Raiders of the Deep

This 1928 bestseller by the internationally renowned journalist Lowell Thomas was the first American account of German submariners to offer a sympathetic, behind-the-scenes look at the men who prowled the English Channel, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean in U-boats. Widely known for his news dispatches from the battlefields of World War I, Thomas was immediately successful with this vivid portrait of undersea warfare, which revealed details of the new technology. In his inimitable style, Thomas allows his subjects to tell their stories in their own words, rendering an infinitely interesting look at the challenges of life aboard these early submarines. Their dramatic oral histories tell of Walther Schwieger's sinking of the Lusitania, of the seven U-boat raiders sent to lay mines across the Atlantic and sink merchant ships off the coast of the United States, and of other riveting trials and accomplishments.