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    Unavailable
    The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats
    Unavailable
    The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats
    Unavailable
    The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats

    Written by William Geroux

    Narrated by Arthur Morey

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    One of the last unheralded heroic stories of World War II: the U-boat assault off the American coast against the men of the U.S. Merchant Marine who were supplying the European war, and one community's monumental contribution to that effort

    Mathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost on the Chesapeake Bay with little to offer except unspoiled scenery-but it sent an unusually large concentration of sea captains to fight in World War II. The Mathews Men tells that heroic story through the experiences of one extraordinary family whose seven sons (and their neighbors), U.S. merchant mariners all, suddenly found themselves squarely in the cross-hairs of the U-boats bearing down on the coastal United States in 1942.

    From the late 1930s to 1945, virtually all the fuel, food and munitions that sustained the Allies in Europe traveled not via the Navy but in merchant ships. After Pearl Harbor, those unprotected ships instantly became the U-boats' prime targets. And they were easy targets-the Navy lacked the inclination or resources to defend them until the beginning of 1943. Hitler was determined that his U-boats should sink every American ship they could find, sometimes within sight of tourist beaches, and to kill as many mariners as possible, in order to frighten their shipmates into staying ashore.

    As the war progressed, men from Mathews sailed the North and South Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and even the icy Barents Sea in the Arctic Circle, where they braved the dreaded Murmansk Run. Through their experiences we have eyewitnesses to every danger zone, in every kind of ship. Some died horrific deaths. Others fought to survive torpedo explosions, flaming oil slicks, storms, shark attacks, mine blasts, and harrowing lifeboat odysseys-only to ship out again on the next boat as soon as they'd returned to safety.

    The Mathews Men shows us the war far beyond traditional battlefields-often the U.S. merchant mariners' life-and-death struggles took place just off the U.S. coast--but also takes us to the landing beaches at D-Day and to the Pacific. "When final victory is ours," General Dwight D. Eisenhower had predicted, "there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine." Here, finally, is the heroic story of those merchant seamen, recast as the human story of the men from Mathews.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 19, 2016
    ISBN9780399567117
    Unavailable
    The Mathews Men: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats

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    Reviews for The Mathews Men

    4/5

    17 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I found this book very interesting. I had no idea there were that many German U-Boats on the coast of the U.S. and in the Caribbean. It's shocking how many ships were sunk by the U-Boats and the US Government took their time with convoys to help these merchant marines. A lot of the ship captains were from the same family and from the same small community of Mathews County, Virginia. It shocked me how these men would be torpedoed, abandon ship, survive in a lifeboat and then go back out again. The water was where they felt they needed to be. Anyone who is interested in World War II should read this book and see another side of the war. A side that came very, very close to our shores. Very well written and informative. The book kept my attention.

      I received a copy of this book from the publisher for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      Very well researched and informative stories of the important role played by the merchant marine during WWII. Got bogged down in minutiae.
    • 4/5
      What a surprise this book was. I had no understanding of the role the merchant marines played in WWII, I had no idea the number of ships sunk by U Boats, nor how many and how often they were right off the coast of the United States, and I definitely never knew so many of the sailors came from the small county of Mathews Virginia.
      This was a fascinating book.
    • 4/5
      Well done. Although I am a fan of WW II history, it's mostly the spy stuff that catches my attention. The reviews and the recommendation by the author of Boys in the Boat brought this to my attention so I gave it a try. I'm glad I did. I knew nothing about the u- boats and their attacks on the US coast and the story of the merchant marine and their ill treatment at the hands of the government and the head of the Navy at the time was disheartening.