Naval Battle of World War II and the Men Who Fought It
- By: Robert Gandt
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Nazis are collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are vastly overpowering the Japanese in the Pacific. For a group of pilots in their early 20s who were trained during the twilight of the war, the biggest concern is that they'll never actually see real action and will go home without having a chance to face the enemy.
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Excellent Selection: One of the Best in this Genre
- By David on 09-22-11
By: Robert Gandt
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Tirpitz
- The Life and Death of Germany's Last Super Battleship
- By: Niklas Zetterling, Michael Tamelander
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Whilst the Kriegsmarine's surface fleet, restricted for much of the period after 1919 by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, was relatively small in comparison to the Royal Navy, it did possess a number of highly potent battleships and other capital vessels that could - and did - pose a major threat to British interests in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. Amongst the most powerful were the two battleships - the Bismarck and the Tirpitz.
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A great and compelling saga, wonderfully read
- By Scott on 12-31-14
By: Niklas Zetterling, and others
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The War Below
- The Story of Three Submarines That Battled Japan
- By: James Scott
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The War Below is a dramatic account of extraordinary heroism, ingenuity, and perseverance—and the vital role American submarines played in winning the Pacific War. Focusing on the unique stories of the submarines Silversides, Drum, and Tang—and the men who skippered and crewed them—James Scott takes readers beneath the waves to experience the thrill of a direct hit on a merchant ship and the terror of depth charge attacks.
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Unique. Engaging. Worth your credit.
- By Ryan on 06-21-13
By: James Scott
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Rising Sun, Falling Skies
- The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II
- By: Jeffrey Cox
- Narrated by: Theodore O'Brien
- Length: 22 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Few events have ever shaken a country in the way that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor affected the United States. After the devastating attack, Japanese forces continued to overwhelm the Allies, attacking Malaya with its fortress of Singapore, and taking resource-rich islands in the Pacific - Borneo, Sumatra, and Java - in their own blitzkrieg offensive. Allied losses in these early months after America's entry into the war were great, and among the most devastating were those suffered during the Java Sea Campaign.
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The first months of the war were frightening.
- By michael s on 10-07-22
By: Jeffrey Cox
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Halsey's Typhoon
- By: Bob Drury, Tom Clavin
- Narrated by: Eric Conger
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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December 1944, the Pacific Theater. General Douglas MacArthur has vowed to return to the Philippines. He will need the help of Admiral William "Bull" Halsey's Pacific Fleet. But at the height of the invasion, Halsey's ships are blindsided by a typhoon of unprecedented strength and scope. Battleships are tossed like toys, fighter planes are blown off carriers, destroyers are capsized, and hundreds of sailors are swept into the roiling, shark-infested sea.
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Weather and Naval History Masterpiece
- By M. Taussig on 02-17-07
By: Bob Drury, and others
What listeners say about The Iron Sea
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Smith family
- 03-23-21
Action packed history.
The author and narrator did an amazing job keeping me engaged. Great depth in historical naval engagements.
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- S. H. Moore
- 11-05-20
Good book if you not really familiar with WW2 at Sea.
There are two other books on Audible that cover the Naval warfare in WW2. Almost everything in this book are covered in them. However, some of it not in as much detail. If you’re familiar with “The Channel Dash”, Bismarck, Battle of North Cape and Tirpitz there isn’t much in here you’re not aware of. The Tirpitz story is very well told however. I did really enjoy it. Other than getting the book “Tirpitz” alone this is the best coverage on Audible. The best new thing that I enjoyed most about this book, it tells the story of Operation Chariot very very well. I wasn’t to familiar with this operation other than just the name of it and what they achieved. This book really hashes our each objective of the mission and weaves it into an action packed narrative. The only other thing on Audible I know of that covers Chariot is the “War of Words” radio drama where one episode is the story of Chariot. If you are interest in this thrilling Commando raid get this book. Even the other subjects covered are done well. If it was me, the other two are better.
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5 people found this helpful