Das Boot

[red devil]

Two to a bunk except officers, it was called hot bunking

[CaptNimmo]

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h3/Nu ... -505-3.jpg

I was on board the u-boat in the Chicago Natural History Museum. Pity they don't permit photos to be taken inside but anyone who suffers from claustrophobia would not have liked it. I am not sure how people in their right minds could have volunteered for that service. I'd take my chances on a freighter any day.

[Charles78]

May I respectfully point out that while there is disagreement on some of the scenes in Das Boot, the kommandant of U-96, the boat on which the author of the novel made two war patrols as a war correspondent, was a technical consultant to the movie and was on the set every single day. That man was Heinrich Lehman-Willenbrock who survived the war. He also served as the model for the character of the "old man" in the novel. Also, Erich Topp, one of the most successful UBoat commanders of the war was a technical consultant to the movie and defended it vigorously in his after it was released and some said it was inaccurate, etc. He devotes a number of pages to this in his haunting memoir .

The novel, Das Boot, isn't really a novel but a memoir written in the style of a novel by the author, who is the young war correspondent in the movie. If you take a look at the press from the time the movie was made, 1978, everyone knew exactly who the main characters were in real life and all were aware that the boat was U-96 commanded by Lehman-Willenbrock. (Himself in the top 30 uboat aces).

While many continue to criticize the movie, I would most respectfully point out that those who do so weren't on the war patrols made by U-96 and the novelist and the Uboat commander were and both were present when the movie was made. So none of us were actually there while the author and the UBoat commander were there--- so I believe it is best to give them a nod of deference since we don't know and they were on the boat.

After the publication of the novel, Lothar Gunter Bucheim, the author of the novel and one of Germany's most prominent postwar artists, published a book of photographs he took on his two war patrols aboard U-96. Several of the photographs show the commander maneuvering the boat under depth charge attack. It is an astonishing book and worth buying. The photographs are really, really true to life since the author personally took them while on war patrols on U-96.

Having read most memoirs and dozens and dozens of histories of the UBoat war while researching my novel, I can say t I believe the movie is a very accurate depiction of the horrible conditions the UBoat men fought under and is very true to life. If one detail isn't right, it doesn't ruin the movie. As a novelist myself, I can say that one must take a certain poetic license from time to time to make the story fit together. Das Boot isn't a documentary ---nor was it ever meant to be--but a film which shows in the most raw and emotional way the horror of war in general and UBoats in specific.

It is a work of art and a work of art meant to convey the terrible nature of war which it does brilliantly. The film will continue to be one of the great motion pictures depicting the Second World War and if there is a piece of lumber which may not (and we weren't there) have been on the boat, so what? One can easily find fault with certain details in Band of Brothers, yet it is the most realistic depiction of life in an elite American combat unit we will ever have and as a work of art shows us the key emotion of loyalty which kept these men together.

Respectfully submitted
Charles McCain
author of An Honorable German

[red devil]

Charles, thanks for the valuable information. I am satisfied that life was as depicted correctly in the film and always have been. But, like everyone else, everyone else see's things that little bit differently and can be easily influenced by other sources.

I have an extensive WW2 site and on occcasion receive emails stating that this or that is incorrect. One lambasted me for daring to claim that a British invention was in fact American! It wasn't. Another stated 'facts' that Capt Walker RN was Captain of HMS Kite, she was torpedoed in the Atlantic and he died AFTER the war of a massive heart attack and other bits totally and completely wrong. For the record Walker died 9 July 1944 of exhaustion. Kite was NEVER torpedoed in the Atlantic but in the Arctic after Walker was dead and her regular Capt (Segrave) was in hospital!

A bit off topic but it just goes to show how people see things as right when they are completely off track.

Das Boot rules as far as U Boat films are concerned!!

