The Battle of the Atlantic was the decisive naval battle of the Second World War. Beginning on 3 September 1939 and lasting until VE Day in 1945, the Battle of the Atlantic was the longest, largest and most complex naval battle in history. Comprehending this conflict at the time was probably an impossible task; nearly as impossible is the task of making sense of the battle's immense complexities today. Yet this is where the importance of Andrew Williams's book lies: by thoughtfully leading his interviewees through the difficult phases of the battle, he gives us an effective, evocative yet lucid account of these momentous events. He accomplishes this task by offering us a wealth of new information, crucial to understanding the flow of events; through new eye-witness accounts from both sides of the battle, as they occurred, both from the German and the Allied sides, as well as the complexity of the Allied final victory. - Foreword.