Chapter 11 historical fallacy

Shortly after the Rouses died, Chatterton and Kohler went to the mysterious submarine again, where they wanted to retrieve the diving equipment that the Rouses had left there.They had already heard about the cause of Chrissy's death in the Jacobi decompression chamber in the Bronx -- the air bubbles in his body caused the blood to clot.Koehler, who had smoked more than thirty cigarettes on the way to the wreck, wondered if he should continue to reject the nitrox. In the submarine's galley, Chatterton saw fallen cabinets.Chrissy's guide rope got tangled up in the 10-foot piece of canvas he was trying to dig out.Due to the good visibility that day, Chatterton identified that the piece of canvas was actually a life raft.The handwriting on it is the instructions for use written in German.Koehler found three cylinders outside the wreck where the Rouses had placed them.Each has a "Rouse" surname sign on it, but no specific name is written on it.Their father and son exchange gas cylinders.

After returning home, Chatterton and Kohler resumed their research work.With the strong evidence of the schematic diagram, they are going to look in the book for the Type IXC submarine built at the Deischmag Shipyard in Bremen, Germany.As a result, they found that a total of 52 submarines did not return after going out to sea for patrol.Both agreed that range could be easily narrowed.They ate together at Scotty's, during which they agreed that a sub could be ruled out if it met both of the following criteria: 1. A submarine with a surviving crew.If any of the crew survived, the identity of the submarine in historical records is beyond doubt.

2. Submarines with deck guns.The investigation by the divers proved that there was no deck gun installed on the mysterious submarine.If such a weapon is present on the Type IX submarines built by Desschmag in Bremen, then it must not be a mystery submarine. Chatterton and Kohler traveled to Washington again to begin their exclusion study.According to records, 22 of the 52 submarines had survivors.This narrowed the scope of the survey to 30 ships.Of these 30, 10 had deck guns.In the end the range was narrowed down to 20 submarines. "One of the submarines on this list is ours," Kohler said.

"The answer is right in front of us now," Chatterton said. "We just have to go further down the list." The two have never been more agitated, and this is entirely their own investigation.This is the result of their exploration. After returning to New Jersey, they went to Scotty's to continue discussing their exclusion plan, and they needed to further narrow down the list.Soon, they worked out a research plan.They were going to check the BdU KTBs - Germany's war diaries - to see where Submarine Headquarters had sent the submarines on the list.Any submarine operating more than a few hundred miles off the eastern U.S. coast could be excluded from the list.In any case, the Germans knew better than anyone else where their own submarines were patrolling.

The pair plan to return to Washington next week.Chatterton and Kohler were each responsible for reviewing half of the records.At midnight the day before departure, Kohler's phone rang.The caller was silent.The only evidence that anyone could tell there was someone on the other end of the line was the sound of ice cubes colliding with glasses.Hearing this voice, Kohler knew that the caller was Legg. "Hey Ricky, it's me," Legge said. "Do you think we can still find out the identity of this submarine?" "Of course, Bill, we'll find out," Kohler said. "What's the matter? It's midnight now."

"Ah, I'm sitting here thinking about that submarine myself. You know, Ricky, sometimes I just want to die..." "What are you talking about, Bill?" "I'm sick of it, Ricky. There's a gun right next to me. I want to shoot the fuck in the head right now." "Don't, Bill, don't hang up. There are so many good things in this world, man. You have a boat, a happy family in Pennsylvania, money, and a nice house. You have to do The only thing I want is to keep this ship running. Life is too happy. If it were me, I would not be willing to give up such a life."

"Oh, you don't understand me at all," cried Legg. "Fedman is dead, and the Rouths are dead, and my old friend John Deoda is dead. I often dream of these things." Dead people. Ricky, I'm going to..." Legg hung up the phone.Kohler immediately called Chatterton. "John, this is Ricky. Bill is going to kill himself..." "He used to say that," Chatterton said in a daze, just waking from sleep, "that he was in a bad situation. I was helping him, his family was helping him, and his girlfriend was helping him too." Gotta help him. I sent him to rehab. You know what he did? He quit drinking for a few weeks. When he found out he was in good enough shape to drink again, he checked out and left rehab , and then went to the pub on the way home and drank again. I don't think he's going to kill himself, at least not with a pistol. If he did, he'd use a gin."

