Darkest Before Dawn: U-482 and the Sinking of Empire Heritage 1944

The full story of one of the greatest Allied shipping losses of World War II For the first time, this book describes how U-482 managed to slip undetected into the busy shipping lanes of the North Channel and carry out the last great U-boat patrol of the war. In the autumn of 1944 World War II was coming to an end, and the U-boats in the Atlantic had been beaten back through a massive program of Allied shipbuilding combined with tactical, technological, and intelligence improvements. The threat to Allied shipping had diminished but not disappeared, and a lone U-boat on its first active patrol slipped into the North Channel--in just a few days five ships lay broken on the seabed including the Empire Heritage, one of the largest Allied ships lost in the entire war. Also lost was a rescue ship attacked while trying to rescue survivors from the Empire Heritage; the Jacksonville, an American tanker sailing out of New York; and a RN corvette sent to hunt the U-boat down. This is the story of the attack, the aftermath, and the men involved.