Steel Boat, Iron Hearts – A U-Boat Crewman’s Life Aboard U-505 By Hans Goebeler with John Vanzo (254 pages, photos, maps) Reviewer:  Terry Miller Overall Rating: Four stars--Highly recommended. An excellent book. German vessels like the U-505 were not true submarines but were what the author calls, “submersibles” because they were designed more as surface ships capable of submerging for several hours when necessary. That fact figures prominently in Hans Goebeler’s fascinating account of what life aboard a German U-Boat was like. Throughout the book you never forget that he was an enemy sailor doing his duty to try to sink Allied ships but he is a sympathetic character in that the reader will be able to readily identify with him and will consider what he would have done had he been born in Germany at that time. U-505 experienced a lot prior to her capture by then-Captain Dan Gallery’s task force of destroyer escorts and we learn of it all through the eyes of a nineteen-year old sailor whose affection for his boat nearly all of us can understand. He does not try to paint himself as a better man than he really was, and relates his life as he lived it, warts and all. After he retired, Goebeler moved with his wife to Chicago to be near the U-505. He conducted many reunions, both of German submarine veterans and of the ships that participated in the capture and many where the former enemies attended together. Goebeler died in 1999 before his book was published but his collaborator, John Vanzo, a professor of political science and geography at Bainbridge College in Bainbridge, Georgia has done an excellent job of bringing it to life for the reader. This is a very good book and I recommend it highly. Availability: Signed copies available from Savas Beatie: http://www.savasbeatie.com/GoebelerU-505.html Savas Beatie LLC PO Box 4527 El Dorado Hills, CA 95762 www.savasbeatie.com