[Milsurplus] Das Boot

[Hue Miller]

Read a recent article in "SEA CLASSICS" magazine about the surrender and 
disposition of the
U-boats. Couple interesting things to learn there:
If the U-boat crew had scuttled their sub and was on the water, there would 
be NO RESCUE
efforts made, whatsoever.
At the USN base where some U-boats arrived to surrender, the U-boat presence 
was  treated
as a GREAT BIG secret, with canvas curtains etc. and guards to block vision 
and keep the
curious away.
Treatment of the U-boat men varied from being spit on and beaten (at least 
at first) to
acceptance as honorable warriors.
When one U-boat signals its intention to port there (somewhere in Virginia, 
don't recall)
the Navy places special guards at the piers and alerts the watch for a 
something
special coming. A watch tower signal operator with a 24 inch light beams the 
light
off the clouds instead of shooting straight on. (Not quite sure why he did 
this - surely
it wouldn't blind the U-boat signalman at a dozen miles away or so??
Recognition request sent by lamp was " AAAA"

(Wonder if anyone out there has a big signal light, like a 24 incher? Did 
those all go to
the melting pot? What would one of those weigh? )
-Hue Miller
_____________________________________________________________________
>You can select German with or without subtitles (my choice), in addition to 
>English or other language dubbing/subtitles.  All the written text (such as 
>that shown on journal pages) is in German instead of the English shown in 
>earlier US releases.
>
>The movie has a scene where the radio operator is listening to merchant 
>vessel distress calls on 500 kc during a storm.  It appears true that the 
>U-boats often monitored 500 kc during and after an attack.
>
>Mike / KK5F
>______________________________________________________________

Last paragraph: No surprise there, it was advantageous during an attack to 
know
what exactly was going on, on the enemy side; for example to know if a 
target
was only wounded and still proceeding, or if the target had got off an SSS 
or SOS
and hunter craft would soon be hot on them.
There's a German book, "Feind im Fadenkreuz", published during the "Happy 
Days"
of U-boat campaign, where the book regularly mentions the SOS sent by the
usually-solo sailing target vessels. In such attacks against solo vessels 
there was
a concern to prevent the use of the target vessel's use of its radio.
-H M