Iron Coffins arrived...just in the nick of time

[Curval]

Two things happened to me today:

1. I made last minute reservations to fly to Mumbai via London, on Sunday...on business

2. My copy of Iron Coffins arrived.

Sweet.

I probably should have bought another book though...I'm gonna finnish IC on the first leg.

[Dowly]

I`m still waiting for my copy. I ordered it on last thursday. It should´ve been here already. :roll:

[supersloth]

incidently, im just finishing this book up. hang on cause your in for one hell of a ride :up:

[MarkT79]

Excellent book, Mine is missing pages 128-161 but I just carried on reading and didn't bother returning it because enjoyed the rest of the book so much. You can learn quite a bit to help you play well at SH3. It could also be made into a good film, Someone send Wolfgang Pieterson a copy :P

[Curval]

Mine is missing pages 128-161 but I just carried on reading and didn't bother returning it because enjoyed the rest of the book so much.

I just RAN to check my copy. Whew...pages 128-161 are there. :up:

[Camaero]

Thats strange! I just ordered mine today! Just found it on amazon.com and thought it looked good.

[benetofski]

Not wishing to 'poop on your cornflakes' there is, as I am sure you are aware, both fact and fiction out there in the literary world, including u-boat accounts and stories. U-boat scholars should be able to discern between or question the differences at some stage....

I have a copy of 'Iron Coffins' by Werner (which I honestly admit is an enjoyable read) however it is fairly well known that the book was written with some degree of 'poetic licence' and 'cut and paste' from 'others' war patrols - steered towards an audience unable (generally) to disprove Werner's own (personal account) story from non-fiction...

The books 'forward' - written by Edward L. Beach (USN retd) even admits that he only knows of Werner through 'his story' .

Perhaps Beaches' own story would have been a more factual one?

There is an interesting (Iron Coffins) book overview by Michael Hadley (Professor of Germanic studies, University of Victoria and author of several well researched books including U-Boats against Canada, 'A Nations Navy', Tin Pots and Pirate Ships and 'Count not the Dead.

Basing his study on some two-hundred-and-fifty German novels, memoirs, fictionalized histories, and films (including Das Boot), Michael Hadley examines the popular image of the German submarine (refering to 'Count not the Dead) and weighs the values, purposes, and perceptions of German writers and film makers.


Here it is:

Excerpt from “Count not the Dead”, by M.Hadley


On closer examination, however, “Iron Coffins” proved to be one of the worst distortions of the postwar period. It is, in fact, just as propagan­distic in its own way as u-boat books that had appeared during the war.

Jurgen Rohwer, Germany's premier naval historian, savaged the book in a scathing review. "If one wanted to underline the factual errors [in red], almost every page would be like a blood bath," he observed. On the basis of documentary evidence - some of which consisted of reports submitted by Werner himself during his wartime service - Rohwer condemned the book as sheer hyprocisy. Werner had spliced other submariners' achievements onto his own record, had wildly exaggerated circumstances and events, did not have access to witnesses on whom he claimed to draw, invented orders that never existed, and distorted statistics and records - all to sustain his charge that the naval leadership had irresponsibly "fuelled up" submariners to undertake suicidal missions.

Werner's book was motivated less by a sense of duty towards his fallen comrades than by cheap sensationalism in the attempt to make a literary hit. By this time, of course, Werner was already enjoying major sales on two continents.

Confiding to a former Crew-Kamerad in 1974, Werner commented on his book's continuing success. It had appeared in fourteen coun­tries including Japan. It had given rise to tours across the United States for some Tv and radio interviews, and lectures at schools, univer­sities, and naval bases. He had become, in effect, the paramount image-maker: "I was thus in the extraordinary position of informing our former opponents about the truth of our epic struggle. I know I have done more for the esteem of our U-Boat Arm and its men than all those little pen-pushers together.

Significantly, the Association of German Submariners had fully supported the findings of Jurgen Rohwer's debunking review; it had dissociated itself from any claims in the memoir and had rejected Werner's "hack-work as totally without foundation." Fortunately for Werner, however, his fame and his mes­sage outlived the review.

However, as I said earlier - an enjoyable read!

[Dowly]

Yay! I got my copy today!

[donw]

I got mine a few days ago...(10.73 on Amazon)
had it read that 1st night...
really enjoyed it...regardless of any "distortions"
:up:

If anyone is interested in buying it from me for the same price...I'll pass it along

[CptGrayWolf]

What's all this 'ordering books' about? Don't you guys have book stores in your city?
And yes, Iron Coffins has taken a few hits from 'experts', saying the book is full of errors.
I did find it curious when Werner simply states how he brought down a plane all by himself with his water cooled WW1 machine gun :huh: !
Nevertheless, Iron Coffin is a great book, and even if he gets a few factual numbers wrong, he still knows what war smells and looks like and this he describes with great skill. :up:

[Curval]

What's all this 'ordering books' about? Don't you guys have book stores in your city?

Well, I don't want to speak for anyone else, but the only way I would be able to find a book on submarines would be to buy it online. Very little selection in Bermuda's book stores.

Having said that...I was in Toronto a couple of months ago and went to the World's Biggest Book Store. What a JOKE! Not ONE book on U-Boats...not flipping one. Every title I mentioned the clerk at his computer would say "Uhhh...we have to order that." World's biggest POS bookstore.

[Venatore]

both sides had amazing people, and this is another example.

Venatore :smug:

[ironkross]

When I read it there were many times I found some of the passages a little too hard to believe. The escapes from certain death that recurred over and over started to make me wonder. I enjoyed reading the book tho.

