On June 15, 1942, as thousands of vacationers lounged in the sun at Virginia Beach, two massive fireballs erupted just offshore from a convoy of oil tankers steaming into Chesapeake Bay. While men, women, and children gaped from the shore, two damaged oil tankers fell out of line and began to sink. Then a small escort warship blew apart in a violent explosion. Navy warships and aircraft peppered the water with depth charges, but to no avail. Within the next twenty-four hours, a fourth ship lay at the bottom of the channel-- all victims of twenty-nine-year-old Kapitanleutnant Horst Degen and his crew aboard the German U-boat U-701.
In "The Burning Shore," acclaimed military reporter Ed Offley presents a thrilling account of the bloody U-boat offensive along America's east coast during the first half of 1942, using the story of Degen's three war patrols as a lens through which to view this forgotten chapter of World War II. For six months, German U-boats prowled the waters off the eastern seaboard, sinking merchant ships with impunity, and threatening to sever the lifeline of supplies flowing from America to Great Britain. Degen's successful infiltration of the Chesapeake Bay in mid-June drove home the U-boats' success, and his spectacular attack terrified the American public as never before. But Degen's cruise was interrupted less than a month later, when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Harry J. Kane and his aircrew spotted the silhouette of U-701 offshore. The ensuing clash signaled a critical turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic--and set the stage for an unlikely friendship between two of the episode's survivors.
A gripping tale of heroism and sacrifice, "The Burning Shore" leads readers into a little-known theater of World War II, where Hitler's U-boats came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic before American sailors and airmen could finally drive them away.

In Turning the Tide , military reporter and author Ed Offley presents a rousing military history of the climax of the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II, when a handful of battle-hardened British, Canadian and American sailors successfully beat back the German U-Boats that were threatening the lifeline between the US and Britain. Tens of thousands of merchant seamen, naval gunners, civilian passengers and U-boat crewmen lost their lives in the Battle of the Atlantic, making it the deadliest naval conflict in history,but the losses were high because the stakes were even higher. If the U-boats had managed to sever the lifeline between the U.S. and Great Britain,as they seemed poised to do by late 1942,Germany could have denied the Allies their springboard into the European continent, effectively costing them the war. Using interviews with key survivors on both sides and extensive research in German, British, and American archives, Offley puts the reader into the heart of the pivotal episodes of this critical conflict, showing how the Allies nearly lost,and ultimately regained,victory in both the Atlantic and in Europe itself.

One Navy admiral called it"one of the greatest unsolved sea mysteries of our era." The U.S. Navy officially describes it an inexplicable accident. For decades, the real story of the disaster eluded journalists, historians, and the family members of the lost crew. But a small handful of Navy and government officials knew the truth: The sinking of the U.S.S. Scorpion on May 22, 1968, was an act of war. In Scorpion Down , military reporter Ed Offley reveals that the true cause of the Scorpion's sinking was buried by the U.S. government in an attempt to keep the Cold War from turning hot. For five months, the families of the Scorpion crew waited while the Navy searched feverishly for the missing submarine. For the first time, Offley reveals that entire search was cover-up, devised to conceal that fact that the Scorpion had been torpedoed by the Soviets. In this gripping and controversial book, Offley takes the reader inside the shadowy world of the Cold War military, where rival superpowers fought secret battles far below the surface of the sea.