Please forgive me if this has been raised before but I would like some other views on an incident reported in this ecellent book on one naval encounter during the Great War. In Chapter 36, 'The defeat of the U-boats' the author mentions the recolections of man called Sims who describes a U-boat which was seriously damaged on the sea floor. Unable to effect any repairs and escape they listned above for some hours and eventually counted 'in all, 25 pistol shots, then silence'. The references at the back of the book don't make much sense to me but after reading a great deal of the exploits of submariners from all nations in both wars I find this information does not ring true. Without information on the boat itself or the actual records of Mr. Sims this could be difficult to prove one way or the other. Pesonally I seriously doubt this ever happened. I can't imagine any submariners simply giving up in this way. I would welcome the thoughts of othes who have read this excellent book and been baffled by this particular paragraph.