The True Story of the Steinhoff Brothers and the Nazi’s First Submarine Launched Missiles
The Untold New England U-Boat Saga & Murder Mystery
by Paul Lawton
During the final days of German belligerence in World War II a little known chapter in naval history took place just off the American Northeast Coast. In response to the perceived threat of a U-boat launched missile attack against New York City, the U.S. Navy mobilized one of the most comprehensive anti-submarine operations of the war. For nearly six decades the story of the final patrol of the German U-boat U-873, and the mysterious death of her commander, Kapitanleutnant Friedrich Steinhoff, have been little more than a footnote in naval history. The memory of those events, however, and American concerns for national security, will forever remain as a prophetic vision of the terrorist attacks that wreaked havoc across the United States on September 11, 2001.
About the Author
Paul Lawton is an attorney, shipwreck diver and Naval & Maritime Historian who resides on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. A graduate of Stonehill College and New England School of Law, he has been honored by having been conferred with membership in the Phi Alpha Theta International Honors Society, in recognition of conspicuous attainments and scholarship in the field of History. He assisted U.S. Naval Historical Center in the 1990s on some of the last, post war Battle Assessments of open cases involving questionable ship and aircraft losses during World Wars I and II. In 2001 he was successful in having the Secretary of the Navy overturn the official cause of the loss of the U.S. Navy sub-chaser U.S.S. Eagle PE-56, from and accidental boiler explosion, to having been sunk in a torpedo attack by the German U-boat U-853 on 23 April 1945. That precedent-setting correction of naval history resulted in the issuance of 51 Purple Heart Medals, 49 posthumously, to the men killed and injured in the sinking. Lawton has led, or been a member of numerous deep sea expeditions searching for, diving on, and surveying dozens of shipwrecks, his research has been the subject of several books, and his work had been chronicled in such publications as National Geographic, Boston, Down East and Sea Classics magazines, and The New York Times. As testament to his authority in the areas of submarine warfare and naval weapons systems, several of Lawton’s research manuscripts have been translated and are kept in the permanent collections of several German libraries and museums, including the State Library of Württemberg in Stuttgart, and the Deutsches U-boot-Museum at Cuxhaven-Altenbruch. Lawton’s research has also been the subject of a number of History Channel, PBS, and Smithsonian Channel documentaries including History Undercover, Deep Sea Detectives and History Detectives series broadcasts.
The author is available for public appearances and talks. Please email him at: paulmlawton@yahoo.com
Product Details
Softcover, 6×9, 116 pages, 30 historic illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-938394-39-3
Order Online: Amazon
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