| Contents |
Machine generated contents note: 1. Development of Naval Mine Warfare and Auxiliary Ships in the Kaiser's Navy -- 2. Defending Germany's Coasts: Minesweepers, Vorpostenboote and U-Jager of the Kriegsmarine, 1939 -- 1940 -- 3. Expanding Horizons: German Pyrrhic Victory in Norway and the Fall of France, 1940 -- 4. Establishing the Security Divisions, 1941 -- 5. Sun and Steel: The Security Forces move into North Africa and the Soviet Union, 1941 -- 1942 -- 6. War in the North and West: The Security Flotillas in Western Europe, the Baltic and Norway, 1942 -- 1943 -- 7. War in Southern Russia: The Security Forces in the Black Sea, July 1942 -- 1944 -- 8. The `Inland Seas': The Security Forces in the Mediterranean, Aegean and Tyrrhenian Seas, June 1942 -- December 1943 -- 9. The Mediterranean, Adriatic and Aegean, January 1944 -- May 1945 -- 10. Elimination: Allied Forces mount Operations against the Security Forces, 1944 -- 1945. |
| Abstract |
"This study of the Kriegsmarine's Sicherungsstreitkräfte, their security forces, fills a glaring gap in the study of the German navy in World War Two. This wide array of vessels included patrol boats, minesweepers, submarine hunters, barrage breakers, landing craft, minelayers and even the riverine flotilla that patrolled the Danube as it snaked towards the Black Sea. These vessels may not have provided the glamour associated with capital ships and U-boats, but they were crucial to the survival of the Kriegsmarine at every stage of hostilities. As naval construction was unable to keep pace with the likely demand for security vessels, Grossadmiral Erich Raeder turned to the conversion of merchant vessels. For example, trawlers were requisitioned as patrol boats (Vorpostenboote) and minesweepers (Minensucher), while freighters, designated Sperrbrecher, were filled with buoyant materials and sent to clear minefields. Submarine hunters (U-Boot Jäger) were requisitioned fishing vessels. More than 120 flotillas operated in wildly different conditions, from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and 81 men were to be awarded the Knights Cross; some were still operating after the cessation of hostilities clearing German minefields. The author deals with whole subject at every level, documenting organisational changes, describing the vessels, and recounting individual actions of ships at sea, while extensive appendices round off this major new work."--Publisher's description. |
