The greatest U-boat man alive today, Erich Topp (U-552), opens the book with a Foreword that is typically reflective of what the subject means for mankind. The other contributors are mostly well known to aficionados of U-boat books. Timothy Mulligan and Eric Rust in particular make welcome and long overdue returns (with Rust contributing a moving Introduction). Other familiar names are Lawrence Paterson, Jak Mallmann Showell and Jordan Vause. These veteran writers are joined by Mark Wise, a naval intelligence officer, and Keith Gill, U-505's curator in Chicago at the MSI.

The story of U-505 is shaped by two complex components: the type of U-boat it was, and the men that gave it life. The Type IX was a weapons system and thus the limitations and strengths of this system's design imparted a template for the successes and failures experienced by its crew. With great clarity and insight, Eric Rust writes of the corresponding strategic successes and failures of the larger picture of Type IX deployments in "No Target too Far: The Genesis, Concept, and Operations of Type IX U-boats in World War II."

While in some part mirroring the whole U-boat war, Type IXs in many respects enjoyed a separate experience apart from the war fought by the Type VIIs. Rust presents compelling arguments for what made Type IX operations unique in their repeated successes as the long reaching arm of the Kriegsmarine. Often misunderstood and underrated, the Type IX was a design that repaid astute deployment, even rating statistically better in some ways than the more famous Type VII. Well read U-boat fans and newcomers alike will find much of interest here, as Rust paves the way for the balance of the chapters that follow.

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