What do YOU think happened to Prien?

[Salvadoreno]

There needs to be a little research done. But what exactlly do you think happened to the invicible Prien and his U-47 crew?? Do you think he truly was destroyed by the Wolveriene and Verity along with U-99? Was it possibly crew error from the new crew on its last patrol. Or perhaps was he destroyed by a mine on his way back from the convoy. Remember he was supposely out of torpedoes when he reached the convoy, but Donitz lost contact with Prein and
Kretschmer's after they made contact with the convoy..

Or perhaps was it the supernatural?? The BULL of Scapa Flow dead? Impossible! HE LIVES!?! I personally..and i know this is stupid.. believe something else was amist here. Prien was a shark! He went through hundreds of DC attacks on him and he survived! Snuck into Scapa Flow with no problem... Something else happened on his way back from that convoy attack. 1 possibility i believe is crew error, from the couple new crew members he picked up for his last patrol.
And the other possibility, is that he and his crew departed to Vahallah where all great warriors go after the uboat ran into a supernatural force in the sea ..

What do you think?

[The Avon Lady]

Me conjures up visions of Giligan's Island.

[retired1212]

He was abducted by aliens. You may find his boat and his crew in some zoo in Mars.

[wabos43]

When Prien set out for his last patrol just nine members of the crew, and none of the original officers excluding Prien, were of the original compliment that went on the Scapa Flow mission. Fact is that crews were rotated and promoted out of boats so often, that frequently the crew were not built up to be elite in the way that we are able to do in SHIII. My personal feeling is that his boat was lost due to error, either due to something mundane or the combination of a green crew mean't that errors were made during a depth charge attack.

[Catfish]

Hello,
i think Oombongo is right, and from there he managed to influence the evangelic electors of Bush who b.t.w. are all satanists who support Israel and killed Kennedy (did i leave something out?). Just look around the Internet, evidence is out there !
Greetings,
Catfish

[Salvadoreno]

Originally Posted by wabos43

When Prien set out for his last patrol just nine members of the crew, and none of the original officers excluding Prien, were of the original compliment that went on the Scapa Flow mission. Fact is that crews were rotated and promoted out of boats so often, that frequently the crew were not built up to be elite in the way that we are able to do in SHIII. My personal feeling is that his boat was lost due to error, either due to something mundane or the combination of a green crew mean't that errors were made during a depth charge attack.

True but some of the original petty officers remained, it was the officers who went on to command their uboats and meet their own fates. Crew error is probably holds the greatest merit.

[Caleb]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Hello,
i think Oombongo is right, and from there he managed to influence the evangelic electors of Bush who b.t.w. are all satanists who support Israel and killed Kennedy (did i leave something out?). Just look around the Internet, evidence is out there !
Greetings,
Catfish

If you look for evidence on the internet i think all you will find are opinions. hardly creditable.

[SmokinTep]

Nobody knows for sure.

Hm, who knows, there are many rumours. The most absurd in my opinion is the one saying that Prien mutinied and died in a concentration camp.

Relating to SH3 I think that their Hydrophone Guy was asleep and so they were caught by surprise, rammed, crash dived but were unable to get all the water out of the boat. So they sank while their LI screamt "Wassereinbruch" every two seconds or so.

[Sixpack]

He set course to Argentina, made his U-Boot and crew mysteriously 'disappear' and had a succesful sex change operation and extreme make over to hide his original facial features and happily lived thereafter as an anonimous 'chica rossa', or so I heard on Discovery Channel a while back.

[Duncan Idaho]

Boy, you guys are out in left field. I think he's currently sitting in a house in Boise Idaho, playing SH3, and lurking here on the forums with the rest of us. He's probably even made a few mods we all love so much.

Heck, one of his mods was probably ripped off by X1.

The nerve of them.

[codmander]

ash canned!!!

[msxyz]

Indeed, there's a legend that says that Prien mutined in late 1941.

But it seems unlikely. While being an excellent sailor he was easily influenced by the propaganda and never realized to be a tool of the regime. His exploits and accomplishment were boasted and over-exagerated. There are even concrete doubts that his biography was written by him rather than by a sponsored journalist. Everybody remembers Prien for his incursion in Scapaflow, but very few know that the italians violated every major english harbor in the mediterranean using submersibles and delivering frog-men to place limpet chrges or explosive carriots from 1941 to 1943.

Now, back in topic, possible causes:

Lost to a mine: as in WW1, the english littered the sea with millions of mines that claimed many unaware uboots. Prien's last reported position was far from every major mine field and thus this fate does not seem likely

Sunk by english ASW ships: HMS Camellia and HMS Arbutus were operating near the zone were U47 was last reported. As Uboat.net reports, for years was it believed that the British destroyer HMS Wolverine sank U-47 on 8 March, 1941. This information proved incorrect. Both the sonar and the hydrophone were disturbed by the turbolence caused by depth charges for up to 5 minutes after. This give a submarine the time to slip away at schleictfahrt. Many ASW crews claimed this way a disproportionate number of sinks or simply gave up when they couldn't hear the submarine anymore.

Operational loss: The most probable. An operational loss is an unfortunate event unrelated to combat. Mechanical failures, incidents caused by human errors, natural disasters and the such. For a submarine these are the most likely scenarios:

-Onboard explosion: most likely caused by the batteries. Lead Acid accumulators develop hydrogen and oxygen while used. During recharge the battery rooms are ventilated; during rapid dischares (ie flank speed)while dived, it's impossible to do so thus the explosive gases accumulate inside the submarine.
-Circling torpedoes: if the gyroscope is damaged or does not begin to spin before the torpedo exits the tube, the torpedo usually enters into a loop course or in a random zig-zag pattern. Since a dived submarine is much larger and slower than a torpedo, chances are than the crazed torpedo will strike its own mother craft before it has a chance to get out of its way.
-Structural collapse: unlikely unless the boat was damaged by a collision / depth charge attack sometime earlier.
-Crash dive without closing all the valves/hatches: They say: "sh!t happens". And it happened many times, particulary with green crews.

[Shadow9216]

Another possibility is that his radio failed, due to damage or just mechanical breakdown, and he was lost anywhere between the convoy and homebase. In that event:

1) Mines are a distinct possibility
2) A wandering air patrol may have gotten him
3) Crew error, as mentioned already

If I remember correctly, the British started the mutiny theory to demoralize the U-boat arm; it had the desired effect, one officer personally went to Dachau, where the commandant assured him Prien was not, nor would ever be, a prisoner there.

[SteamWake]

Its all conjecture... no one knows.

All we know for sure is that U47 was lost at see with all hands apparently.

It was a dangerous business many ways to fail.