[Pax Melmacia]

One group that had criticized the authenticity of Das Boot were some former officers of the U-123 (See Operation Drumbeat). One thing they didn't like was the way the U-96 crew was frequently squabbling, claiming they didn't do that. I reserve judgement there, but I imagine even in a peacetime surface vessel, friction builds up. Too, they took exception to the apparently gross and filthy manners of the crew. I'm guessing this is due to a captain's management style; I wondered if Lehmann-Willenbrock might have been more laid back with his crew's personal habits than U-123's Hardegen. They also criticized the way the crew frequently went about half-naked. But I do remember Herber Werner of Iron Coffins stating that he at least once traipsied through the compartment completely nude. Finally, they didn't agree with the movie's effects of hurling the crew about during a depth charge attack (At this point I note that much criticism is levelled at the movie but I don't hear much slamming of the book.), but a separate interview with Hardegen confirms this is indeed authentic.

[red devil]

The crew 'hurtling' about is possibly a bit dramatic but it depends on where the offending depth charge detonates. The concussion from the water/explosion is such that an enormous shock wave is generated. A depth charge detonating a few meters away can do as much damage or more as a depth charge next to the boat. Whilst a depth charge 20 meters away might not even affect the boars stability. Its not the detonation but the blast. The amount of the shock wave can be easily seen by the plume of surface water thrown up above the charge. This is a minute portion of the blast.

When the Royal Navy began to use the hedgehog (forward throwing bombs) they would not detonate except on impact. Therefore a bomb detonating was a sure sign of a boats 'death' to those on the surface. and if not its death then a positional giveaway.

Captain Walker RN invented the so called 'plaster attack' where a known u boat position was hit by three or more ships in line or abreast dropping charges in a box pattern thereby 'covering' an area, making a strike that more likely. Walker also knew that his depth charges had a finite depth and that U Boats could go below this depth. He also perfected the two in line attack. The lead ship would lose contact as it passed over the u boat, but Walker in Starling, coming along a few hundred yards behind still had contact and he would tell the lead ship when to drop. It worked too!! The resulting detonations were sufficiently close to cause major or fatel disruption to the sub.

If his asdic operator reported that the boat had gone deep, he would maintain contact with a search pattern of three ships in contact, and the other three of his ships steaming a 'holding ring' around the area. On one occasion they had the boat too deep, and knew where he was, keeping asdic contact throughout - he told his crew to stand down, stopped engines and waited, telling his officers that the sub would have to surface at a definite time. It did, within 2 minutes of his prediction and he sank it after rescueing the crew. Asdic reporting the rising sub as it came back from the depths.

This was Poser in the U202. An account of this attack will appear in a different thread.

The U 534 was sunk by a depth charge that was in close proximity that did not blow a hole in the sub but caused thousands of minute fractures in the rear of the sub that allowed water to pour in 'through' the metal. The crew had time to escape before it went down.

In one scene the engineering officer is seen to crack under the strain of the constant bombardment. It is a similar condition to shell shock and was not treated as a medical condition but of 'cowardise' which was totally untrue. The constant pressure of an attack was sufficient to unhinge even the bravest man. Remember General 'slapper' Patton anyone?

[Pax Melmacia]

In one scene the engineering officer is seen to crack under the strain of the constant bombardment. It is a similar condition to shell shock and was not treated as a medical condition but of 'cowardise' which was totally untrue. The constant pressure of an attack was sufficient to unhinge even the bravest man. Remember General 'slapper' Patton anyone?

That reminds me of another criticism of the ex-U-123 crew. They didn't approve of that scene, saying that while they were scared, they thought it wrong to show it. With respect, I find this uncharitable, to say the least. Too, I heard U-Boat engine-room crews tended to be more terrified due to their isolation from the comforting presence of their officers and other crew.

[red devil]

To be encased in a steel coffin, hundreds of feet beneath the suface of a breathable world, being smacked left right and centre by bombs must have been truly horrific. The feeling of relief if you survived must have been something akin to ultimate happiness.

[Pax Melmacia]

I forgot to mention in my last post that another reason the engine room crew was most likely to crack was because they were forever haunted with the knowledge that they were the least likely to escape, being furthest from the escape hatch.