I've been thinking literally for years: what on earth is the punishment of Cane and his men? They seem like going out to sea on a boat, and die one by one while the rest of the people are fine: no wounds, and the boat is in a nice shape, too. I mean if they patrol some dangerous area, whatever the opposition throws at them the causalities would be more than just one or two dead bodies. They'd probably loose the whole boat with the crew.
So what on earth do they do?

Hello Andras,
They rode a maned torpedo toward's the Allied coastal channel shipping. they were suppose to get close to a ship, then bail off. The E-Boat then picked them up.
With a Torpedo going 40+ knots, The Human Body bounces a few times before the sudden stop. Plus you have the ship's shooting at them and maybe some aircraft strafing them.
That is the way it is explained in the book. The movie touches on it briefly.
Cheers,
Bruce

Hi Andras,

I seen the movie and read the book. It has been a few years since I read the book but if I remember correctly their punishment was that each of them had to operate a manned torpedo and attack enemy ships with them. The would aim the torpedo at the ship and attack and then bail off at the last minute and hope that they survived the attack to be picked up later. That is the reason for the low casualty count.

Hope that helps.

HARV

No fair Bruce............................you beat me to it!!!!

HARV

Thank you all for the answer. (I didn't even know there was a book...)
Just to play the devil's advocate: would they retrieve the bodies in this case?

If possible they would.

HARV

Because Steiner and his men were heroes -albeit in disgrace in a penal unit - the bodies would have been recovered. As for the death, anyone who's fished with gelignite (not me ) knows how concussion kills fish- which is what killed Sergeant Lemke in the book.

BTW if anyone is interested, there's a sequel to "The Eagle has Landed" called "The Eagle has Flown" - Oberst Steiner did NOT die, due to bullets being deflected by his medals. The wounds weren't fatal. SS General Walter Schellenburg of the Ausland SD and Liam Devlin are given the job of breaking Steiner out of the Tower of London! A good read - and a wierd twist at the end! Look out for it.

Thanks, I'll get both of the books.