By Ben Wheeler
FASCINATING black and white images from a new book have helped lift the lid on the story of the German naval commander who is credited with sinking an astonishing forty-seven Allied ships and a submarine during the Second World War, Wolfgang LĂŒth.
Photos from âU-Boat Ace: The Story of Wolfgang LĂŒthâ show the commander brazenly puffing on a cigarette on the bridge of his U-43 boat.
Additional snaps capture LĂŒthâs sinking of Swedish freighter, Sicilia, whilst another shows his funeral procession, just two days after his death.
Author, Jordan Vause, discussed what it was that drew him to Luthâs story has given readers a small insight into the stories told in the book.
âBelieve it or not, it was a photograph of LĂŒth I saw in a hallway at the German Naval Academy in 1977, five years before I started writingâ he said.
âOur guide explained LĂŒthâs story to us, I was a midshipman in the Navy at the time, so I found the story behind the picture fascinating and it stuck with me.
âThere are three main reasons why I find his story so interesting; firstly, he was simultaneously wildly successful and completely unknown.
âSecond, the circumstances surrounding his death were intriguing and way out of line with the rest of his, or any U-boat commanderâs, career and finally no one had written about him before.â
Vause, who interviewed some of LĂŒthâs crewmen as part of the project, also detailed what he learned about World War Two during his research and what he hopes people will take from the book.
âThe interviews crewmen were all little stories in their own right,â he recalls.
âSome comical, some poignant and some sad. One of which is alluded to in the bookâs introduction.
âDuring the course of writing the book I learned so much about the extent of U-boat operations in WWII, which stretched all the way to the Pacific.
âI also found out about all kinds of hidden conflicts inside the communities themselves, which most people havenât heard about.
âI hope the book gives people a better understanding of the German men that served in the war, they all served an evil regime but were not all bad men.
âThat may sound contradictory, but it is true. Even LĂŒth, a true believer, had good and bad points.
âWe canât just reduce it to U-boat equals Nazi as some have done.â
Wolfgang LĂŒth was one of only seven men to win Germanyâs highest combat decoration. He operated in almost every theatre of the undersea war from Norway to the Indian Ocean and he was the second most successful German U-boat ace in World War II.
LĂŒth is credited with sinking 47 Allied ships and a submarine â a record topped only by Otto Kretschmer. In 1944, after 16 war patrols, including one that lasted a record 203-days at sea, he was named commandant of the German naval academy and, aged 30, became the youngest commandant of the German Naval Academy.
Published by Greenhill Books, âU-Boat Ace: The Story of Wolfgang LĂŒthâ is available now for ÂŁ16.99 from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/U-Boat-Ace-Story-Wolfgang-Th/dp/1784382744