One Step Beyond: The Haunted U-Boat

The story is about the German U-Boat 147. Some relatively easy checking on the Internet reveals that this episode of the series is incorrect. The submarine did not survive the war and then cut up for scrap; it was sunk with all hands off the coast of Ireland before the end of the war.

The time is identified as early Spring, 1945. The U-boat was actually sunk in 1941.

Some important official boards the U-boat.

The men hear a tapping sound.

The sound is hear again. All men are accounted for. All the bolts have been checked and tightened to make sure they are not the cause of the noise.

They hear the sound again. It's really getting to the official. They later surface and check the exterior of the sub but cannot find anything that would cause the pounding noise.

A destroyer is approaching so the boat prepares for silent running. The destroyer goes away from them. The pounding starts again.

The Captain figures something important out. The pounding is heard only when the official is awake. The captain decides to surface and surrender (Hitler is dead and the war is over).

The boat was cut up for scrap and a skeleton with a huge wrench was found inside the hull.

What I am wondering is how this particular episode got made. The information about the boat being sunk was probably available at the time if some checking had been done, and the episode should never have been made since the facts were rather plain that this boat did not have this particular history. Perhaps a different boat had, but this one is named specifically so the whole episode really falls apart.

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