Some confusion? And More Pragmatism

While there is no doubt that the British acted with both wisdom and bravery, and succeeded magnificently, the fact remains that the real events were not really suited for the kind of movie U-571 wanted to be.

U-559 - U-BOAT CODES ARE BROKEN

Even when Bletchley Park began to decipher encrypted Nazi messages, the U-boat version of Enigma proved much more difficult. Not until 1943, after British sailors drowned trying to recover an Enigma machine, were U-boat codes broken on a regular basis.

It wasn't an easy chase on October 30, 1942. HMS Petard and three other British destroyers were pursuing a Nazi sub in the Mediterranean Sea, not far from the Egyptian shore. U-559 was proving why U-boats were so dangerous. She was elusive. The chase lasted 16 hours before U-559's commander decided to scuttle his damaged ship about 70 miles north of the Nile Delta. (Follow this link to a map where U-559 went down. Look in the lower right-hand corner.)

Demonstrating courage that is hard to comprehend, three young men swam from Petard to U-559. Lt. Tony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier, and Canteen Assistant Tommy Brown descend into the sinking submarine. They wanted to retrieve the Enigma machine.

They could not remove U-559's Enigma from its mount. But with Brown at the top of the stairs, water streaming into the stricken vessel, Fasson and Grazier quickly passed the "Wetterkurzschlüssel" (short signal weather code) and the "Kurzsignalheft" (short signal code book) up to Brown who threw them into his whaleboat.

With death by drowning a near certainty if they didn't immediately leave the ship, Fasson and Grazier continued to gather Enigma documents, keypads and codes. Brown threw it all into the skiff. Barely a blink of an eye after Brown had the priceless Nazi codes on his whaleboat, U-559 went to the bottom, 70 miles from Port Said. Fasson and Grazier went down with her.

Tommy Brown, the Canteen Assistant, turned over one of the most important finds of WWII. He was 16 years old. Wanting to fight for his country, he had lied about his age.

Fasson and Grazier received Britain's second-highest honor for bravery, the George Cross. Brown received the George Medal. Two years later Brown was also dead. He died trying to rescue his two sisters from their burning slum tenement.

U-559's soaked Enigma machine turned out to be an even-more astounding recovery than anyone could have known. It contained the keys to the major German U-boat codes "Shark and Triton" - codes that Bletchley Park had not been able to decipher. Once Bletchley Park realized that the weather signals could be decoded with a four-rotor Enigma with the fourth wheel set on "A" (thus running in the Enigma equivalent of "idle"), they could reverse-engineer the wiring of the fourth wheel. THIS was the REAL achievement of the three valiant Englishmen.

If the Brits want it bad enough, then they can make their own movie. While the Americans weren't the first to capture the enigma, they sure as heck got one of their own. How do the British think we got the U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL? The US Navy disabled U-505 in a depth charge attack, and dragged the sub to a US port with an Aircraft Carrier.

The huffing and puffing by the Brits regarding the facts of this movie are way overdone to the point of completely ignoring American success on these same operations. That doesn't make the events in U-571 true in any way shape or form, nor does it make the movie good knowing these things, but for crying out loud, Americans did their own part in securing enigma.