Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on July 23, 2017, 01:43:29 PM
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As my dad gets older, he more and more reminisces about his 3/4 of a year in the German Navy at the end of WW2. He was stationed on the island of Sylt in support of among other things, the German version of "human torpedoes". I'd actually never gotten around to looking them up until today.
He always talked about the torpedo pilots getting all the best food and best everything else available, while the rest of them ate gruel, because of the very high death rate. The interwebz seems to bear that out. The majority of pilot deaths seem to have been caused by accidents, like the actual torpedo not releasing from the mini-sub. Plus with the earlier designs being non-submersible, I reckon they were sitting ducks after the torpedo release, given how close they had to get to their targets.
Anyway, thought it might be interesting to some:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_torpedo#Germany
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAMoMWmWHSQ
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Dang!
The Japanese Kamikaze pilots had a better survival rate!
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This movie features torpedo men. The movie isn't about that though, it's about a German commando operation. And it's a pretty good movie!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_Has_Landed_(film)