Being there . . . . when the United States declared war on Germany in 1917 due to Deutschland
unleashing a resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare off the eastern Canadian and
American coasts. Author Dominic Etzold, who devoted more than three years to researching
and writing, “Reaping the Whirlwind – The U-Boat War Off North America During World War I”,
had few German naval records to utilize in English-language accounts and histories that
occurred in the short months of actual combat in Atlantic waters. All that Dominic could do was
to analyze and compare both exceedingly rare American and German archival sources. Because
of his diligent resoluteness, Etzold constructed a riveting, thoroughly engaging contemporary,
revelatory treatise of our naval battles with the Germans during the waning months of what to
be known as World War I. His introductory “premise”, or, buffs, as ultra-scholarly historians and
historical researchers winkingly say, “a proposition antecedently supposed or proved”, “The
meeting of two competent fleets in roughly equal numbers usually result in inconclusive
actions.” In reality, this is what happened off our eastern seaboard. Did you know that?
THE GERMAN U-BOAT CAMPAIGN OFF NORTH AMERICA DURING WORLD WAR ONE HAS BEEN
REGARDED BY ALLIED MILITARY STRATEGISTS AND HISTORIANS AS EITHER, AT WORST, “A
HEARTY LAUGH,” AND, AT BEST, A “NOVELTY”. IN TERM OF BATTLE OPERATIONS AT SEA, THERE
WAS LITTLE “ROMANTIC DRAMA”. QUERY THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC 20 TH CENTURY WAR
READER AND, GENERALLY, ALL HE OR SHE CAN MENTION IS THE SINKING OF THE SAD
‘LUSITANIA’. VIRTUALLY NO ONE KNOWS THAT THE SUBMERGED GERMAN COMMANDERS
THRILLED AT THE SIGHTS OF 1914 -1918 TRAFFIC ALONG THE COASTAL HIGHWAYS OF
ATLANTIC AMERICA AND CANADA. THEIR IRRISTIBLE URGE TO SURFACE THEIR BOATS AND
QUICKLY LOB A SHELL OR TWO HAD TO BE REPRESSED, AT LEAST UNTIL THE START OF 1918.
YET, AS THE FOLLOWING SUPERLATIVE STUDY BY DOMINIC ETZOLD SHOWS SO COGENTLY AND
CLEARLY, THE IMPACT OF THE GERMAN NAVAL ARRIVAL WAS STUNNING, BOTH DURING AND
AFTER THE GREAT WAR. THE BRILLIANT, NO NONESENSE SCHIFFER PUBLISHING AUTHOR,
BACKED BY FINALLY RELEASED 106-YEAR-OLD GERMAN NAVAL RESOURCES AND PERSPECTIVES,
TELLS WHY.
Reviewed and highly recommended by Don DeNevi
“REAPING the WHIRLWIND – The U-Boat War Off North America During World WAR 1”, by
Dominic Etzold. Schiffer MILITARY Publishers, LTD., Atglen, PA 19310: 2023, 407 pages,
hardcover, 6 ¼” x 9 ¼”, dozens of rare WW1 photos, $34.99. Visit, www.schifferbooks.com. Or
Email: Info@schifferbooks.com.
From an editorial published in the “Kolnische Volkszeitung”, June, 1918, “The North Americans
may now feel the fist of the warlord. They need not be surprised. He who sows the wind reaps
the whirlwind, even when he sits on the other side of the great herring pond, where he is under
the delusion that his navy is safe from the storm.”
Yes, the German U-boats were off our coast in 1918, in two months alone inflicting a
material loss of 151,505 tons of cargo shipping on us and our Allies coming and going, with a
death toll of nearly 900 lives lost. Yes, Admiral Karl Donitz, Hitler’s choice to succeed him after
his forthcoming self-inflicted bullet through the mouth, commented, “The opportunities to sink
vessels grossly exceeded the means of our U-boats to sink them.” We can’t fault him for that
comment because Karl, much liked by our people because he not only fought fair, but when our
boys survived and were pulled from the freezing water, they were well taken care of,
considering, but also because we had a shortage of escort and antisubmarine vessels. Read for
yourself how in wartime American leadership, especially in the U.S. Navy, was, putting it
bluntly, sometimes shallow, indifferent, and old-fashioned incompetent. Really, this is an
absolute must read to better understand our later naval growth and development as Herr Hitler
grew into a . . . you determine his title.
