Torpedoes in the Gulf Galveston and the U-Boats, 1942–1943 by Melanie Wiggins

At the beginning of America's involvement in World War II, Gulf Coast communities conducted business as usual. On Galveston Island, the 1942 summer tourist season had just begun when Commander Harro Schacht sailed his U-boat up to the mouth of the Mississippi River and blew up eight ships.

Torpedoes in the Gulf is an engrossing account of Germany's stealthy invasion of America's southern seaboard. Catching Americans totally unprepared, twenty-four German submarines entered the Gulf of Mexico between 1942 and 1943 and sank fifty-six merchant ships, damaging fourteen others. In May, 1942 alone, the blitz of the "Gulf Sea Frontier" gave German U-boats their greatest victories to date. Fearing for their lives, Galvestonians raced to fortify their island, convinced at last that they were truly at war. From then until peace in 1944, Allied shipping in the Gulf sailed freely, secure from attack—but not until this surprising onslaught raised national patriotism to new heights and brought the war too close to home.

To get the complete, personal story from both ends of the periscope, author Melanie Wiggins corresponded with numerous U.S. Navy and Merchant Marine veterans and made two trips to Germany, where she interviewed U-boat veterans. War diaries from both sides and declassified military documents provided the historical context of the veterans' personal stories.

MELANIE WIGGINS is a freelance writer living in Galveston and the author of They Made Their Own Law, a history of Bolivar Peninsula.

Number Forty: Texas A&M University Military History Series

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Torpedoes in the Gulf
ISBN 0-89096-648-6 paper $15.95

LC 94-31861. 6x9. 280 pp. 32 b&w photos. 1 map. Bib. Index.
Military History. Texas History.

Publication Date: April 1995.

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