The Golden Horseshoe. The Wartime Career of Otto Kretschmer, U-Boat Ace, Frontline Books, 2011, paperback, 210 pp., £13.99 ISBN 9781848326149; The Rice Paddy Navy. U.S. Sailors Undercover in China, Linda Kush, Osprey Publishing, 2012, hardback, 294 pp., £20.00 ISBN 9781849088114; The S.A.S. in Tuscany 1943-45, Brian Lett, Pen and Sword Military, 2011, hardback, 246 pp.,£19.99 ISBN 9781848844469; Blue Moon Over Cuba. Aerial Reconnaissance during the Cuban Missile Crisis, William B. Ecker and Kenneth V. Jack, Osprey Publishing, 2012, hardback, 287 pp., ISBN 9781780960715

These books explore some extraordinarily dramatic and intense naval, military and airborne operations in the Second World War and at the height of the Cold War in 1962. In a well-researched reconstruction of the wartime career of Otto Kretschmer, published originally in 1955, Terence Robertson assesses the devastating impact of the exploits of one German U-boat commander, who was dubbed ‘the wolf of the Atlantic' between 1949 and 1941. In the view of Admiral Sir George Creasy, who contributes a preface to the volume and who interviewed Captain Kretschmer after his capture following the sinking of his U-boat in March 1941, Kretschmer was perhaps ‘the most efficient and the most competent U-boat Commanding Officer that Germany produced', striking terror among Allied convoys when Allied defences were severely stretched by the menace of enemy submarine sabotage. The Rice Paddy Navy. U.S. Sailors Undercover in China recounts espionage and sabotage in another field of operations behind Japanese lines during World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. Since these operations took place some 600 miles from the sea, the expeditionary force was dubbed the ‘What-the-Hell Gang' as a result of the surprise expressed when the naval contingent landed on a desolate airstrip in central China and one of the reception party enquired: ‘What the hell is the Navy doing here?'. The top-secret network in collaboration with the nationalist Chinese fought the Japanese occupation of China by intercepting Japanese code, laying mines and training Chinese peasants in guerrilla warfare and supplying critical intelligence to the U.S. Brian Lett in The S.A.S. in Tuscany 1943-45 evaluates three dangerous and daring SAS interventions in enemy-occupied Italy during the later years of the Second World War, explaining the reasons for the failure of two of the operations and for the singular success of the GALIA initiative, where thirty-four men distracted many thousands of enemy troops for nearly two months in the exceptionally harsh winter of 1944-45, supported by an SOE mission led by the author's father. The photo-reconnaissance missions of the U.S. Navy Light Photographic Squadron 62 over Cuba recounted in Blue Moon Over Cuba. Aerial Reconnaissance during the Cuban Missile Crisis some two decades later, flying at low levels under intense enemy fire, by providing the U.S. president, John F. Kennedy and his advisers with clear evidence of what was happening in Cuba played a crucial role in the development of a peaceful resolution to the thirteen-day stand-off between the USA and the Soviet Union, a pivotal engagement in the Cold War. The detailed, carefully researched histories of these episodes add to our understanding of the outcomes of these dimensions of conflict often neglected in more general surveys.