Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitman
By romantic I meant the idea of brave and capable men fighting in terribly inferior conditions for their country. According to the report about U-570, they were mostly not brave, nor capable  . |
But I think it is hard to make a generalization about u-boat crews from the interrogation of
one boat's crew or a film about one fictitious crew.
Certainly not all boats had incompetent crews(heck look at the losses they inflicted!) just as not every kaleun was a 'ace'.
I've only read one opinion of 'Das Boot' by a actual u-boat man and his feelings were as follows-
1)The depth charge scenes were over dramatised. The submarine would never roll and buck about during the explosions as depicted in the movie. Pipes would burst, lights would shatter, but the whole boat wouldn't move like that.
2)There was no 'screaming' by the crew during depth charge attacks. They were all terrified, but knew better than to say a word.
3)The 'Chief' in the movie was a true superman of his profession. The author(a u-boat engineering officer himself) confessed to still not understading how they got back to the surface after being 'sunk' at Gibraltar. The author commented that they would have lost a lot fewer u-boats in the war if they had more men with the skills of the 'Chief'.
4)The movie was a pretty accurate depiction of
day to day life on a u-boat.
Is he lying? Memory failing him? Embelishing the heroism of his companions? Who's to say?
Another place, another time. by Werner Hirschmann