Seventy years on from the Crisis in the Battle of the Atlantic, leading naval historian Bernard Ireland takes a fresh look at all aspects of a campaign that held the key to victory or defeat. He examines not just the struggle for the convoy routes but also the technological battle and, fascinatingly, the crucial background tensions between allies, politicians and senior commanders. Drawing on a wealth of source material and knowledge of the extent to which ULTRA intelligence influenced the conduct of the campaign, the Author comes up with not only a compelling narrative but radical conclusions. Using no more statistical data than necessary, he puts forward convincing arguments that the situation was never as parlous nor the struggle so evenly balanced as was perceived at the time and has consistently been described since. Rather, 'doomsday' pronouncements were very possibly predicated by political expediency and an air of general pessimism. In fact, the dice was increasingly heavily loaded against the U-Boat due to dramatic improvements in anti-submarine technology, awesome American industrial capacity and the brilliant coups of the code-breakers. Such a radical hypothesis needs to be backed by powerful arguments to command respect and, in Battle of the Atlantic, Bernard Ireland does not disappoint. Book jacket.