Sunday, May 30, 2010

A Measureless Peril on the Eve of Memorial Day


A Measureless Peril by Richard Snow on Political Pistachio Radio Revolution

Host: Douglas V. Gibbs

Date / Time: 5/30/2010 7:00 PM Pacific

Category: Politics Conservative

Call-in Number: (646) 652-2940

Inspired by the collection of letters that his father sent his mother from the destroyer escort he served aboard, Richard Snow brings to life the longest continuous battle in modern times. With its vibrant prose and fast-paced action, A Measureless Peril is an immensely satisfying account that belongs on the small shelf of the finest histories ever written about World War II. Of all the threats that faced this country in World War II, Winston Churchill said, just one really scared him - what he called the "measureless peril" of the German U-boat campaign. In that global conflagration, only one battle - the struggle for the Atlantic - lasted from the very first hours of the conflict to its final day.


Hitler knew that victory depended on controlling the sea-lanes where American food and fuel and weapons flowed to the Allies. At the start, U-boats patrolled a few miles off the eastern seaboard, savagely attacking scores of defenseless passenger ships and merchant vessels while hastily converted American cabin cruisers and fishing boats tried vainly to stop them. Before long, though, the United States was ramping up what would be the greatest production of naval vessels the world had ever known. Then the battle became a thrilling cat and mouse game between the quickly built U.S. war ships and the ever more cunning and lethal U-boats.


The accomplished historian and former editor-in-chief of American Heritage Richard Snow captures all the drama of the merciless contest at every level, from the doomed sailors on an American freighter defying a German cruiser, to the amazing Allied attempts to break the German naval codes, to Winston Churchill pressing President Roosevelt to join the war months before Pearl Harbor.


A Measureless Peril reads like a well researched documentary with a personal touch craftily inserted by the people that were actually there on the high seas of the embattled Atlantic. Like a cunning craftsman, Richard Snow presents the long battle against the German U-boats in dramatic form, full of detail and facts, while the personal side remains intact, to remind us that these were our fathers, brothers, and friends out there, facing the Nazi terror of ruthless U-boats, facing A Measureless Peril.


Richard Snow joins us tonight on the eve of Memorial Day to discuss this amazing book, and the battle for the Atlantic that spanned the entirety of World War II. Join the program live at 7:00 pm Pacific, or catch the archive later, at BlogTalkRadio.com/PoliticalPistachio.

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