Author Timothy Donald Pilmaier published the novel “The Flight of U-463” in 2019. This is his first publication. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains violence, mature language, and mature situations. The primary character is Peter Teufel.

Teufel is just finishing an engineering degree in Stuttgart when the story begins. He is the son of a US diplomat and has lived in both Japan and Germany. Teufel was in each long enough to be very familiar with the languages and customs. Against the wishes of his parents, he remains in Germany to finish his degree when they return home to the US.

Teufel graduates in December of 1939 and decides to spend some time touring Europe. He cannot imagine being in any danger from Germany. Teufel is fluent in French and finds a job in a French vineyard. When the Germans invade, they believe he is a native.

He is conscripted with other Frenchmen to work in Germany. After helping to build U-boats, he is drafted into the Kriegsmarine. He ends up serving aboard the vessel he has recently helped build. His language skills lead to his assignment to a U-boat heading to the Pacific. With this, his true adventure really begins. In all this, Teufel even has time for a little romance.

I enjoyed the 6.5+ hours I spent reading this 299-page WWII thriller. The 20-year-old Teufel character meets important people. He also has one far-fetched adventure after another. I thought that the novel was a fun read! The cover art is a bit dull but reasonable for the story. I rate this novel as a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.

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I received a free copy of “Flight of the U-463” from Net Galley in return for an honest review.

I thought that this was an intriguing thriller with a different story line . At first, I had my doubts
at what the author intended and if he could make it work. Well, he did , giving what all readers desire, a good yarn, an interesting character, and a dangerous, despicable villain.
The book begins in late 1938 just as Nazi Germany invades the Sudetenland , a fact that American Peter Teufel, an engineering student in Germany, completely approves. Peter, the son of a high-ranking diplomat of the American Embassy in Berlin has grown up in Germany and influenced by his German fellow students who are happy with Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy of repatriating territories lost as a result of the Treaty of Versailles.
As the year ends, Peter is informed by his father that he is retiring, returning to the USA and taking home his wife and Peter. His father says that he is sure that a war is about to break out. A row ensues as Peter refuses to leave Germany, regardless of another European war. Family ties are strained when his father and mother depart for home in the spring and Peter goes off to tour France.
So far, Peter seems more than a bit naive. But that soon changers as events overtake him. With the invasion of Poland, then of France, where Peter is working at a vineyard soon finds himself conscripted as a forced laborer building U-boats. With his fluency in the language, his Aryan appearance and name the authorities think he is a German National. With his engineering degree, his skills are needed. Before long he finds himself in a U-boat as a crewman. What can he do but go along? As an enemy, he would be considered a spy and shot of his true self was revealed. He has to carry on a dangerous game.
I had my doubts that the author , Timothy Donald Pilmoier, could make could make the details of the plot work for long, but he did. Peter grows into well- written character with a conflicted set of problems in a dangerous situation. It is obvious that the author, did his homework, because his technical details of life as a crewman in a submarine ring true, as do his descriptions of German naval etiquette, procedures and command structure. But those things are the supporting structure for a very good human story of a young man who has to grow up fast, and learn to play a duplicitous game of survival until he can somehow find a way to escape. But how can he escape from a boat miles at sea, confined to the narrow tube of a submarine, surrounded by men who are his comrades and also his enemies? It makes for a compelling read.
In the end the plot works. “ The Flight of the u-463 is a short , well written thriller that has great appeal. There is just enough realist military detail to make things work, but the reader is never dowsed in jargon. Peter is an appealing character whose predicament is absorbing. The tension in the book builds to a finely constructed climax that is satisfying and believable. Kudos to the author for coming up with something different in a crowded genre.
I have often wished that some book writers would cut a hundred pages and tighten up,their stories. But Mr. Pilmaier got this one just right.

Note: this was an advanced pre-published copy. Perhaps final edition will have an afterword but the author of how hw came up with Peter Tuefel’s adventures.

In the late 1930s, Peter Teufel, the son of an American diplomat based in Berlin, is working toward the end of his studies in mechanical engineering in Stuttgart. As the political climate changes in Germany, his parents decide the time is right to return to the US. Teufel, close to his degree, refuses to leave, believing his parent are overreacting.

After an Embassy event, he happens upon two men attempting to assault the underaged daughter of a Nazi Abwehr (intelligence) chief, Canaris. For that rescue, Canaris provides him with a pass and also (oddly, to me) a German passport. This allows Teufel the ability to travel, mostly unimpeded.

Teuful happens to be in Danzig, Poland, on September 1, 1939, with a photographer from the AP, when the Germans roll across the border. She, having taken what may be the only non-German photos of the event, leaves, and he follows.

He finishes his degree, and, not yet ready to leave Germany - who can blame him, since Berlin, pre-Nazi, was a hub of culture and business - decides to travel around Europe for awhile before deciding what to do next. Since he speaks fluent German and French (as well as Japanese), it is fairly easy for him to do.

His luck runs out in France. While using a winery as a base for his travels, and working as a mechanic there, the Nazis roll in and take it over as their base. When they mistake Teufel as a German, instead of correcting them, he simply goes along, and finds himself conscripted into the German navy, and more specifically, to the U-boat fleet.

What follows is his life aboard the boats, and his plans of escaping. The plans are always scuttled by one thing or another - reassignment, a lockdown on the port, and so on.

Together with a frustrated German lieutenant who is ready to leave the navy after not receiving command of a boat, he plots an escape that literally spans the globe.

My quibbles with the book are not the history - as a student of history, particularly WWII and the European theater, the details are there. An issue I had is that Teufel, for the most part, seems incredibly immature, and despite his gift for language and mechanics, not bright in other ways: it would not - and did not - take a genius to see what was happening in Germany as the 1930s came to a close. I understand rebelling against your parents, but a young man through college should have shaken that out of his system by then. That he fails at every turn before it is too late to identify himself as an American strikes me as rather odd, and makes me wonder what he thought would happen. That he might be permitted to simply stay, without a job, no support, to witness WWII from within Germany?

The other issue I had was that the book just sort of....stopped. Without revealing the ending itself, I can't say more than that, but it almost seemed as if the author reached a certain endpoint he'd set, and since he had reached it, ended there.

Overall, a solid three out of five stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and PInger Publishing for the reading copy.

This is an engaging, easy, quick read.....considering it's historical & technical accuracy! It tells a really plausible story of how things could've happened in the time of WWII Germany. I thought the author really accurately described the mechanical aspects/details, & liked that he used real historical characters. I'd think this could be made into a good movie! Good characters (good & bad!) & good action!
I received this e-book from Pinger Publishing via NetGalley, offering to read it & post my own fair & honest review.

Execution or Escape... the Flight for Freedom

In the dark days before World War II, a young American named Peter Teufel makes the fateful decision to remain in Europe as the clouds of war descend. Steamrolled by the Nazi onslaught and mistaken for a German citizen, he finds himself conscripted into the vaunted German Navy. Forced to serve on a U-boat, his odds of escaping back to America are slim. If his true identity is discovered, he would be executed as a spy. Peter must find a way to escape, yet he is thwarted at every turn.

Hounded by a brutal Nazi, Klaus Lübeck, who suspects that Peter is not what he appears to be, the American avoids detection at all costs. A chance meeting with the head of German Military Intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, may just be the key to his deliverance. With the odds of escaping stacked against him, the young American devises a bold and daring plan. Once in motion, there is no turning back.