"Is there anything we can do to help him?" Kohler asked. "We've been trying for years," Chatterton said. "I don't know what else anyone else can do for him." The two returned to Washington and went straight to the submarine command's diary.According to German records, the 18 submarines on the list performed missions far away from New Jersey, so they have no value in consideration. The last two left on the list - U857 and U879. According to records, both submarines were ordered to attack targets on the eastern coast of the United States.During their research, they made an astonishing discovery.Both of these submarines had docked in Norway in the first half of 1945 - almost at the same place as Holenberg's submarine U869 on the same day.

"That would explain the knife!" Kohler said. "Yeah," said Chatterton, "it's possible that Holenberg lent his knife to the crew on the sub next to them. It's also possible that he dropped the knife on the sub next to them. It's also possible, Someone stole his knife. But anyway, the knife can now be used as evidence. One of the two submarines must be the submarine we found, either U857 or U879. We can focus on these two submarines. " "Let's do it now," Chatterton said. "Let's check the sinking records of these two submarines and see how the Navy records the reasons for the sinking of these two submarines."

"You mean, the two submarines didn't sink where they were recorded in the historical records?" Kohler asked. "I mean we've got to look it up," Chatterton said. "I feel like we've got to find out everything." It was already evening, and the two packed their things and found a motel on the outskirts of the city for $35 a night to stay.The next morning, they returned to the Naval History Center, excited to find the Navy's records of the two remaining submarines, one of which must be the answer they were looking for. They first checked the sinking records of U857 off the coast of Boston: On April 5, 1945, U857 fired a torpedo at the American tanker "Atlantic State" while patrolling Cape Cod.The torpedo hit the tanker but the tanker did not sink.U.S. warships rushed to the area to track and attack U857. Two days later, one of the warships—the destroyer USS Gerstasson—used sonar to spot an underwater object near Boston.It fired several anti-submarine bombs into the sea based on the detected locations.The crew reported hearing an explosion a short time later and smelling gasoline afterward.

So much for the record.There is no evidence that the submarine ever surfaced, and no traces of oil were found on the surface.But the two couldn't believe what they saw next.The Naval Warfare Reviewer's analysis of the Gerstassen's attack came to the following conclusions: We believe that although a submarine was lost in this area and that the submarine was in this area, it was not the attack that caused the disappearance of the submarine.We therefore recommend an "E" rating for this engagement - Minor damage possible. "Wait," Kohler said. "The attack report is 'B'—probably sunk." "Yeah, but look here," Chatterton said, pointing at the report, "the original 'E' was crossed out. Someone changed it to a 'B'." The two immediately understood the meaning of the change. "The son of a bitch," Kohler said, "those postwar war reviewers upgraded the report." Chatterton and Kohler had only recently heard of the term postwar war assessor.As Navy investigators, these warfighting assessors were responsible for reporting on all submarines after the war.In most cases, the evidence is solid, so the job of the war assessor is simple.But in a few cases, if the sub couldn't be identified, they had to rely on speculation to come up with an explanation—they're usually reluctant to leave doubts in the history books. "It must have been the case," Chatterton said, "that the 'Gerstassen' did not sink U857. The submarine escaped the anti-submarine bombs and continued down the coast of Boston before sinking elsewhere. After the war , these military reviewers need to explain the disappearance of U857, so they attribute the cause to the attack of the 'Gestasen', and then raise the level from 'E' to 'B'. They don't care about the previous combat The reviewers had graded this incident an 'E' and they just wanted to find an explanation quickly and get on with their job." Thinking of this, the two could only shake their heads. "Well, if the 'Gustassen' hadn't sunk U857 off the coast of Boston," Kohler finally asked, "what happened to the submarine?" "We'll have to figure that out ourselves," Chatterton said. The two also read a large number of German documents.An hour later, they found the answer. According to the German diary, U857 was ordered to patrol the sea south of the eastern coast of the United States, and its last attack was carried out near Cape Cod.That is to say, New York and New Jersey are two hundred miles from Boston—south of Boston. Both Chatterton and Kohler were stunned.This submarine met all the conditions they set. It may have docked next to Holenberg's submarine, and it may have received orders from the headquarters to patrol the waters of New Jersey after escaping the attack of the "Gestasen". "Should be U857," Chatterton said. "I think we did find out the identity of our sub," Koehler said. But the two still checked the records about U879.This time they once again discovered the fallacy of history. Over the past half century, according to the analysis of various military reviewers, there have been three explanations for the disappearance of U879: first they said that U879 disappeared without a trace, and then they said that it sank near Halifax in the Canadian waters , then claimed it sank near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.The pair did further research and eventually thought of German naval historian Axel.Nestler's analysis was correct - U879 sank near Cape Hatteras.But they again appreciate the fact that the historical record can be wrong.All sorts of exaggerated and erroneous comments were recorded in the official records.It was then cited by historians as convincing evidence.If it weren't for Chatterton and Kohler's willingness to sneak away from work, go to Washington, read a lot of obscure original documents, sleep in cheap motels, eat hot dogs from street vending machines, and arrive every two hours Drop a coin in a parking lot meter and everyone will assume that the history is accurate.That night, they left Washington for New Jersey.Chatterton and Kohler were thankful for their exploratory work—proving with their own eyes that the mysterious submarine was U857. With these experiences, they discovered how incomplete the view could be if they only relied on the research results of experts, and they also Discover how important it is to explore on your own. With plenty of evidence that the wreck was U857, Chatterton and Kohler decided to spend the winter of 1992-1993 completing their verification work. Chatterton placed an ad in the Naval Institute Monthly, seeking information on the sinking of U857 by the Gerstassen.Several of the Gerstassen's crew -- now in their seventies -- got in touch with him.Chatterton asked them about their attack on U857 off the coast of Boston.The results at that time were the achievements they were proud of in their lifetime, but the clues they provided now are not much more than they were back then.They fired anti-submarine bombs and smelled gasoline.That's all. Chatterton couldn't bear to tell these veterans who had defended the United States from chasing submarines that the war of sinking submarines that they had always been proud of had never happened. During one conversation, a crew member of the Gerstassen invited Chatterton to their "Gustassen mates" party.He asked Chatterton to present his research results then.Chatterton had mixed feelings as he considered whether to attend the party.He has rescued the wounded in the hail of Vietnam, and he has walked freely among sunken submarines lined with steel, but the thought of speaking at the celebration of these veterans is terribly intimidating.He knew he couldn't go to their meetings because he couldn't tell them that the glorious history they told their children and grandchildren was a mistake, that the "Gustassen mates" never existed.Chatterton thanked the veterans for his invitation and apologized for not being able to attend their party. Kohler, on the other hand, began to search for information about submarines.For decades, Robert.Coppock has been the UK's submarine data manager - including records of captured German submarines - and he has been working for the Ministry of Defense in London.According to one archivist Kohler met, no one knew more about