[turbidite]

The main interest of Werner's book is the fact that it mixes well patrol time with leave time

and involves you much more in the war than other books (except Steel Boat, Iron Hearts about

u-505). This is this kind of feeling that I miss in current simulations and that was partially present

in AOD.

I probably look like the devil's advocate but iron coffins is the book I find myself returning to each

time I want a uboat fix.

For the curious you can look at the crew list at uboatwaffe.net and find Werner's friends that

disappeared at various time during the war - it is really a weird feeling to read about them and

see their pictures and then a line like this :

Gerloff Gunter Lt.z.S 15.10.1921 14.04.1943 U-526+
lost near Lorient

Forget about the nitpick and enjoy the reading :yep:

[Dowly]

When was Iron Coffins made? I´ve found lots of similarities to the Das Boot. Did Petersen make some of the things from the book?

i.e. the human chain to move the water, chlorine gas filling up the boat etc. reminded me lots of Das Boot. :)

[Catfish]

Hello,
the discussion on Werner's "Iron coffins" came up before here. I think it is still one of the better books. You can certainly read Doenitz' memoirs or some other books written by people who are so proud of their deeds during ww2 that they obviously forgot pain and fear, let alone the Nazi regime. History reads different if it is written by Caesar rather than by one of his centurios. If you need facts on technics, both kinds of literature will not get you far.

This is a critical book. Some ranges of electronic warfare as well as some incidents Werner describes are plain wrong. In the german edition "Eiserne Saerge" there is a foreword by Hans Helmut Kirst, who is a writer of partly fictious war books himself. This is a book that simply does not glorify war, as well as the book "Das Boot". Both authors have therefore been attacked by all kinds of people that did learn nothing from WW2, or often survived it by not taking part.

You will not find a word of Mr. Rohwer criticizing Doenitz or the guilt of the Nazi regime. Saying he is the leading naval historian is based on the fact that people hating the war did not want to write about it any more. He does. When you find any criticism in this "historian's" writing it will be limited to problems with logistics hindering Doenitz to win the war. Even today there are few survivors that will tell you about "their" war without need. You should read Rohwers outpours with a grain of salt - as well as Werner's.

Greetings,
Catfish

[PatAWilson]

It is often a fact that first person accounts are rife with errors. I am an airplane junky more than anyting else and pilot combat reports are full of inaccuracies. WWII infantry combat reports on the allied side report a Tigre tank behind every hill. WWII infantry combat reports on the German side frequently seem to expound on the vast superiority of the German soldier ... ummm ... if you won all of the battles then how did you lose the war? However, factual errors do not IMHO make first person accounts less valuable.

First person accounts are more about what it was like and what was the common soldiers perspective. The common soldiers perspective was often wrong, so why should one expect first person accounts to be 100% accurate? The feeling that one gets from Iron Coffins comes closer to putting one in a U-Boat under attack than anything else I have read or seen. You don't have to take its account verbatim to accept that this is what a German U-boat commander might have felt.

[Bungo_Pete]

I was borders books today to see if iron coffins was ther I didnt see it an saw a book called..."wolf pack the story of the uboat war in ww2" 29$ but it looks ok then as I was leaving the milatry section i glanced down in the corner at the bottom rack I almost missed it but there it was "iron coffins" for 17$ :rock: it now sits on my desk ready to read :D

[Kaptan Tommy]

I read "Iron Coffins" several years ago - and loved it. Being a big sub lover since the 50's, I don't care if the uh, facts, are sometimes skewed. If the story grips me and keeps me reading I consider it a "good read".

Oh, and my first sub book was "The Real Book About Submarines" which I took out from my grammar school library.

I just found it on eBay about six months ago and bought it. I re-read it and enjoyed it just as much now as I did 50 years ago. Of course, technology has moved along just a bit since then... :lol:

[Kpt. Lehmann]

... Just finished reading Iron Coffins 3-4 days ago... couldn't put it down... sacrificed sleep to finish it.

I don't care about possible discrepancies. It was an awesome story.

At the very least... Cmdr Herbert Werner was there... we weren't.

Anyone deciding not to buy or read Iron Coffins based on the criticism of others is really missing out on quite an adventure.

[Marhkimov]

Kpt. Lehmann,

Check your PM! :up:

[Dowly]

Oh no! I have only ~100 pages till I`m finished! :o

I don´t want it to end! :cry:

[Camaero]

I really can't wait to start reading this book.

Since Christmas is coming up, would you guys suggest a couple more to add to my list? Anything comparable to Winged Victory? (As far as a true story being told with fictional elements added in.) (PM them to me if you want, I hate to hijack this thread...) :smug:

[Kaptan Tommy]

Hey Dowly, don't you just wish you were reading "Book One" of a series? Say, a series of ten books? :yep:

[Dowly]

Hey Dowly, don't you just wish you were reading "Book One" of a series? Say, a series of ten books? :yep:

YES YES YES!!!! :dead:

I want it to be a never ending story. :D

[Curval]

Well, I'm almost done it now. This trip I am on has been very sucessful but just too many darn parties. It is tough to read when I get back to my hotel room at 6.00am. I've had to read many chapters a second time because I was too liquified to remember what I had read previously.

I didn't think Indians were big drinkers/partyers. Boy was I wrong.

[Dowly]

Well, I'm almost done it now. This trip I am on has been very sucessful but just too many darn parties. It is tough to read when I get back to my hotel room at 6.00am. I've had to read many chapters a second time because I was too liquified to remember what I had read previously.

I didn't think Indians were big drinkers/partyers. Boy was I wrong.

:rotfl: