The excerpt emphasizes that only a handful of Germany's Atlantic boats could remain on patrol at once. Wartime use exposed engine, periscope, hatch, and valve failures that peacetime exercises had not revealed. Construction and crew training lagged behind losses, while convoy adoption reduced the number of easy independent targets. Haarr's English-language Norwegian perspective is recommended as an unusually strong account of the opening campaigns and the material limits behind early U-boat results.
Chapter · 46:54-52:43
The Gathering Storm and the early U-boat war
Geirr Haarr's trilogy frames the small, overstretched U-boat force of 1939-40 and the maintenance and training limits behind its early results.