The film opens aboard a U-boat as it returns from a mission. It then follows the crew onshore the day before they ship off for their next mission—meeting their family and sweethearts, spending a last night at a club, and so forth. Then they ship off, soon sighting and boarding a Dutch merchant ship, which they inspect for contraband. The boarding of the ship is shown being done professionally and in a non-confrontational manner. While they are aboard the Dutch ship, a Royal Navy ship spots them and tries to torpedo them, but the U-boat ends up sinking it.
The British are shown as cowardly and duplicitous.[1] It also glamorizes death in battle: the British ship was torpedoed even though it had German POWs, and one dies, speaking of the honor of dying for the fatherland.[1]
^ abcHertzstein, Robert Edwin (1978). The War That Hitler Won. New York: Putnam. p. 284. ISBN978-0-399-11845-6.
^Gannon, Michael (1991). Operation Drumbeat: The Dramatic True Story of Germany's First U-boat Attacks Along the American Coast In World War II. New York: Harper Perennial. p. 11. ISBN978-0-06-092088-3.