Iron Coffins: A U-boat Commander's War, 1939-45

[minett]

Ordered this book yesterday Just wondering if anyone else has read it and there thoughts on it??? ..I wanted a book as written by a uboat captain during the war years and this seems the best ive found..Ive anyone can recommend any other good uboat books from ww2 that would be great Sink them all Minett :arrgh!::arrgh!::arrgh!:

[Maki4444]

I am so happy that someone mentioned this book. Amazing stuff, really. Makes you cry at one point. What those men went through....terrible. Just don't expect the book to have descriptions of stadimeter readings and calculations of AOB and things like that. It's a book about the experience of the sailors, about life ashore, about their hopes and trials under the sea. It's about death and about a hard grip on life :)

I would really like to rad more of such books, but the libraries in my country have a limited number of such literature. Ordering from the net is a bit expensive though. But if I hear a good recommendation on this thread I woul love to give it a go :)

[Sailor Steve]

Noobs! :rotfl2:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=87220&highlight=iron+coffins
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=89717&highlight=iron+coffins
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88443&highlight=iron+coffins
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=104149&highlight=iron+coffins

Review:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1353017&postcount=1

[Herr-Berbunch]

Off the top of my head I recall it being a good book, but a lot of people here will shout it down as being written with poetic licence.

They still all enjoyed it though. :)

[Maki4444]

Hahhahaha, can't beat a Rock'n roll grandpa :oops:

[mookiemookie]

I think there are better books out there. Steel Boats, Iron Hearts, for example, and U-Boat Ace: The Story of Wolfgang Luth.

[minett]

thanks for the feed back esp sailor steve for shooting us down , must remember to scroll the archive of the forum in future :O:

Ill check them other books out to mookie thanks :up:

[Hinrich Schwab]

Noobs! :rotfl2:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=87220&highlight=iron+coffins
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=89717&highlight=iron+coffins
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88443&highlight=iron+coffins
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=104149&highlight=iron+coffins

Review:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1353017&postcount=1

:haha: I think we need a few more threads, just to be sure.:know:

Off the top of my head I recall it being a good book, but a lot of people here will shout it down as being written with poetic licence.

They still all enjoyed it though. :)

I agree with this. If one reads this for the sake of entertainment, the book will most certainly achieve its purpose. As far as a factual account, the answer is "no".

One must definitely de-fog the periscope before looking through it on this one. I think what makes this work draw so much venom is that people expected a recreation of events while the book is pretty much a romanticization of them. Likewise with Das Boot, Werner wrote this decades after the war and admitted in the book that he destroyed his journals on one of his patrols. As long as the book is not taken too seriously, it is good. Its scholastic merit is negligible except as an example of literature.

[Ducimus]

Iron coffins is a fantastic novel.

[minett]

ah ok well i was looking for more factual accounts , journels of events ill still read this but im looking for a book that offers that :ping:

[Sailor Steve]

thanks for the feed back esp sailor steve for shooting us down , must remember to scroll the archive of the forum in future :O:
Not at all. You might never have found them. I've been around long enough to remember those threads. :sunny:

If it's factual accounts you want, you might start here:
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-U-Boat-War-1942-1945-Library/dp/0679640339
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-U-Boat-War-Hunters-1939-1942/dp/0394588398

[Sailor Steve]

I think what makes this work draw so much venom is that people expected a recreation of events while the book is pretty much a romanticization of them.
I think the problem lies in the fact that Werner, or his publicist, claimed that it was fact. It's not the poetic license that causes a bad reaction, it's the pretending that there was none.

Likewise with Das Boot, Werner wrote this decades after the war and admitted in the book that he destroyed his journals on one of his patrols. As long as the book is not taken too seriously, it is good. Its scholastic merit is negligible except as an example of literature.
Here I disagree. Buchheim said that his account was fiction, loosely based on fact. That makes all the difference.

[Ducimus]

ah ok well i was looking for more factual accounts , journels of events ill still read this but im looking for a book that offers that :ping:

I'd recommend "Steel boat Iron hearts". While i'm sure some of it might be varnished through recollection from years later after the events, It's not often you read from a crewman's point of view, and it paints a far more accurate picture then Werner's novel.

Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/Steel-Boat-Iron-Hearts-Goebeler/dp/1932714316/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342731770&sr=1-1&keywords=steel+boat+iron+hearts)

Excerpt from book here:
http://ubootwaffe.net/books/books.cgi?a=4

[Hinrich Schwab]

I think the problem lies in the fact that Werner, or his publicist, claimed that it was fact. It's not the poetic license that causes a bad reaction, it's the pretending that there was none.
Agreed.


Here I disagree. Buchheim said that his account was fiction, loosely based on fact. That makes all the difference.

What I said didn't come out right, apparently. :doh: What I meant to say was that the time gap between the events themselves and the publishing of the respective works was sufficient to where fiction or not, there would be details lost over time. Das Boot, despite its intended fictionalization of events, portrays some accurate details. I was just discussing on the U-Boot HAHD forums that Trumann* from the novel is a fictionalization of Peter Zschech.


*Just a refresher, Trumann was the guy that shot up the club.

[Sailor Steve]

Hahhahaha, can't beat a Rock'n roll grandpa :oops:
Sure you can. All you need is a big enough stick. :D

[Sailor Steve]

What I said didn't come out right, apparently. :doh: What I meant to say was that the time gap between the events themselves and the publishing of the respective works was sufficient to where fiction or not, there would be details lost over time. Das Boot, despite its intended fictionalization of events, portrays some accurate details. I was just discussing on the U-Boot HAHD forums that Trumann* from the novel is a fictionalization of Peter Zschech.


*Just a refresher, Trumann was the guy that shot up the club.
Ah, got it. That's interesting. :sunny:

[Hinrich Schwab]

Ah, got it. That's interesting. :sunny:
The movie/miniseries doesn't give enough info to make the connection, but the book does when cross-referenced with information from Hans Goebeler's Steel Boat, Iron Hearts regarding Zschech's personality and the same reputation for always limping back to port. The irony is that given the sheer number of times U-505 was sabotaged, not only did it survive the war, but it is a museum exhibit now. :D

[Iron Budokan]

It's a very well written book. I like it a lot.

[Harald_Lange]

It's my current read at the moment, and I have to say it's one awesome book, highly recommended.