Alex Rose on Phantom Fleet: The Hunt for Nazi Submarine U-505 and World War II’s Most Daring Heist

Interview of Tuesday, 14 October 2025 of Alexander Rose PhD, author and historian, on Phantom Fleet: The Hunt for Nazi Submarine U-505 and World War II’s Most Daring Heist. Host: James Hughes, AFIO President, a former CIA Operations Officer and Former NSA Associate Deputy Director of Operations.

TOPIC: In this episode Rose and Hughes discuss Rose's 2025 book: Phantom Fleet: The Hunt for Nazi Submarine U-505 and World War II’s Most Daring Heist -- which draws on long-classified encrypted documents and intercepted German transmissions to reveal how an owlish egghead and a glory-seeking buccaneer teamed up to score the richest prize on the high seas during WWII.
The interview runs 55 minutes and includes several Q&As.
Phantom Fleet is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Fleet-...

BIOS: ALEXANDER ROSE is the author of numerous books, including Phantom Fleet, The Lion & The Fox, Empires of the Sky, Men of War, American Rifle, and the New York Times-bestselling Washington’s Spies, which was adapted into the AMC drama series Turn: Washington’s Spies, for which he served as a writer/producer. He writes the Spionage Substack and his website is https://www.alexrose.com.

JAMES R. HUGHES currently serves as the 17th President of AFIO. His service began January 2015. He had a career of US Government service spanning 37 years in numerous foreign countries with a particular focus in the Middle East. He started in U.S. Military Intelligence in the late 1960s and then joined the CIA’s Clandestine Service. He served overseas as a Chief of Station several times, and at CIA Headquarters in a number of senior management positions, including as Chief of the Near East and South Asia Division, in the Directorate of Operations [today’s National Clandestine Service]. He was also named the Associate Deputy Director of Operations (ADDO) at the National Security Agency, 1998-99. Following his retirement from the government in 2005, he joined EDS in Herndon, VA, as the Client Industry Executive for the U.S. Intelligence Community. After the HP acquisition of EDS, he continued to serve in a similar capacity until his retirement in 2012. His parents were missionaries in Turkey in the 1950s, where Jim spent his formative years. He is fluent in Arabic.

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