Non-Fiction
1 Best Non-Fiction Book About Capture of U-110
Histories, biographies and reference works are listed separately from the historical novels above.
Phase
Capture of U-110
9 May 1941
On 9 May 1941 German submarine U-110 attacked convoy OB 318 in the North Atlantic and was forced to the surface after depth-charge attacks by British escorts. Its commander, Fritz-Julius Lemp, ordered the crew to abandon ship while British vessels moved in to capture the submarine.
A boarding party entered U-110 and recovered an Enigma machine, codebooks and other cryptographic material before the submarine was lost. The seizure was kept secret so that German naval command would not realise that the Allies had obtained material capable of helping them read U-boat signals.
The capture became one of the important intelligence episodes of the Battle of the Atlantic. David Boyle’s Operation Primrose places U-110 at the centre of a narrative connecting naval operations, Bletchley Park and the wider struggle over German Enigma communications.
