Beware Raiders!; German Surface Raiders in the Second World War

Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001. First American Edition, Presumed first printing thus. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [6], 216 pages. Includes two full-page black and white maps. Also includes 18 black and white photographs. Bibliography. Index. Captain Bernard Edwards spent 37 years at sea with the Merchant Navy commanding ships trading worldwide before retiring to pursue his second career as a Naval historian. He first went to sea at the age of seventeen in 1944 as a cadet with Clan Line Steamers. After the war he served with Palm Line in the West African trade and spent fourteen years in command of ships of the United Arab Shipping Company, sailing mainly in the Indian Ocean and Far Eastern waters. His knowledge of the sea and ships has enabled him to become one of the most popular and prolific authors and he is well established as an internationally recognized front rank naval historian. This is the story of two very different German surface raiders and the havoc they caused amongst Allied shipping in the Second World War. One was the 8-inch gun cruiser Admiral Hipper, fast, powerful, and Navy-manned; the other was a converted merchantman, Hansa Line's Kandelfels, armed with a few 5.9s, crewed largely by reservists, and sailing under the nom de guerre of Pinguin. Contrary to all expectations,the amateur man-of-war reaped a rich harvest and went out in a blaze of glory. Her purpose-built sister, on the other hand, was hard-pressed to make her mark on the war and ended her days in ignominy. There was also a striking contrast between the conduct of Ernst Kruder, captain of the Pinguin, whose concern it was to cause as little loss of life as possible, and the indifferent Captain Meisel of the Admiral Hipper, who had scant regard for the crews of his victims. This is the fascinating story of two German surface raiders and the havoc they caused amongst Allied shipping in World War II. One was the 8-inch gun cruiser Admiral Hipper, fast, powerful and Navy-manned: the other a converted merchantman, Hansa Line's Kandelfels armed with a few old 5.9s manned largely by reservists, and sailing under the nom de guerre of Pinguin. Contrary to all expectations, the amateur man-of-war reaped a rich harvest and went out in a blaze of glory. Her purpose-built sister, on the other hand, was hard-pressed even to make her mark on the war and ended her days in ignominy. The author emphasizes the striking contrast between the conduct of Ernst Kruder, captain of the Pinguin, whose concern it was to cause as little loss of life as possible, and the callous Captain Meisel of the Admiral Hipper, who has scant regard for the lives of the men whose ships he had sunk. Captain Edwards describes in detail Kruder's most audacious coup, the capture, rather than the sinking, of the entire Norwegian Antarctic whaling fleet, which he calls '"a disaster of major proportions". Equally disastrous was the havoc wreaked upon convoys HG53 and SLS 64 by the Admiral Hipper in the North Atlantic in February 1941. Contrary to all expectations, as Edwards reveals in his thrilling accounts of the missions performed by each ship, the amateur man-of-war reaped a rich harvest and went out in a blaze of glory. The purpose-built battlecruiser, on the other hand, was hard-pressed even to make her mark on the war and ended her days in ignominy.