Dear Lady from present Euro-Champ-Country,

thank you for very much for this additional and charming teaching lesson.

I’m familiar with the name Bennekom for this Dutch ship as well as from a legal perspective, since this is the name of a mayor decision by the European Court in 1983, in which the court ruled that if a Dutch firm, Bennekom, produces a certain food supplement at that time, f.e. the German authorities could still categorize this product as a medical drug, because they felt the vitamin – content in this Dutch product was to high. So Bennekom lost in court to have the German government sentenced to allow their product to be sold on the German market as a food supplement. But this is history and more or less beside the point unless this sunk Dutch ship carried the name of this same Dutch company, Bennekom.

Anyway I didn’t want to depict a whole KTB but only that part from leaving port until action-time, the so called Gammelfahrt-period, which some members of the forum found to be kind of boring in the long version. And I thought this (real) patrol of u-552, in more or less the same time-frame as the one of U-96 depicted in the movie could point out, indeed the so called Gammelfahrt not only happened to u-96 but other boats of this time period in the war. So it was essential for Petersen in this movie to let the audience know what happened to the crew during those days and weeks in and around the boat, even if the time “dragged” on.

I used to own the Salewski – book but not anymore and I would have to look for it elsewhere, because it doesn’t sell anymore. I would appreciate very much though, you could please quote the section in the book about the Bar Royal if it is not to much trouble. But here again, as I said before on this forum, the late Great grand father, surgeon on u-2513 on her last parol, of my grandson, got to know in 1940/41 Topp et.al. among other places in St. Nazaire in this Bar Royal and that they were not playing dices or just drinking milk at this place. Plus even Castor and Polloux couldn’t effort to spend all their free time at their special location in Paris, if only for lacking the time.

Well, I hope, and you might want to also, for an exciting election night in the US in a couple of hours, probably 20,000 lawyers, half donkeys and the other half elephants according to CNN, making another small fortune. And a Supreme Court handicapped by the absence of the Chief Justice.

Hope your family is doing very well,

all the best wishes
Volker Erich Kummrow