I note with some annoyance that the American film ‘U571’ was rolled out once again to ruin a reasonably pleasant Sunday afternoon.

The film was firmly based on an event off the coast of Iceland during May 1941, some months before America came into the war, when a U-Boat was captured and boarded by the Royal Navy who recovered a fully functioning Enigma machine and all its accessories, along with the latest German Naval secret code and signal books.

The submarine was the U110, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Lemp, one of the most successful U-Boat commanders, when it was attacked and forced to the surface by the two destroyers Bulldog and Broadway and the corvette Aubrietia, Lemp, believing his boat was about to be sunk, ordered the ship to be abandoned, but HMS Bulldog smartly placed a boarding party onboard, who, under very trying and hazardous conditions, salvaged the machine and codes.

The whole operation required considerable skill and nerve, handling a small boat in seas, that even on a good day, are never very inviting for such a venture.

The Admiralty, realising the sensitivity of their finds and not wanting the Germans to discover the U-Boat had been captured, ordered it to be sunk and the German prisoners landed in Iceland. 32 of the crew survived the action and 15 died, among them Kapitänleutnant Lemp.

The nearest the Americans came to the U110 event was that HMS Broadway was an ex-merican destroyer transferred to the navy in late 1940. With Remembrance Day coming up it is important to get the facts correct.

Jack Cranny Portland