this is a true story
I am soo happy to be a sailor today. I was a member of a model submarine club as well. you wanna know the big HUGE difference it is? I put a post on a submarine thread about making molds. nothing for anybody who has not done it before. just does anybody have any hints. that might make laying up a hull easier. I check on it today. 6 months later ,no response.
I made a post on the IOMCA forum on wednesday. and all i asked for was pictures of kite. The boat i am building. as I am having alittle trouble with the bow. 2 days have past and i have gotten 10 EMAILS. OFFERING HELP. now this is what we have. people helping people. poeple like dick lemke. who if you need a question and cant get an anwser he will find one.
I still cannot believe 10 emails in 2 days. and on the other side none in 6 months:long:
IF YOU HAVE A FEEL GOOD STORY post it. it wil make even you feel better
cougar
When I was a kid, I learned from my parents that the man that lived over on the next street was a U-boat officer during WW II. Being a military history student even back then, I was more than ready to run straight there and talk with him… but this was back in the days of “we don’t talk about the war” particularly when you had relatives on the “other side”. So… for years and years I regretted not being allowed to talk with him. Finally… literally 25 years later, I said something to my Mom about how much I regretted never getting the chance to talk with him. Mom said “Oh good grief, go talk to him” so I went… and had the most wonderful time. It was not only a chance for me to get to speak German which is something I only did with family, or while I was flying in Germany, but he not only was so happy to talk… but pulled out boxes with his medals, pictures, uniform badges and pieces… it was really quite an experience.
All he could say, over and over… was why HE was so lucky… he didn’t know… every boat he was on was sunk except for the last one of course. He could still tap out morse code, and was quite fast… much more so than I am … and reading code in German was a double puzzle… something else I had never tried… but the stories he told me were simply incredible.
It saddens me terribly… that when I talk about something such as this to the kids today… or about Pearl Harbor (My master thesis) they refer back to those horid films that hollywood cranked out and actually think that they are accurate. He was a wondeful man that emigrated to the USA after the war and as a professional did a great deal to help the community and people in general. Seeing the picture above of Gunther Prien really brought back some memories from the pictures he had.
Otto Kretschmer… hehehe “Silent Otto” he was a remarkable guy. He too, one of the lucky few to survive… he did it the hard way having to surface a damaged boat and escape, and then be captured. I don’t remember if he was still on U-99 then, or had moved to another boat… but I remember that it was still in the “Happy Times”.
Kurt talked about “bunnies” being the bread… because it was molded so much it appeared to have fur. Also, that the clothes you wore onto the boat, were the clothes you wore for the entire patrol. Everyone drank their ration of water rather than shaved in it (shaving in sea water is for the extremely tough skinned) and that they would have a lottery or contest to see which shift got to sleep on the “clean” sheets. When the last eel was fired and they set course for home, there was much made of turning the sheets over to the other side, and the lucky watch that drew the next shift in the rack got to enjoy them.
A buddy of mine in Dallas started buying Soviet uniforms, and military items back in 1996, he LOVED that uniform, had to have it… so… he got it complete with all badges, ribbons, belt, hat, gloves, boots, even skivies and watch, 100% authentic brought out of the East by the brother of the guy that sells it to him. He has invested almost $200,000 in the last ten years (he has THREE Hero of the Soviet Union 1st CLass) and more Order of Lenin than I can remember. The only one he doesn’t have is the diamond encrusted order that was given to Stalin, Truman, and a few others… he keeps kidding about the brother going and digging up Stalin to get that last one he needs.
He did get burned on one of them they faked a 2nd class into a 1st class. He had just bought a book on medals, orders, etc… and he read where you can view them under a black light, and if they glow, it is because they have been re-enamled to something else. When he read this we immediately had to make a last minute run to the mall and get a blacklight. He had 3 of what ever it was… and one of them glowed like a harvest moon… MAN he was pissed… I think he paid about $1,500 for it… but… he took it back to the guy that getting him all this stuff… and not wanting to lose his business he took it back… ( heheh… probably sold it to someone else)
silent otto
was on u-99, when he was captured. but what most poeple dont know is that during the frist year of the war, he was second in command to gunter prien on board U47. after he learned what he needed he was given his first command, U-99. there was 2 other sub captains that learn under prien. only otto k survived. erich topp also learned under both of them. and my friend thinks that topp also survived for a few years after the war. i got to learn all about them . so that it was both of us learning about the captains. so that he could talk more about them. he got the good ones. and i got to dig up information on otto and wolfgang luth. maybe this is because we are sailors. thierry still has yet to come across with information on baron bich. and i am still looking
cougar
larry. I am also a ww2 buff. history anything. you wanna chat about ww2 I am on msn. i can tell you a theory about ww1 AND ww2. being the same war. just a resting period inbetween.
