U571

Cafe Society
1

I was watching U-571, and several questions formed themselves in my mind:

  1. Why was the American submarine sunk by a German U-boat? The submarine was on the surface, and it was supposed to look like a U-boat. How did the Germans know it was American?

  2. Is it Navy protocol (in WWII or in the present) to refer to officers as “Mister” rather than by rank?

  3. Why did the American skipper (I believe his actual rank was commander) always refer to the special ops Navy Lt. and Marine Major as mister? He never referred to them by rank.

  4. The German captain of U-571 began to eat an orange by biting into it, and he ate the peel and all. Was this common?

  5. How did the mess steward, Eddie, know how to work the submaringe controls? Were mess stewards cross-trained?

2

You’re asking continuity/accuracy questions about a Hollywood depiction of a WW2 event??? :eek:

3

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The German submarine was the one that was supposed to be there. If you went to work and somebody was there pretending to be you, you’d probably guess that was an imposter.

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2. Is it Navy protocol (in WWII or in the present) to refer to officers as “Mister” rather than by rank?
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Yes. Naval officers refer to equal or lesser ranks of officers as “Mister.”

Same as 2.

Fresh fruit was necessary to prevent scurvy. There’s a lot of vitamin C in the peel.

I dunno, but I’d guess a submariner will need to be familiar with multiple tasks. Space and personnel are at a premium so one would assume cross-training would be a necessity.