Military Review English Edition March-April 2014 | Page 88

BOOK REVIEWS

Offley has also authored Scorpion Down: Sunk by
the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold
Story of the USS Scorpion; Pen and Sword: A
Journalist’s Guide to Covering the Military; and
Lifting the Fog of War (with Admiral William A.
Owens, USN).
Turning the Tide traces the evolution of the battle
of the Atlantic in World War II as Germany and the
Allies vied for control of the North Atlantic. Germany sought to control the North Atlantic to starve
Britain and prevent a buildup of Allied forces and
supplies in England. The Allies sought control to
secure sea lines of communication for movement
of people and material for an amphibious assault
and land campaign into the heart of Germany.
Both antagonists had to battle the North Atlantic’s
tremendous weather conditions while waging war.
Offley sets a baseline for the reader to understand the conflict by discussing the organizations
and capabilities of each force prior to 1943. He
discusses a variety of topics for both opponents that
blend together to provide a coherent picture of the
circumstances that affected the battles at sea, such as
adequacy and quantity of their equipment; service
culture; laws and legalities; organization; command and control; intelligence; national resource
allocation; technological advancements; and action,
reaction, and counteraction to each change in the
environment.
The author then shifts his focus to March 1943,
when Axis U-boat efforts had reached their zenith in
the North Atlantic. The author uses the Axis success
in the attacks on convoys SC122 and HX229 as an
example of where U-boats inflicted unsustainable
losses on the Allied convoy efforts.