Graf Zeppelin: The Story of Hitlers Aircraft Carrier

ISBN: 1781559538

Author: Knowles, Daniel

Condition: New

Explores Germanys unfinished aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin and the Kriegsmarines failed attempt to dominate naval warfare.The Second World War saw the eclipse of the battleship as the capital vessel in any navy by a new feat of maritime engineering: the aircraft carrier. It was to change naval warfare forever. But when one thinks of the Kriegsmarine during this period, the German effort to construct an aircraft carrier is often overlooked.Designed in the late 1930s, Graf Zeppelin was the largest ship built by Nazi Germany. The lead ship of her class, she represented the Kriegsmarines efforts to create a balanced, ocean-going fleet capable of projecting German naval power across the oceans. Though 85 per cent complete by the outbreak of war in September 1939, Graf Zeppelin became a white elephant, a ship filled with promise but ultimately disappointing. Hitlers war arrived too early for the Kriegsmarine and construction of Germanys only aircraft carrier was never completed.Graf Zeppelin: The Story of Hitlers Aircraft Carrier tells the full story of the monumental effort and ultimate failure by the Kriegsmarine to crown the German fleet with that most coveted of naval assets, an aircraft carrier.