Appendix F: The Iron Sea, an interview with Simon Read

Today my guest is Simon Read, Author of The Iron Sea: How the Allies Hunted and Destroyed Hitler’s Warships from Hachette Books. This book details the efforts made by the allies to sink the Kriegsmarine’s major surface combatants, namely the Bismarck, Tirpitz, Gneisenau, and the Scharnhorst. Stories range from bombing missions over France and Norway to the epic battle between the HMS Hood and the Bismarck. Anyone who is familiar with the broad strokes of the second world war is familiar with the sinking of the Bismarck but most of the other events recounted were new to me, most especially the raid on Saint Nazaire on the Atlantic Coast of France. Many of these stories I vocer only briefly in the show or will cover briefly but the Iron Sea details them with a real eye for the individual experiences of those involved.