Typical Tom Hanks... Excellent! Everything about it was outstanding. Made no difference if was a historically true event or not.

The Good Shepard by C. S. Forester from where the movie was derived. I enjoyed the book and have a fascination with the convoy aspect of the war.
Another movie of this topic is War Sailor.

C. S. Forester worked for the UK government during WW2 as a writer and was stationed in DC. A lot of what he wrote about was the battle of the North Atlantic and the struggle against the U-boats. He interviewed countless ships captains both merchants and US and UK Navy officers. It was from these interviews that he drew to write the Good Shepard.

Hanks wrote the screen play based upon "The Good Shepherd".

U-BOAT COUNTERMEASURES

In WWII U-boats were taking a heavy toll on Allied shipping and convoys across the Atlantic Ocean. The British started a project to address this issue. At the center was the project manager, Mr. Gilbert Roberts, and female sailors known as the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS, better known as Wrens).

Mr. Roberts a retired naval officer was summoned to work on the U-Boat problem the allies faced. He reported to Sir Percy Noble who was the British Defense Minister. Noble was less than cordial with Roberts because he thought Roberts did not represent the best leader for this project.

Roberts approach was to create a large "Battleship" game using a large floor as the area of operations. He had red and blue teams. In some of the wargaming the two teams worked independently and did not know how the other team would act. Roberts also played out actual naval battles. The seminal moment was replicating a battle where a ship in the middle of the convoy was attacked.

The question he asked is how did the U-boats attack the center of the convoy, and he engaged the Wrens. That fateful night Roberts and the Wrens wargamed the scenario all night until the break of dawn. There was a collective interest and excitement as they tried to solve the mystery. After many hours the Wrens came up with the assumption the only way a U-boat can attack the center of the convoy was by surfacing to attain the requisite speed to catch up to the convoy from the rear, where it was lightly defended and monitored. The U-Boat fired its torpedo's in the dark and submerged.

They came up with the countermeasure. Defend the the whole perimeter of the convoy with escort ships. Listen for U-Boat radio traffic and use radars to detect and attack the U-Boats. The allied navy also used naval aviation from air craft carriers to engage U-boats.

Mr. Roberts asked Sir Percy Noble and his staff to his location for a demonstration. It was said Sir Noble was not impressed by seeing convoys, U-boats, and the ocean replicated on the large floor and acted annoyed. As Mr. Roberts started and continued the brief, Sir Percy Noble became more interested and was stunned in amazement at the conclusion of the brief. That same day he sent out a message to change the convoy SOPs. The assumptions were dead on.

We watched the movie for the first time just last week. Overall very good (Tom Hanks excels at WWII films). My only nitpick is that a 63 year-old Hanks is pretty old to be portraying an O-5, especially in WWII when I would imagine promotions were accelerated. Would the real character have been much older than 40?

Buck Turgidson said:

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e watched the movie for the first time just last week. Overall very good (Tom Hanks excels at WWII films). My only nitpick is that a 63 year-old Hanks is pretty old to be portraying an O-5, especially in WWII when I would imagine promotions were accelerated. Would the real character have been much older than 40?

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At this point in WWII most O-5's were mid to late 20's

As the war progressed older civilians (not 63 though) were drafted into the service. If he had the education he could have been sent to OCS and been made an officer. My father in law was doctor and drafted into the Navy in 1943 and was made a Commander (O-5) right off the bat.

My grandfather was drafted at the age of 33 in 1944, made a company clerk because he was business manager in the soil conservation service, and was the oldest man in his company , including the commanding officer.



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My grandfather (born 1908) was drafted in 1943….into the Infantry of all things.

I thought he was saying that over the radio while surfaced. was that supposed to be sonar?

it was the radio. Hanks character told the convoy to go to a different frequency because he was tired of listening to him

The story is set just after the US gets into the war and so the rapid promotions wouldn't have happened yet. Those also didn't happen near as much on the field grade officer side of the house, especially in the Navy which was hide bound in its promotion criteria.

The character in the in the book was a inter war period officer who has been passed over for command several times and was on his way out of the Navy, part of why his wife is leaving him. So early 40s would be a good guess.

Is Hanks a tad old yes, but the age difference between the old CO and even his officers who are all but the XO brand new is a part of the story.

This would have been accurate for much of the early war as officers with any kind of experience would have been split up to command crews of new officers and men with only a few chiefs to bring experience.