MovieChat Forums > Sotto dieci bandiere (1960) Discussion > interesting,but is it a 'true story' spo...

interesting,but is it a 'true story' spoilers


I am a big fan of World War 11 films but although I must have seen this before I watched it today and remembered nothing from the first viewing.

I liked the film but does anyone know how much of the plot is true?

I know there was a surface raider called ATLANTIS but did the British really managed to get into the German navy code rooms?

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Both Captain Rogge and the surface raider Atlantis were real. In fact Rogge had written a book about his experience in the Atlantis and I had read it. It was published as a paperback in the US (Bantam Books, I think).

The raider was sunk by the heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire and Rogge and some others were rescued by a U-boat. The part about the sinking of the raider was quite accurate.

The Atlantis sank many merchant ships but did not sink any British cruiser. That part in the film was based on the experience of another German raider, the Kormoran, that actually sank the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney off the coast of Australia. The Kormoran, like in the film, dropped the disguise at the last moment. But the ensuing battle was a bloody one and there were no survivors from the Sydney. The Kormoran itself had to be abandoned by its crew later.

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The break in of the German navy code rooms is fiction.

In fact, that British codebreakers at Bletchley Park had broken the German Enigma code. However, this information was not released to the public until 1974. During the war, the British invented various fictitious explanations as to how they got their intelligence (the "Lucy" spy ring, for example) to throw off the Germans.

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Just watched this on Netflix, great film.

Yes it is true in a way. The story is an amalgamation of several different true events wove together in a single semi-true storyline.

And BTW... We have only had TWO World Wars so far, much less Eleven of them.
This story takes place in the second.
Messing with you, but we don't use "11" to denote World War Two.

You are confusing the Roman Numeral two often used which is II (two capital i's)

WW Two Correct
WW 2 Correct
WW II Correct
WW 11 Not Correct


I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water!

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The film touches properly on the major themes of the real events connected with Schiff 16, HSK 2, Atlantis. Kapitän zur See Bernhard Rogge, the Captain, was indeed a man of the highest moral fiber who was respected and admired "across the havoc of war"[1] by those he came in contact with as opponents, including prisoners he took. Rogge was also a skillful and daring warrior with a loyal and devoted crew. Atlantis was indeed sunk by British heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire in a completely one sided battle during which the range was too great for Atlantis to even engage.

The rescue of hundreds of Atlantis survivors by U-boat, oddly only hinted at in the last scene of the movie, was real. The story of the U-boat towing overloaded rafts, transferring the rescued personnel to German supply ship Python, only to have this vessel in turn sunk by another British cruiser, the twice shipwrecked survivors then being rescued a second time and carried aboard and towed behind various German and Italian submarines, finally to reach Saint Nazaire despite complete British supremacy in the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay - is an epic one, better than any fiction could be.

Atlantis details were gratuitously changed for no apparent reason. There were no fancy twin turrets for the main guns. The guns were just mounted singly on pedestals on deck, behind false panels which could be rapidly dropped away. There were no underwater torpedo tubes, though there were torpedo tubes mounted on deck much like the guns.

There actually was a two-way battle between German raider Kormoran and the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney. The latter of course completely outclassed the former tactically in every way: she had a large advantage in speed[2] and firepower[3], and was armored, unlike the former. Kormoran got one torpedo hit on Sydney and scored some superb gunnery hits. Sydney's bridge was destroyed by the second salvo of three shells. Sydney's return gunfire was enough to eventually lead to Kormoran's loss (finally being scuttled after being devastated by fire), but hardly with impressive speed and decisiveness - quite the contrary. Her torpedo attack was just terrible. Somehow she only got off a measly two torpedos and both missed the lumbering and soon completely immobilized German, despite quite close range. Sydney was actually the first to sink, not before drifting out of control and on fire over the horizon, and astoundingly all 635 hands aboard lost. Ultimately 319 of Kormoran's 399 souls were rescued by the Allies.

One fact which many will scarcely believe. Atlantis had prodigious oil fuel bunkers which gave her an unrefueled range of 60,000 miles at 10 knots due to very efficient diesel engines. This is 4-10 times the range of even the largest steam powered naval warships. The corresponding unrefueled endurance of 250 days was unmatched by any other conventionally powered vessel I am aware of.

[1] To borrow Churchill's great turn of phrase in which he tipped his hat to Rommell.
[2] Almost twice the speed of Atlantis.
[3] On paper, eight 152mm plus four 102 mm for Sydney, vs six 150 mm plus one 75 mm for Atlantis. However, the former's main battery was in enclosed turrets, the guns of higher velocity and range, with first class fire control. All eight guns could fire on either side. The latter's guns could fire only two or three to either side, and did not have a well developed design of ammunition supply and fire control.

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