The crew wear only their socks in order not to make any noise while walking in boots.

Water is leaking into the boat forward so that we are becoming bow-heavy.

Everyone sits in the stern to compensate, all on top of each other, because there is no space.

Everything is deftly still, propeller noise. They come closer and closer. They are over the boat now.

Any minute now. No, still not. Now. Four, five, six bombs explode.

The boat shudders. The compartments report damage. Two lamps are still working. They cast an

eerie light in the boat. A terrible mess. The crew's boots are lying about, empty life preserver

cases, mattresses and

blankets are laid out on the deck so that everyone could proceed quietly and so that those

on watch can lie down at their posts as we must save our air. This performance, Luth noted in his later

memoir, went on for hours. Don't they even stop for lunch?

He quipped.

So that's a quote from Roger Morhouse's new book, Wolfpack.

Welcome to Battleground Podcast with me, Saul David and Roger Morehouse.

Last time we heard the first episode of the story of Wolfpack, the rise of the Wolfpack.

And we're now moving on to episode two, the depths of despair, which runs from

1942 to mid-1943. And in many ways, this is the high point, Roger, of the U-boat threat.

Tell us a little bit about the element of propaganda in the story of the U-Boats,

because of course it was an opportunity for the Nazi regime to make heroes out of a generation

of these early U-boat commanders who had actually been very effective.

Yeah, it's an interesting angle, I think, of the story, and it's one that the

conventional narratives of the Battle of the Atlantic tend to ignore, and it's one of the benefits,

...