What got you interested in WWII submarines?

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by DrewC

Hey everyone!
I'm 19 years old and would like to regard myself as a WWII history buff. Without a doubt the main thing that got me interested in WWII at a young age (9 or 10) was the constant watching all the old war movies with my dad and brothers- Run Silent Run Deep, The Enemy Below, The Great Escape, Stalag 17, The Desert Rats, Patton, Guadacanal Diaries, Kelly's Heroes, etc, etc. This led to discovering for myself a ton of great war books as well: Das Boot, multiple books by Ambrose, etc. My favorite has got to be Robert Sherrod's account of the Battle of Tarawa. However, the submarine scene has always captivated me the most, and I have to say that I can trace the roots of that back to when my father came home with a awesome surprise for me back in the day: Silent Hunter II.
I guess my question to the subsim community is this. What got you interested in WWII history, and submarines in particular?

I had always been interested in Military History. World War II was a natural focus for me since my grandfather was a WWII vet. He never really talked too much about it and after hearing his stories secondhand from my mother and uncle, I understood why. (For the record, he was on a militarized C2) Despite my own Army background, I found subs fascinating. I vaguely remember playing Silent Service on the NES back in the early 90's. Yep, back in the day, Subsims made it to the Nintendo. Fast forward about 15 years or so, I decided to go to college for Military History back in 2007. I am halfway to my Master's degree in Military History, now. I remember writing for my Bachelor's capstone, which was about subs of course, and my professor flat out told me he learned something in regards to America's submarine service during the war. I picked up SH III and SH4 on a good sale from Direct2Drive back in 2010 and I have been crash diving since. To make my own experiences even wilder, I joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary last year and recently completed the Coastal Navigation course. Playing subsims hard core helped with this dramatically Dead Reckoning? No problem. Fuel Management? No problem. Speed-Distance calcs? No problem.