Das Boot..

[Canrider]

REALLY small, much smaller than it looked in the film last night.

Which is interesting, because IIRC Petersen's directing 'trick' was to recreate a genuine U-Boat and make the actors live on it round the clock during filming..

 

[Melvil]

It's a great film and Jurgen Prochnow is brilliant as the old before his time commander.

I've read a bit about the U-boats and as a service they were far more relaxed about strict military and political codes than other parts of the Navy, perhaps in part because of the danger. One story I particularly liked was that of a U-boat pulling back into the harbour into La Rochelle after a long patrol in the atlantic. The captain was standing in the conning tower and shouted to a deckhand ashore 'Is Hitler still in power?' the deckhand nodded. Moments later the sub started reversing out of the harbour to the sounds of everyone present rolling about laughing.

The book then said the captain was very lucky not to be court martialed and shot...

 

[Yellow Fang]

There was a submarine in Gosport, which I suppose is still going. When I went on a tour around one of the subs, one of the women had an attack of claustrophobia and had to go outside.

I tried reading Das Boot in German once. I didn't get very far as it was full of submarine jargon, regional accents and profanity.

 

[yenrod]

There is a German Sub on the banks of the Mersey (Wirral side). what theyve done is cut it in half so you can see it from the side instead of crawling around in it as most people are quite big now, as in quite FAT ! (you know, drive round in cars eat KFC's dont get any exercise..etc...