Customer Reviews
Most Helpful
4 out of 5 stars
By
Andrew
on
01-08-18
Strategic Overview
This book provides a very good insight to the grand strategic factors impacting the Battle of the Atlantic. For comparable insight to the operational and tactical factors, Black May by Michael Gammon is hard to beat. This provides the best available overview (in my opinion) of perhaps the single most important allied initiative to winning the Battle of the Atlantic - operational research and its intelligent application. It also illustrates the critical importance of coherent doctrine, training, and tactical level leadership. Mr Dimbleby only touches lightly on these topics. This may be nit picking but I think the Battle of the Barents Sea in which Capt Sherbrooke won the VC deserves a more comprehensive treatment than it receives in this book. This does not detract from an excellent overall study, however.
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Customer Reviews
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4 out of 5 stars
By
Paul J Day
on
01-29-16
Brilliant but faulty editing
Really interesting book and very well read. Especially interesting were the personal stories.
However, the recording has at least 2 sections where sections were left in where Jonathan makes a mistake, apologised then restarts the reading.
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3 of 3 people found this review helpful
3 out of 5 stars
By
grant
on
06-02-16
Good but runs out of steam
Is there anything you would change about this book?
The book is great although terribly edited with regular mistakes and repeated phrases not removed. There are 18 hours of coverage of 1939-1942 and then two hours for the rest. The period where the allies were losing is brilliantly described in significant detail but it feels that he realised he had to cram the rest of the war into two hours and rushed it. The sinking of 5 submarines in 24 hours is given 60 seconds.
What other book might you compare The Battle of the Atlantic to, and why?
Max Hastings does this better
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
His narration is brilliant as you would expect of one of our best ever broadcasters but some basic editing would have also helped.
Do you think The Battle of the Atlantic needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
No
Any additional comments?
Could have been great but seems very unbalanced.
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2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful
3 out of 5 stars
By
Peter Gray
on
06-16-16
A great account ruined by some bad editing
Jonathan Dimbleby is an accomplished historian who has researched the subject well. The audio book is spoiled by misreadings and corrections which have been left in instead of being edited out. There are also several references to other pages which are entirely inappropriate to an audio book.
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful
4 out of 5 stars
By
Amazon Customer
on
08-12-17
The Battle of the Atlantic
This book is a tribute to the bravery of the men, on both sides, who fort and died in largely horrific circumstances during the second world war on the Atlantic. It also touches on the stories of the civilians who became caught up in it. Written and read by Jonathan Dimbelby the presentation is in line with the standards of the writing and broadcasting traditions of the Dimbleby family.
It was disappointing to note that the audio was not edited thoroughly. Many reading errors were left uncorrected.
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