Posted on 07/12/2020 9:24:25 AM PDT by Rebelbase
Outstanding movie. Look beyond the actor to the character and plot.
From google:
"U.S. Navy Cmdr. Ernest Krause is assigned to lead an Allied convoy across the Atlantic during World War II. His convoy, however, is pursued by German U-boats. Although this is Krause's first wartime mission, he finds himself embroiled in what would come to be known as the longest, largest and most complex naval battle in history: The Battle of the Atlantic"
The convoys across the Atlantic during WWII were shooting galleries for German submarines in the early part of the war.
Did some reading on the convoys and found out that one sending supplies from Scotland to Russia lost 24 out out of 35 ships. .
Duck Duck Go search returns: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=greyhound+movie&va=z&t=hc&ia=news
Saw it yesterday.
I found it to be very fast paced, and showed you what those sub-killers were up against in the North Atlantic.
Heroes.....
He claimed they were winning the war in the Atlantic, and the U.S. was acting as if it were in the war, anyway.
Declaring war on the U.S. would allow him to finally win the war in the Atlantic.
It was one of Hitler and Germany's worst mistakes of the war.
The Americans were assisting the Royal Navy in their search for U-Boats while under the guise of “neutrality”; the U-Boat commanders were naturally (and justifiably) outraged by this and wanted the opportunity to fight back.
Glad you enjoyed it. I’ll add it to my list.
Are you referring to Doenitz? The Germans also erred by (1) not building enough boats (diverting precious resources to beautifully designed and built but ultimately obsolete dreadnoughts like the Bismarck and the Tirpitz ((the Tirpitz basically spent the entire war in a Norwegian fjord... till she was sunk)) ) and (2) not keeping up with technology such as sonar. Thirdly they should have turned to hunting the hunters sooner. Ultimately the U-boat command suffered devastating losses.
He does seem to get into “situations.”
Yes, precisely.
But the German Submarine commanders erred by underestimating radar, and most particularly, the incredible productivity of American industrial might.
One of our major advantages was were producing Liberty boats faster than they could sink them.
They could not produce submarines faster than the allies could sink them, especially as we had broken their Naval code.
The civilian Merchant Marine crews put their lives on the line as much as any soldier did. It’s a shame they didn’t get due recognition for that until long after the war ended (1988).
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-01-30-mn-10163-story.html
Five long-range (Type IX) U-Boats sailed for the eastern seaboard shortly after the declarations of war between the US and Germany in 1941 (the crews celebrated Christmas during their transit across the Atlantic).
The number of ships that were sunk and the loss of human life that took place as a result of these five submarines remains one of the least-known Allied losses of the war.
Saw most of this watching Victory at Sea as a kid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ausVC2NhAo
Those were great hunting days for the U-boats. We weren't even blacking out our cities yet. They had a field day. A lot of ships sunk within sight of the coast line.
I have been looking forward to this movie. The story of the U-boat war in the Atlantic has always deserved far more attention and the previews look great. The thought of being in one of those tin cans, underwater tubes, or on a hapless merchant ship in icy waters is terrifying, but they all did it anyways - most without proper recognition.
Glad to hear it was as good as it looked!
There were multiple errors on all sides.
We won the war, in large part, by not making as many errors as the axis powers.
The Germans were the best soldiers in the war.
Hitler's ambition overreached his ability to project power.
I think there were multiple points where Germany could have won... but there was no clear end-point for Hitler to stop, until he was stopped.
Germany did not have the manpower or industrial might to conquer the world.
Maybe, if they had gotten the A-bomb, they might have. But they erred in their theory and allocation of resources in that regard.
Correct. There was a point in the early fall of 1943 where the United States was producing a Liberty ship for every torpedo made for the Kriegsmarine; the Germans had simply lost the fight with Father Time.
Prior to the war, Doenitz had explained to Hitler that he could choke England if he had 300 U-Boats; there would be one hundred on station, one hundred coming and going, and one hundred undergoing repairs back in port.
At the beginning of the campaign, the Germans had some 55 U-Boats in operation, five of which were training boats and unequipped for combat. The country simply never had enough submarines to put sufficient pressure on England to quit the war, and as you point out, time would work against them, both as technology developed and American industry got on a war footing.
For a really good movie about their naval code and the allies efforts to steal an Enigma encoding machine, see the 2000 movie U-571. Edge of your seat stuff. Historical knowledge.
As I recall reading, there was both disbelief and anger among the officers and watchstanders on U-123 (Reinhardt Hardegen’s boat) during this time. The backlighting provided by the towns and cities along the coast (NYC, in particular) made their work very easy, but the question that would come up in the wardroom was, “Does this country (the United States) know it’s in a war?”
Thanks for the review. Sounds like a great movie. Tom Hanks is a fav.
Added to my Netflix ‘saved’ queue until it’s released on DVD.
I'm not sure this is true; the United States made multiple errors during the war. Our unmatched wealth, industrial might, and distance from combat allowed us to make mistakes that would have sunk the smaller countries of the Axis in a moment.
During the U-Boat campaign, there was actually information being passed from American insurance companies to subsidiary firms in Switzerland regarding departure dates of ships, destinations, and cargo manifests; this was for re-insurance purposes (to spread the risk in the event of loss). These Swiss insurance companies had business connections with companies in Germany; there was literally a direct line of information regarding ship departures and destinations going straight to the enemy, except the enemy didn't have the resources to put this information to use.
This went on until sometime in 1943 before Congress shut the operation down.
Had Germany or another smaller country demonstrated this kind of carelessness or incompetence, the effect on their war effort would have been immediate. However, because it was the country that had the wealth, industrial might, manpower, and geographical security that the United States had, the result of such carelessness/incompetence was negligible.
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