Phantom Raider: Nazi Germany's Most Successful Surface Raider

by Ulrich Mohr, Arthur V. Sellwood

The two year cruise of Atlantis was to be the longest in the history of the Second World War, but after her destruction in the South Atlantic, shattered by the guns of HMS Devonshire, naval records simply referred to her as Ship Sixteen.

However, Atlantis had the highest score of all German raiders – twice as much tonnage as the famed Graf Spee. She was a Phantom Raider, on of the Ghost Fleet, which terrorized merchant shipping in the Indian and Atlantic oceans.

Twenty-one ships were sunk by her hidden guns yet the survivors she picked up had no hatred for their captors. Instead many of those interviewed had ungrudging admiration for the Germany officers and crew who captured them.

Here is a fascinating story of the war at sea when Germany was the hunter, and of a ship whose exploits might never have been known but for the tenacious probing of the author, A. V. Sellwood, and the willingness of the Atlantis captain’s ADC, Ulrich Mohr, to recall those incredible 622 days at sea.

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2005

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Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting bit of WWII history i'd never heard mentioned in the million-and-one History Channel WWII documentaries i've seen.