Quote:
Originally Posted by nemo7
Very interesting idea SS. With one exception though; 1WO. We ought to let him get his own ship.
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I was thinking more along the lines of senior enlisted men - the best CPOs. In the US navy it was common for 1/3 of the crew to be rotated out at the end of each patrol, to mix the new men in with those more experienced. A captain might ask that his COB (Chief Of the Boat, or Bosun [Lumprecht in Das Boot]) stay with him, as he wants a man he knows and can trust at the top. Of course I don't know what the rotation procedure was in the Ubootwaffe, so all that may not even apply.
Officers come and go, and a Captain is more likely to suggest his 1WO/XO for his own command than try to hang onto him. He doesn't want a second-in-command who is resentful that his CO kept him from his own boat. The LI (Chief Engineer, who had no counterpart in the US navy), on the other hand, isn't ever going to have a command, and the smart Kaleun would keep him for as long as he could.