Iron Coffins Redux

[nikbear]

I would also like to agree with Hitman on the commander title,its just a problem with the translation not with him giving himself promotion,he's just the chap in charge,skipper,captain....so no problem there,as for the date's,there are bound to inconsistencies due to the time that has elapsed.For comparison I cant even give you date's accurately from things 'I' did last yearnever mind 20 or 30 years after a traumatic event so where thats concerned I think we can cut him some slack.As for the number of ships being sunk then it becomes harder to quantify.Unlike us playing a game like SH3 and waiting for ships to sink to earn renownMost U-boats when attacking ships got the hell out of dodge after fireing there eels and counldnt cofirm there sinkings,we now know that they far over estimated they're tally of ships sunk by quite a margin,this can be put down to a few reasons 1,end of run detenations were sometimes confused as strikes and hits when they weren't,problem being you couldn't go up top and confirm this,Bdu new about this and took it into account when trying to work out just what had been sunk 2,It was not unkown for Bdu to get its signals/decripts confused when gathering info as to what had been sunk.What with hazy info relayed to them from the actual U-boat concerned,the reading of RN ciphers,and the actual radio messages from stricken ships its no wonder that they got things crossed up at times.There are plenty of reports of ships being sunk multiple times by different U-boats attacking the same convoy at different times in the atlanticagain confirming anything in the heat of battle is a hard thing to do.Finally the 3rd and most important thing to consider,PROPAGANDABoth sides used it in various ways and not always in ways that are apparent or would be considered logical,both sides lied through there teeth about the battle for the Atlantic at various points,and with good reason and I think that has to be taken into account when it comes to criticising a book written in good faith by a combatent,they aren't always privvy to the actual facts of a certain battle and sometimes are under pressure from publishers to"Spice things up" and thats hardly suprising.Actual combat is limited at best,I've heard it described as 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror and that doesn't sell books,You only have to look at 2 examples we know so well,Das Boot and SH3.Das Boot was originally shown as a series and had to edited to be shown as a film cause it showed the sheer boredam that the crew went through for most of the time,to boring for the average filmgoer And as for SH3,ships show up far to frequently,plainly because if it was totally accurate,90% of us wouldn't be playing it cause we wouldn't sink a damn thing in our to short careers.....All in all I think certain things have to be taken into account when reading any book about combat,or any book at all come to think about it,you are reading always someone else's point of view,and that is always singular and original to them and it might not always be what you want to read or agree with,or even the true facts of events as they happened,always and only as they saw them at the time.And that has to be taken into account and put into context