Sub Stories

[doogerie]

anyone got a good done from WW2 i have one that i got form my dad (he herd it form his dad who passed away befor i was born)

Ok so my Grandad(who was referd to as jack)was a radeo oprator on a British sub I think it was called the Dreadnought (dad remebers gradad talking about it so i think that was it0 he was in the Med being depth charged all thay could to to save themself was to serfice so thay did and them proced to sneek passed the ship that was depth charging them. he got a medel for that that he unfortunatly had to sell when the war ended . anyone else got a good stor form America ,Uk,germany or anywhere else

[roger_301]

I'm reading a book called "The Golden Horseshoe"
its about Otto Kreschmere one of the 'ace' submariners of WW11. What fascinated me was one of the "actions" described in the book features as the first action in Silent Hunter 2 and he seems to pop up in SH3 too. Why they haven't made a film about this guy's life I don't know it reads like a school-boy action story.

[Pacific_Ace]

Well as to a movie about Otto its like this. Despite the fact that he conducted himself with honor and humanity its not going to happen. It will be a cold day in hell before Germany makes a movie celebrating the life of a U-Boat captain, it will be a cold day in hell before anyone in the UK will watch one, and America could care less.

[BTOG46]

Originally posted by Pacific_Ace:
Well as to a movie about Otto its like this. Despite the fact that he conducted himself with honor and humanity its not going to happen. It will be a cold day in hell before Germany makes a movie celebrating the life of a U-Boat captain, it will be a cold day in hell before anyone in the UK will watch one, and America could care less.

So why was Das Boot such a popular movie here in the UK? it still gets regular screenings on television, despite being about a subject that you seem to think is of no interest. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[DarkOmen13]

i'd have to second that, i'm in England and know quite a few people who have seen Das Boot and thought very highly of it. And they were'nt the sort that are particularly interested in WWII either.

D.

[TACU753]

here a good documentory.
http://www.channel4.com/search/?q=atlantic+convoys

[Pacific_Ace]

So why was Das Boot such a popular movie here in the UK? it still gets regular screenings on television, despite being about a subject that you seem to think is of no interest.

Im not debating its interest. I am an American that owns all three versions of the movie. http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/25.gif
Das Boot is a completely different movie from what a story about Prien would be. It celebrates nothing.
You might have noticed that at the end of Das Boot the Captain is killed (which never happened) and the boat is destroyed (Which didnt happen until days before the war ended.)
This is a politically correct ending, pure and simple.
Again my point was as (and is) stated. A movie about Prien (which, dont get me wrong, I would LOVE to see) would simply have to be distorted into something like U-571 (which is garbage) in order to get made. There are still far too many sensitivities in various places, and thats what Im getting at with the original post.

[Capt.Thomsen]

I could see a movie being made about any of the famous U-boat captains. The key would be not to celebrate Nazi Germany, but to celebrate the brave men who fought against insurmountable odds. Given the whole "History is written by the victors thing" the odds of such a movie being made accurately would be slim. But both sides had people who fought. And they both experienced glory and the horrors of war.

[wikingsh2006]

I think something along the lines of a HBO miniseries (ie, Band of Brothers) would be a better way to go since HBO would make more off the DVD sales.

[AleksandarVasic]

I have an interesting story I would like to share. It's not a WW2 story but it is about subs. In 2002. I served in the Yugoslav War Navy (at that time Yugoslavia still existed, at least on paper, later renamed Serbia & Montenegro) on a destroyer type vessel as a radio/sonar operator. In mid June a small, Yugoslav made, submarine of "Una" class went out to the sea carrying 1 instructor and 3 Naval Academy cadets for an exercise. It is a small sub used for diversions and insertion of commando units with just 4 days of autonomy. Unfortunately, while they were diving, their hydraulics collapsed (poor maintenance as a result of funding cuts) and their diving flaps got stuck into diving position. They were about 12 km away from coastline and, being submerged, they couldn't send an SOS signal. Lucky for them, we also had some cadets on board and we were sailing close to them. My fellow sonarman, while showing student officers sonar techniques, accidentally managed to pick them up on screen for a second and realized that something is wrong because they were diving too fast for a depth of 35-40 meters where he got them (maximum operating depth of "Una" class is 120m ). Although the depth to seabed at that point was around 300m, they again got lucky because they got stuck on a coral ridge at around 100m deep. Unfortunately, no way we could easily locate them with a sonar because the ridge is very "bumpy" with corals shaped as large boulders and the sub is rather small (18 m long, 3m wide). The instructor inside the sub got an idea to take off their boots and start banging on the sides to create a noise we could pick up. It took us about 6 hours of "pinging" and searching to find them. We didn't know their possible depth and position because we didn't know the speed and angle they crash dived in. After finding them, a freighter came above and dragged them out with a magnet that is used to load/unload scrap metal and containers onto ships. Another "miracle" was that the only damage on the sub was their hydros gone bad and some scratched paint. That was my first and only sub I managed to "ping out". http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/25.gif

[WernherVonTrapp]

@AleksandarVasic:
Now that, was a good story. I'm glad those guys made it out OK. Thanks for sharing that, AleksandarVasic. http://forums.ubi.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[AleksandarVasic]

Just remembered that i would like to share another story with you guys. Not about subs but it's interesting. A certain post in this forum reminded me of it. The guy wrote that he would like to be able to turn off GPS on world map and calculate his position by the Sun, and with more challenging calcs on bad weather. He wrote that this technique was not so precise and that maybe you can miss your destination. Well, maybe 100 years ago not in WW2. U-boats and Allied subs used other methods. By sonar sweeping the seabed knowing the mapped parts of seabed and using landmarks with calculating distance from it to your destination considering current speed the mistakes were very low. That brings us to my story.
Aboard the ship I served on there was a chief petty officer Dragutin Lazarevich and he was our chief navigator. We used to call him chief Laza. He is retired now, but while active he was the best navigator in Yugoslav War Navy. The guy is still a living legend. He used to brag about knowing Yugoslav territorial waters as his own pocket and that he could find his way in the darkest night and any weather. One day while we were sailing from the town of Ulcinj to the shipyard in Boka-Kotorska Gulf called Bijela for regular maintenance, other officers on board made a bet with him. They said that he can't bring us to Boka-Kotorska while being below deck all the time using only speedometer, clock and a map. Laza said that not only he will bring us to the gulf, but he will "park" the ship less than 100 m away from a small island called Gospa od Skrpjela. It's actually more like a huge rock in the middle of the gulf big enough to hold a small church built on it with the same name. The bet was made and our captain was a "referee". Note that it's about 60 nautical miles from the point where we were at the time with a lot of "turns and corners" in the gulf itself. Laza went into engine room with a map and navigational instruments leaving the room only once to go to the toilet that was also below deck. He was allowed only to read the instruments in the engine room (speed and direction) and to use his wrist watch for time. From the engine room he was commanding the crew what to do and we should intervene only if we see that we are about to crash. He drove the ship into the gulf, with all the other smaller ships turning to avoid us (no one wants to mess with a destroyer http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/34.gif ) and, luckily, no larger ones in the way. At the last "turn" around a small peninsula, Gospa od Srkpjela was straight ahead. At one point Laza ordered "all stop" and slowly the ship came to a halt just about 50 m away from the island with bow pointing straight at it. We could not believe our own eyes! He took the money he won and with it took the entire crew out for a drink later that evening. The guy is a living legend I tell ya!!!

[Pacific_Ace]

Your chief was a smart man to take that bet. All he did was use dead reckoning navigation. Across 60 miles, not much time at all for errors to creep in to his plot unless there were unusual winds or currents.
I have some doubts about the skill of those officers in not being very aware that he (and anyone qualified to stand a bridge watch in nav or command) would be able to do this easily.

[AleksandarVasic]

Well note that the gulf itself is very "curvy". It's not a problem to do dead reckoning in open sea or a straight coastline (more or less). But to do that in conditions where you have to make a sharp turn every mile or so with such a precision and lead the ship straight to the island that is about 40 m long and 20 m wide while being below deck all the time... You have to admit that those are some very impressive skills and knowledge about the coastline and waters we were sailing. To get the idea here is the map of Boka-Kotorska I made.

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/8746/bokanauticalmap.th.jpg (http://img269.imageshack.us/i/bokanauticalmap.jpg/)

[TACU753]

Its because das boot was not gloryfied like other war movies so it kept its realisum and grittyness
like all of wolfgang petersons films. Bloody good director i think http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/11.gif