ANATOMY OF A SCENE: Das Boot – Running the Strait

            “Das Boot” is the gold standard for submarine warfare movies. I have considered it to be a great movie, but not outstanding because of one scene. I have read several books on submarine warfare and the Battle of the Atlantic, so I know u-boat tactics. The tactics shown in the scenes depicting the attempt to run the strait of Gibraltar seemed puzzling to me, especially since the captain is portrayed as a good leader who would not make any stupid mistakes. Recently, my opinion on this flaw in the movie has reared its head again and has caused me to question whether I have been too harsh on the captain for this. So, I have rewatched the pertinent scenes and read the book version of the scenes to see if the movie followed the book and if so, was the captain wrong.

            In the movie, the sub is given orders to enter the Mediterranean Sea by way of the Strait of Gibraltar. The captain is well aware that this is a very risky mission because the strait is very well defended. It will take a good plan and a lot of luck. He decides to approach the strait in the dark on the surface. The boat will evade British ships to get close to the strait and then dive and use the eastward current to save fuel and safely run through the strait. No one on the crew questions the decision, but it is obvious some of the officers are skeptical. The boat manages to maneuver through several British ships and are within ten minutes of diving when the captain sends all the conning tower personnel below deck except himself and the navigator. A plane attacks and drops two bombs that damage the sub and wound the navigator. The captain orders “prepare to abandon ship”, but he stays topside and orders full speed ahead. The second officer guesses the captain is trying to reach shallower water off the coast of Africa. When the sub runs into several British ships, the captain is forced to dive. He plans to hold at 100 meters, but the damage causes the boat to continue its dive until it bottoms out at more than 280 meters, well below crush depth.

            Were the captain’s decisions good ones and do they conform to the captain in the book? In the book, the captain’s plan is the same as in the movie. No one questions them, but there is some doubt. Heading for the strait on the surface in the daytime, they are forced to dive three times because aircraft are spotted. None of the planes attacks. They are back on the surface when night falls. They are ten minutes from diving when the plane attacks. (In the book, the officers wonder how the plane was able to find them in the dark which is appropriate because in October, 1941 the RAF’s radar on planes would not have been known to the u-boat fleet.)  The conning tower is hit and the deck gun is destroyed. No one is wounded. The boat dives, but resurfaces due to the damage. However, star shells turns the night into day, so the captain orders a dive to 100 feet (I am not sure why the movie went with meters.) The boat continues to the bottom which is more than 825 feet deep.  

            The movie is close enough to the real incident, considering it’s a dramatization. Obviously, the director and screenwriter were not going to reenact three dives because of aircraft. And the dive to the bottom is close to what happened. They did have rivets busting, by the way. It’s not just a submarine movie cliché. However, the captain in the movie makes a very puzzling decision to stay on the surface after the plane attack that damages the sub. He does not explain his decision, but it seems like he would not have known the damage would cause the sub to sink. His order to race towards the African shallows is not explained, but we can give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he knew the boat might sink and he wanted it to be in shallower water. (That’s a big assumption.) This actually worked out because although the sub does go way below crush depth, if it had sunk where it had been damaged, it surely would have been crushed by the lower depth. Probably because of time constraints the movie does not show the boat diving after the attack (which would have been standard procedure), but having to surface because of damage. The captain is then forced to dive because the alternative is being a sitting duck. Because the movie edits out some of this, it makes the captain look like a gambler who loses his bet. In the movie, it is insane to stay on the surface after the plane attacks and clearly informs the warships about the sub. He does not know that diving will result in sinking. In fact, since the ship draws fire on the surface, it is likely the damage that causes the uncontrolled dive was due to a shell hitting on or near the boat.

            This analysis has led me to adjust my view on the movie’s depiction of the Strait of Gibraltar sequence. I still feels the movie captain makes a poor decision to stay on the surface after being attacked, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because we don’t know what he is thinking and the movie might have made decisions for dramatic effect. With that said, I still believe both the movie captain and the book captain were insane to go as far as they did on the surface, even at night. In the war, the u-boats that successfully ran the very well-defended strait did it submerged using the eastward current to narrow the speed loss from not being on the surface. 

            P.S. Let’s take the scenes a little further. The movie covers the repairs to the sub and its surfacing very close to the book. And I just want to add something that might not have been apparent to viewers. The sub would not have survived if the Chief had gotten his wish to go home and/or if the captain had shot Johann when he had his panic attack.