As a teenager, I read Edward Beach's "Run Silent Run Deep" trilogy, was fascinated and just put them down. I got a glimpse into a world I would never get to inhabit.
Ten years later I was married, and my wife's grandfather was a crewmember aboard the USS Kraken. He never talked about his own personal role on the sub except that he was almost ten years older than all his crew except for the officers. But he made up for his reluctance to talk about himself by his enthusiasm for the US submarine program in WWII.
He was an active member of the US Submarine Veterans of WWII and always sent me their newsletters, from which I learned much of what I know. That explains why my viewpoint is often in conflict with history books. The newsletters gave me a taste for primary sources. When Warren Watkins passed, he willed me his entire library of submarine books, most of them signed by the authors, predominately books written by the sub sailors who fought in the war.
An important part of his library was a collection of books on German U-Boats, the character of which made it crystal clear that the American submariner looked at U-Boat sailors as brothers worthy of respect and admiration. "Iron Coffins" began my fascination with the U-Boats and "U-505" by Daniel Gallery was saturated with the respect and admiration of American seamen toward the U-Boat organization.
So I had no resistance to picking up Silent Hunter 3 last October, especially since it was on sale. I learned more about U-Boats from the game than I had learned about in the books just in the limited time I played SH3.
But then SH4 hit the market and stuck the chord: maybe I could command the USS Kraken and maybe she could have a career a bit more in keeping with the spirit of the sailors aboard her than the lackluster career begging for targets that Kraken actually had by virtue of joining the war too late.
SH4 delivered that and more. Thanks to a collection of bits and bytes, I've been able to experience some of the choices, face some of the hardships and feel some of the frustration and joy that the real heroes of WWII faced. Although my life didn't depend on the outcome, I've experienced the frustration of dud after dud, circle running torpedoes, perfect solutions that miss, perfect approaches ruined by a too-alert airplane, great explosions, ships that refused to sink with four hits, fuel leaks and hull damage. I've had both periscope heads turned into scrap metal during a depth charge attack and had to return 3700 miles back to Pearl Harbor blind, depending only on my radar to keep me safe.
It is only a game, but it remains the best way to experience some commonality with the men who fought. As such the purpose of playing SH4 is to honor these heroes by experiencing their lives in as realistic a way as possible.
Down scope!
