U-571 (film)

The film was nominated for two awards at the 73rd Academy Awards: Best Sound Editing and Best Sound (Steve Maslow, Gregg Landaker, Rick Kline and Ivan Sharrock). It won the sound editing award.[2]

HMS Bulldog capturing U-110 and its Enigma machine, 9 May 1941

The film does not portray a historical event. The British Royal Navy had captured the first naval Enigma machine in May 1941, before the US had entered the war. The American portrayal offended many of the British military and public. The Allies captured Enigma-related codebooks and machines about fifteen times during the War; all but two of these by British forces. The Royal Canadian Navy captured U-744 in March 1944 and the U.S. Navy seized U-505 in June 1944. By this time, the Allies were already routinely decoding German naval Enigma traffic.

On the film's release, Labour MP Brian Jenkins, used Prime Minister's Questions in June 2000, to claim that the film was an "affront to the memories of the British sailors who lost their lives on this action." Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "I agree entirely with what you say...we hope that people realise these are people that, in many cases sacrificed their lives in order that this country remained free."[4] Paul Truswell, MP for the constituency of Pudsey, a town closely associated with HMS Aubrietia, wrote to the U.S. president, Bill Clinton who acknowledged that the film's plot was only a work of fiction.[10] The director of the local Hosworth Museum lamented the rewriting of history, saying: "You can't rewrite history and we have to pass on the facts to the younger generation through the schools."

The first capture of a naval Enigma machine with its cipher keys from a U-boat was made on 9 May 1941 by HMS Bulldog of the Royal Navy, commanded by Captain Joe Baker-Cresswell assisted by HMS Aubrietia. The U-boat was U-110. In 1942, the Royal Navy also seized U-559, capturing additional Enigma codebooks. According to Britain's Channel 4, "the captured codebooks provided vital assistance to British cryptographers such as Alan Turing, at the code-breaking facility of Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes."[11]

The United State's involvement in the European Theatre of the Second World War did not commence until mid-1941 with Lend-Lease, and direct, open participation did not begin until the U.S. Navy began engaging the Kriegsmarine in the fall of 1941, months before Pearl Harbor, by which time Enigma machines had already been captured and their codes broken in Europe. An earlier military Enigma had been examined by Polish Intelligence in 1928; the Polish Cipher Bureau broke the Enigma code in 1932 and gave their findings to Britain and France in 1939, just before the German invasion of Poland.[11]

Sub Lt. David Balme, the Royal Navy officer who led the boarding party on U-110, called U-571, "a great film"[12] and said that it would not have been financially viable without being "americanised". The film's producers did not agree to his request for a statement that it was a work of fiction, but[10] the end credits dedicate the film to the "Allied sailors and officers who risked their lives capturing Enigma materials" during the Second World War. The credits acknowledge the Royal Navy's role in capturing Enigma machines and code documents from U-110, U-559 and the U.S. Navy's capture of U-505.[12]

In 2006, screenwriter David Ayer admitted that U-571 had distorted history, and said that he would not do it again.[13] He told BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme that he "did not feel good" about suggesting that Americans, rather than the British, had captured the naval Enigma cipher: "It was a distortion...a mercenary decision...to create this parallel history in order to drive the film for an American audience. Both my grandparents were officers in the Second World War, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achievements."[13]

The Kriegsmarine destroyers rarely ventured out into the open Atlantic Ocean, but usually stayed in European coastal waters. During the destroyer's depth charge attack more than eighty depth charges are detonated in the film, despite the fact that they rarely carried more than thirty.[14]

The German resupply U-boat would most likely not have been sunk by U-571. This would have been difficult for a German U-boat to achieve, as German sonar was not as advanced as British during the war. The only instance of a submerged submarine sinking another submerged vessel was in February 1945 when HMS Venturer sank U-864 with torpedoes.[15]

German Type XIV supply U-boats or Milchkühe ("milk cows") did not have torpedo tubes or deck guns, being armed only with anti-aircraft guns for defense, and therefore could not have attacked other vessels.[16]

One character mentions S-26 sinking in a test dive. The real S-26 did not sink in a test dive, instead sinking in a collision with a patrol combatant, USS PC-140, in January 1942.[17]

The film portrays U-boat sailors machine-gunning Allied merchant crewmen who have survived their ship's sinking, so that they are not able to report the U-boat's position. In reality, U-boat crewmen are far more often known to have assisted survivors with food, directions and occasionally medical aid.[18] Such assistance only stopped after Admiral Karl Dönitz issued the "Laconia order" following a U.S. air attack on U-boats transporting injured survivors under a Red Cross flag in 1942. German U-boat crews were thereafter under War Order No. 154 not to rescue survivors, which parallelled Allied policy. Even afterwards, U-boats still occasionally provided aid for survivors. In fact, out of several thousand sinkings of merchant ships in World War II, there is only one case of a U-boat's crew deliberately attacking the survivors: that of U-852 after the sinking of the Greek ship Peleus.[19]

The actual U-571, captained by Oberleutnant zur See Gustav Lüssow, was never involved in any such events, was not captured, but was in fact lost with all hands on 28 January 1944, west of Ireland.[20] She was hit by depth charges, dropped from a Short Sunderland Mk III flying boat, EK577, callsign "D for Dog", belonging to No. 461 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and based at RAF Pembroke Dock in Wales. The aircraft's commander, Flt Lt Richard Lucas, reported that most of the U-boat's 52 crew managed to abandon ship, but all died from hypothermia.

The real USS S-33 was stationed in the Pacific Ocean from June 1942 until the end of the war. She was sold for scrap in 1946.[17]

The Kriegsmarine destroyer Z-49 was ordered on 12 June 1943 but never laid down, let alone completed and sailed.