Das Boot and phobias of the deep

A trip on Titan would have been my ultimate terror

Das Boot has always fascinated, intrigued and terrified me in equal measures. The masterpiece of German cinema from director Wolfgang Petersen is a visceral, unflinching look at day to day life onboard a U-Boat, during World War II.

I first saw it when it was screened as a six-part mini-series on BBC 2 back in 1984. I was 19 or 20 at the time.

With a life-long phobia of being underwater (triggered by a sadistic swimming teacher in my local baths whose idea of teaching you to swim was to push you in at the deep end and then catch the back of your trunks with a hook on a pole to keep you afloat as you literally sank or swam), I vowed after seeing Das Boot that I’d never step foot aboard a submarine, ever.

Stupidly, a short time later, I did.

Traditionally, naval vessels stopping off at Leith docks while on an exercise would host an open day, during which locals were shown the ship. Sensitive areas were naturally marked ‘Out Of Bounds’. Growing up in the port, I’d explored many a vessel from as far afield as the United States and even Russia but never a submarine.

So, when a visiting submarine (the name of which I’ve lost in the midsts of time or maybe due to the sheer trauma of being on it) arrived in the docks and honoured the open day custom, it seemed the perfect opportunity to reassure myself that life one a sub couldn’t possibly be as harsh as the depictions on screen.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

All I can say is that from the moment I walked the gangway onto the open deck and stood in the shadow of the conning tower, I knew I’d made a mistake. The experience was nerve wracking as waves lapped the sides of the craft. Did I say there was no rail and the deck wasn’t very wide?

Descending into the bowels of the beast through a small hatch was almost a relief until, on reaching the bottom of what I recall being a sheer vertical ladder, it suddenly dawned that I was now beneath the waterline.

I’m pretty sure the tour of the sub that day was probably one of the quickest the submariner charged with showing us around had ever done. How anyone can live for weeks and even months in such cramped quarters is beyond me. I take my hat off to them.

Climbing the same ladders back, the treacherous outer deck suddenly didn’t hold the same sense of foreboding. I’d escaped.   

In 1997, a 209 minute Director’s Cut of Das Boot was released by Peterson. I watched a screening at the now defunct Filmhouse in Edinburgh. It was mind-blowing. If the original film and mini-series, both of which I had seen many times by then, had left their mark, this full, unexpurgated version inflicted a brutal denouement upon those viewing, leaving us bereft.

Sitting in silence until the final credit had rolled, not a sound was to be heard as we departed the cinema in silence. No one spoke. We were all processing what we had just witnessed. Had I seen the Director’s Cut before visiting the sub in the docks, I’d never have done the tour.

I’ve been recalling all this over the last week as the search for the doomed Titan played out to its inevitable conclusion. The deaths seem so pointless, the whole concept of such dark, extreme tourism, so ill conceived and imperious.

Having watched footage taken during an earlier trip on the experimental craft, I can not conceive why anyone would believe the risks involved acceptable.

Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

The Titanic, of course, has a lure all of its own, calling out to monied explorers and adventurers looking to push boundaries in much the same way that the sirens of Greek mythology tempted unfortunate sailors to the rocks and to their doom with the sweetness of their songs.

Like millions, I’ve sat spellbound as documentary after documentary has allowed us a vicarious exploration of all that remains of the ‘unsinkable’ cruise liner after her resting place was finally located in 1985. Those first shots of her bow appearing through the darkness as iconic as Neil Armstrong’s ‘one small step for [a] man, one great leap for mankind’ moment.

So a part of me understands fully any desire to see such a sight with your own eyes, that desire, however, is immediately tempered by the sheer terror induced by the thought of embarking on such a descent in a small, uncertified submersible. After all, if a tragedy like that which unfolded on the Kursk (albeit on a different scale) can happen, well.

Photo by Sarah Lee on Unsplash

The idea of being confined, helpless in the darkness for even a few seconds as the hull groaning under the pressure of the water outside is unthinkable; even glass-bottomed tourist boats bring me out in a cold sweat and had it not been for the promised view of the Great Barrier Reef, I’d have ventured below decks on one of them either. I certainly won’t again.

Of course, no one goes such an expedition as Titan’s without at least some understand of the risks that come with it. Risk assessment is everything and sadly they got it wrong. I can’t imagine the torture their loved ones went through as the drama unfolded and the pain and loss the descent has brought them.

I’ve always believed that you take on the force of Mother Nature at your peril and in many ways see my phobia of being underwater as an innate survival instinct. I can’t be the only one. My respect for those submariners who spend their lives beneath the waves is everything. It must take a very particular sort of person, and I only hope the experts are right and that the implosion was so instant there was no time for those onboard to process what was happening.

May they all rest in peace. The realisation of the tragic irony of that wish is quite sobering.