When the U-boat was being hunted by one of the Royal Navy’s attack-dog corvettes (many of which were named, disharmoniously, after English flowers) or destroyers, the sound was akin to lying between the tracks while a goods train thundered overhead. On these ships, the captain’s orders had to be screamed to be heard over the wind. By contrast, as soon as the engines were cut, the U-boat was a whispering realm. Although they did not know it yet, it was here, in the immense deep, that most U-boat crew members would die. Of all the various forces and divisions of air, land or sea, on both sides
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