977 U-boat

[joegrundman]

Hey Hitman and OLC, nice to see you both!

Thanks for the update on the workings of the TDC - it would be nice indeed if the SH5 tdc can account for changes in own ship course - and i am persuaded by your opinion that the mystery sentence was a mistake in translation.

@ torplexed

well, first-hand accounts are notoriously unreliable, since memories are amazingly poor even with things people apparently remember very clearly, as well as then being subject to exaggeration, storytelling and ideology in reporting the memories. It is also the case that people make mistakes in the first place, and these mistakes get remembered as fact.

Despite these limitations, first-hand accounts remain extremely valuable and entertaining to read.

So with the destroyer issue, you have several options including, but not limited to:

a) he misremembered/misreported the date
b) it was misidentified as a destroyer
c) the target wasn't actually sunk, but the ships lost contact
d) the event in question never happened

but actually it is not these sorts of happening that i highlighted as being of interest for the running of the simulation - it's still a worthwhile read though and you can't beat the price!

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

So with the destroyer issue, you have several options including, but not limited to:

a) he misremembered/misreported the date
b) it was misidentified as a destroyer
c) the target wasn't actually sunk, but the ships lost contact
d) the event in question never happened

but actually it is not these sorts of happening that i highlighted as being of interest for the running of the simulation - it's still a worthwhile read though and you can't beat the price!

Those are good possibilities. It could even be an error in translation. Another possibility would be an attempt to embellish things by the author due to pressure by the publisher. A lot of books printed in the decade after the war like this one (1952) tend to be a bit muddled in the facts in the hasty desire to feed the public hunger for what took place on the other side during the war. The copy I have is a pulp reprint paperback from 1964 maybe printed with the idea of better grabbing readers by having it's title in bold stencil letters....U-BOAT 977.