The film, as well as the book by Lothar G. Buchheim on which it's based, are both loosely adapted from the wartime career of the Type VIIC boat U-96, and its skipper, Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock. In late 1941, Buchheim, who was then a war correspondent in the German Navy's propaganda office, joined the crew of U-96 for one tour in the Battle of the Atlantic. This tour became the basis of Buchheim's book. (In the film, the character Lt. Werner is based on Buchheim.) During the war, Capt.-Lt. Lehmann-Willenbrock ranked seventh among U-Boat skippers in terms of shipping tonnage sunk (183,223 tons on three boats, the U-5, the U-96, and the U-256). After transferring to a new skipper, the U-96 was retired on 5 February 1943, one of the few U-boats to actually survive its tour of duty in the Atlantic. Far from being killed in an air attack (as depicted in the film), Lehmann-Willenbrock survived the war, and later served as captain on various German merchant cargo ships. Lehmann-Willenbrock and Buchheim both served as technical advisers for this film (although the volatile Buchheim fell out with director Wolfgang Petersen, who refused to let the author write the script based on his book). Lehmann-Willenbrock died in Bremen in 1986. Buchheim died in Bavaria in 2007.

Film

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