“Das Boot”

This 1981 film by Wolfgang Petersen is perhaps the finest and most accurate portrayal of WWII submarine warfare ever to grace the silver screen. Produced in Germany, the film is based on a novel by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim about his experiences as a crewman on a German U-boat during WWII. The film opens by telling us “40,000 German sailors who served on U-boats during the war, 30,000 never returned.” With a casualty rate of 75% this made service on a U-boat one of the most perilous assignments of the war.

Critically acclaimed despite a cast that was largely unknown to American filmgoers, the movie received numerous accolades, including six Academy Award nominations. Chicago Sun-Times Movie Critic Roger Ebert gave it four out of four stars!

After a raucous shore leave, the crew of U-boat 96 sails from Occupied France for a combat patrol in the North Atlantic. Dismayed by the youth of his 43-man crew, their captain, a seasoned veteran at the age of 30, calls them “Baby faces who should still suck Momma’s breasts,” referring to the war as a “children’s crusade.”

The set construction for the film was impressive, taking us into the bowels of a German WWII U-boat. The technical expertise is superb, even down to the uniforms and insignia worn by the sailors. The quarters are cramped and uncomfortable, the air is stale. It’s hot and dirty, water is at a premium, and showers are almost nonexistent. Every inch of space is used to store the food, torpedoes and equipment necessary to keep the boat functioning in combat. We see the boredom and monotony of life at sea along with the sheer terror of combat.

The crew encounters enemy ships that they hunt down and sink. Due to space limitations, they are unable to take survivors and they are forced to cast them adrift to a fate of certain death. The tables are turned, and the hunter becomes the hunted as the U-boat is targeted by British destroyers intent on sinking her. We are taken through the unnerving journey of surviving attacks with depth charge attacks: large explosive devices dropped from surface vessels and designed to crush a submarine’s hull when they detonate in proximity to it. As the stress of combat and constant fear of death take their toll, the crew begins to break down physically and mentally.

After the Atlantic, they make their way to “neutral” Spain to take on provisions and then through the Strait of Gibraltar, where they narrowly escape being sunk. As the fortunes of war change for Germany, they make their way back to France, where they come under attack at film’s end, this time from enemy aircraft.

This is an intense and emotional trip through one of the seldom explored aspects of WWII. In a genre that continues to be the subject of films 80 years after the fact, “Das Boot” has been called one of the greatest WWII films ever made. It’s worth watching.

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The movie can be viewed on several paid streaming services, including YouTube, Hulu, Prime and Google Play.