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THE TIRPITZ ALL TOLD The Hunt for Hitler's Warship by Patrick bishop (regnery History, 2013. 426 pages. illustrated. $27.95)
Patrick bishop, a graduate of wimbledon college and corpus christi, oxford, first established himself as a significant writer by serving nearly thirty years as a foreign correspondent for such papers as the Evening Standard, the Observer, the Sunday Times, and the Telegraph. During that time he saw considerable action while covering major british engagements from the Falklands to Afghanistan and only withdrew from dangerous work when he determined that he was no longer nimble enough to keep up the pace. thereafter bishop turned his attention to writing military history and rapidly turned himself into one of the united king- dom's leading authors on the subject, delivering such critically acclaimed best sellers as Fighter Boys (2004), 3 Para (2006), the book for which he won the british Army's Military book of the Year award, Bomber Boys (2008), Ground Truth (2009), Wings (2012), and Target Tirpitz (2012), published in the united states as The Hunt for Hitler's Warship (2013).
Bishop's preparations for writing The Hunt for Hitler's Warship, while steadily rewarding, proved both long and arduous. with books like Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys, bishop could focus much of his attention on raf records. The Hunt presented a more complex problem, requiring him to do meticulous research in the archives of the royal navy, the German navy, the raf, and the Allied and German governments. At the same time insofar as it was possible-considering that more than thirty operations were launched against the Tirpitz-he had to go through as much material as he could assemble from the papers, letters, and diaries of various participants; and then, finally, he had to interview an extensive list of survivors from the engagements he intended to review. one of the strengths of the book, one which readers will find gratifying, is the thoroughness with which bishop realizes his aims.
No one ever mistook Hitler for a genius with regard to matters of naval strategy. As bishop writes, "naval matters played a subordinate role in Hitler's military calculations; an attitude he did not bother to disguise. He was a soldier not a sailor." His plan for invading Great britain by means of operation...