Re No. 3: Are you sure? The boat employed was a Buckley class (USS Whitehurst DE-634), which had a GE turbo-electric power plant. GE supplied the same main controls for these as were used in submarines with GE generators/motors.

No. 10: Nah, it's just the benefit of the Universal Translator. They're singing in German, we just hear it in English.

No. 11: Good Lord, a TM to the end, huh? That falls into the category of "only someone who's really done it will ever notice." No stranger than a certain movie where they loaded a Mark 48 into a WWII tube and "locked" the breech door by turning the tailstop handwheel.

Most of the other stuff, W/T doors, etc., was probably nothing more than a matter of what was available. They were breaking up a lot of fleet boats about the time that movie was being made, so there was a lot of equipment, parts, and so forth available. Cheaper than building more accurate sets, especially considering that, at the time, few people other than former U-boat men had any idea what the interior of one looked like. A certain amount of "we need room for the cameras" no doubt entered into it, too. The sets for Run Silent, Run Deep gained all that (mostly) accurate gear courtesy of the Navy from the ship breakers.

Ultimately, I think the value of this movie is as a character study of the two commanders. The settings, in that context, don't necessarily require strict accuracy. The same plot, for instance, was played out between Captain Kirk and a Romulan commander on the original Star Trek, where it worked just as well, the Romulan cloaking device substituting for submerging in the Atlantic.

In any case, technical authenticity doesn't always insure a good movie. Look at how much care was taken to get all the details exactly right in the U-571 sets and then look at what they did with them.

When one consigns a novel to the tender mercies of the screenwriters, you just never know what you're going to end up with. Ned Beach complained that about all that really remained of Run Silent, Run Deep was the title and the names of some characters. Mind you, if there are any producers lurking out there, I'm willing to be tempted.

J.T. McDaniel