At All Costs

Informationen zum Autor Sam Moses is the author of the acclaimed race-driving memoir, Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots , and a former senior writer for Sports Illustrated . He began writing as a U.S. Navy Seaman on a heavy cruiser in action off Vietnam. He lives with his two sons in White Salmon, Washington. Klappentext 89149903 CHAPTER 3 • • • FIRE DOWN BELOW At twenty-eight, Lieutenant Reinhard Hardegen, a German U-boat captain, was a loose cannon. He carried unchecked ambition and relentless intensity along with his war woundsa short leg and bleeding stomach from the aviation crash that had ended his previous career as a naval pilot. He had concealed the injuries in order to qualify for command of U-123, and had begun an impatient rampage of sinkings with the neutral Portuguese freighter Ganda. The 4,300-ton ship didn't go down after two torpedo hits, so Hardegen surfaced U-123 and sank her with its four-inch gun. When the attack became an international incident, Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander of Germany's U-boat fleet, claimed it was a British sub that had sunk Ganda . Dönitz chose U-123 to be among the first five U-boats with orders to attack the eastern seaboard of the United States. He had begun planning the attack four days after Pearl Harbor, on instructions from Hitler to destroy merchant ships from New York to Cape Hatteras. Five 1,050-ton Type 9B U-boats, with a range of 12,000 nautical miles cruising at 10 knots on the surface, left their pens at the port of Lorient in France on separate dates around Christmas 1941. Dönitz called the operation Drumbeat, for the effect he expected it to have. The Submarine Tracking Room at the Operational Intelligence Centre of the British Admiralty in London, Royal Navy headquarters, had located the U-boats crossing the surface of the ocean, and their positions were passed on to the U.S. Navy and charted on the wall in the headquarters of the Eastern Sea Frontier in New York City. But a vicious winter hurricane hit the Atlantic with winds of 100 mph, tossing the subs like surfboards off the lips of big waves, and enabling them to lose the Americans tracking them. The Eastern Sea Frontier, commanded by Admiral Adolphus Dolly Andrews, didn't have much of a fleet. It consisted of Coast Guard cutters with wooden hulls, turn-of-the-century gunboats, and converted yachts with a machine gun and maybe a few depth charges on deck. The boats were often broken down in port. The day before the first U-boat left France, Admiral Andrews complained in a memo to Admiral Ernest King, commander in chief of the U.S. Navy: It is submitted that should enemy submarines operate off this coast, this command has no forces available to take adequate action against them, either offensive or defensive. Early on the morning of January 12, 1942, off the coast of Nova Scotia, U-123 sank the 9,100-ton British freighter Cyclops. Ninety-eight men died, almost all of them freezing in lifeboats. Operation Drumbeat was supposed to be a sneak attack off New York, coordinated with the other U-boats, and by attacking the Cyclops, Hardegen had disobeyed Dönitz's orders and blew the element of surprise, not that it mattered, because the Eastern Sea Frontier was so unprepared. The New York Times ran a two-paragraph story, picked up from a boast by Radio Berlin, but the story didn't attract much attention. The U.S. Navy issued a lying press release claiming to have liquidated U-boats off the coast, adding that national security prevented the disclosure of more information. This is a phase of the game of war secrecy into which every American should enter enthusiastically, said the navy's statement, printed by the Times. The release added that the media and civilians could make the same great, patriotic contribution by not mentioning what they might see with their own eyes. The next day, U-123 trav...

Autorentext
Sam Moses is the author of the acclaimed race-driving memoir, Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots, and a former senior writer for Sports Illustrated. He began writing as a U.S. Navy Seaman on a heavy cruiser in action off Vietnam. He lives with his two sons in White Salmon, Washington.

Klappentext
In this gripping, page-turning account, Sam Moses has told a story in the tradition of Sebastian Junger's A Perfect Storm, Robert Kurson's Shadow Divers, and Hampton Sides's Ghost Soldiers. It's a story about the heroism of two men in battle at sea during World War II, and one woman fleeing Nazi Norway with her child. It's about how courage can change the course of history.
AT ALL COSTS: How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Marines Turned the Tide of World War II is the astonishing untold account, with original historical reporting, of how two men faced unfathomable danger to help save the island of Malta, Churchill's crux of the war.
In 1942, the tiny island of Malta was the most heavily bombed place on earth. Hitler needed Malta as a stepping-stone to get to the oil in Iraq and Iran (Persia at the time). Blockaded by sea, Malta was running on empty, in food, fuel and ammunition. Axis U-boats and dive-bombers made supply convoys to Malta more like suicide missions. In this last-hope convoy, 50 warships escorted 13 freighters carrying aviation fuel, and a single critical tanker, the SS Ohio, with 107,000 barrels of oil from Texas. Winston Churchill had traveled to Washington and asked FDR for the tanker-his prime ministership was at stake over this mission to Malta.
Relentlessly dive-bombed and repeatedly torpedoed, the Ohio suffered huge hits and was abandoned. Two young American merchant mariners-pulled from the sea after their own ship went down in flames-boarded the ravaged tanker, repaired her guns and fought off German and Italian dive-bombers, as the sinking Ohio was towed at 4 knots toward Malta with a tiny crew of volunteers.
Sam Moses' AT ALL COSTS is a triumphant story of human bravery: fearless, selfless acts by men determined to save a ship and win a war; profound communal courage from an island under brutal siege; and leaders who understood the cause of freedom.

Kirkus (starred review)
A historical footnote provides a riveting tale of true American grit during World War II.
In 1942, the island of Malta was the primary launching point in the Mediterranean for Allied
aircraft and submarine attacks against Axis supply convoys. At the height of the North African
campaign, Rommel's tanks prepared to sweep into Egypt, Iran and Iraq. The only thing they lacked was
the fuel to get there, and the shortage was equally desperate on Malta. The Allies launched Operation
Pedestal, a last-ditch effort to re-supply the base by sending a convoy from Britain through the Gibraltar
Strait to the beleaguered island. The convoy, which included the American tanker Ohio and the U.S.
freighter Santa Elisa, was anything but a milk run. Vietnam vet Moses (Fast Guys, Rich Guys and
Idiots, not reviewed) crafts a thrilling adventure on the high seas, though it takes a while to get started.
The book's first third juxtaposes Malta's plight against the stories of two American merchant seamen
on the Santa Elisa: Lonnie Dales and Fred Larsen, through whose eyes the battle will be viewed in bluecollar
detail. Once Operation Pedestal begins, the narrative is all action. The convoy comes under
repeated attack, lives are lost, the Santa Elisa is sunk. Dales and Larsen find themselves aboard the
wounded Ohio, full to the brim with Texas crude. If they can hold off Nazi attacks and keep their new
ship afloat long enough to reach Malta, the operation will be a success. Moses takes readers directly
into the heat of battle, demonstrating a strong command of historical detail.
Highly recommended for fans of naval adventure. (Agent: Peter Riva/International Transactions, Inc.)

"At All Costs is an extraordinary w…

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