the submarine records than Coppock.They never had contact with this submarine historian, thinker and theorist. "Is he still working on it?" Kohler asked. "All the time," replied the administrator. Koehler called London the next day. A woman's voice with a British accent came through the phone. "This is Scotland Yard, what's the matter?" Kohler knew he had dialed the wrong number, but he didn't dare to hang up the phone. It was unthinkable to talk to the legendary crime fighting center.He was at a loss, just holding the receiver and listening to the voice inside, imagining a man in a hunting cap running and shouting: "Catch the murderer." "This is Scotland Yard, is anyone on the phone?" Koehler finally said, "I may have made the wrong call. I want to speak to Mr. Robert Coppock of the Department of Defense." "Wait a minute, I'll refer you to Mr. Coppock," said the woman. Koehler waited for Coppock to answer the phone.It was the first time he had spoken to someone with a British accent.On the other side of the Atlantic, in a huge office filled to the ceiling with gray filing cabinets and frost-covered windows, the silver-haired Mr. Coppock sat among the submarine history files and answered the phone.Kohler first introduced himself. "Ah, New Jersey divers," said Coppock, "I've heard of you, sir. I'm very interested in your expedition. That submarine is very interesting." Coppock questioned Koller about details—the divers' research, the mysterious submarine, the people they had contacted, and Holenberg.Koehler answered all his questions, and he was pleased to find that Coppock spoke to him as if he were a colleague, not as a glass changer for KFC in Brooklyn.When Coppock asked if they had any conclusions, Kohler stated their judgment: U857. Coppock listened carefully to his presentation, and then thought that their evidence that the sunken ship was U857 was very convincing.He asked Koehler if he needed to refer to his own records and materials to further prove this result. Koehler blurted out without thinking: "Of course!" Then he added: "Sir, I am very grateful for your help. Thank you very much." Kohler hurriedly replaced the glass for KFC.He called Chatterton from the truck. "John, I spoke to Coppock on the phone. He may be seventy-five, but he's very clear-headed. He works in that dreadful Scotland Yard." "What did he say?" Chatterton asked. "You're freaking me out—" "I said what we thought about U857. He said it sounded 'very convincing'. He liked our idea. He was going to check it out on his side." "Fantastic," said Chatterton, "our expedition was simply fantastic." "Yeah," Kohler said, "it's wonderful." Shortly after Kohler contacted Koppock, they contacted Horst in Germany.Bredo and Charlie.Gruzmacher got in touch and told them about the speculation about U857.Both experts pored over their records, asked lots of questions, and agreed with them that the mysterious wreck might be U857. Koller called Scotland Yard again to ask how Coppock was going.This call is easy.Coppock told Kohler that he had checked the records, further proving their thinking.Like last time, he agreed that what they found was U857. As the first months of 1993 passed, Chatterton and Koehler kept meeting at Scotty's.But they no longer discuss the identity of the wreck: the issue has been settled.They began to imagine how the submarine sank.They consulted a lot of weapons experts.All the evidence shows that the submarine was attacked by a weapon with a huge explosive power, which may be a torpedo. But where did the torpedoes come from?If it was a torpedo launched by an Allied submarine, they must have records about it.If it was accidentally injured by another German submarine, it would also be recorded.Could it be that the torpedo inside the submarine exploded by itself?Impossible, as the submarine's injuries indicated that the attack came from the outside of the submarine.Then there is only one possibility left.They had read about the possibility that the steering system of the torpedo had malfunctioned, causing the torpedo to turn around and hit itself in the water.These torpedoes are called "ring torpedoes," and several submarines have encountered them. "Imagine if you were Rudolph Plummer, captain of U857," Cohler said to Chatterton one night in Scotty, "you were struggling through the icy water and the hordes of Allied aircraft." The manhunt has come to America from Norway. You've just narrowly escaped death off the coast of Boston. Now you're in New Jersey, just a few miles from Manhattan. You spot a target in the distance. You order all crew into combat mode, then climb up to the command tower, raised the attack periscope. Once you lock on to the target, issue the command - 'Fire the torpedo!' The torpedo roared out of the torpedo tube. Everyone was afraid to make a sound, hoping to hear the explosion in the distance ...but nothing happened. Then the operator's voice came from the sonar room: "Ring torpedo!We've encountered ring torpedoes!Our torpedoes are coming at us! 'Plummore ordered the sub to sink at full speed, their only hope.But it was like a race, a race between the submarine and its own torpedoes.Now there is only one question: can the submarine sink to the bottom of the sea before the torpedo arrives?The crew did everything they could to sink the submarine.They have 20 seconds?Or 5 seconds?they do not know.They can only do their best.too late.The torpedo hit the submarine.Seven hundred pounds of TNT exploded all at once.It's too fucking late. " "That explains why there was no report of the incident," Chatterton went on. "It was probably night and it was winter. When the torpedo hit the submarine, no one on board the boat they were attacking heard." Explosions, because the explosions were on the bottom of the ocean, and even if they heard the bangs, it was the time of the fucking war—there were bangs everywhere. The submarine sank, and no one knew it sank There." The two ate for a while. "Imagine the moment the operator felt when he realized the torpedo was coming back," Kohler said. "Imagine the situation they faced: Either your life is ended in a few seconds by a violent explosion, or you can survive the return torpedo," Chatterton said. "There is no middle way. Choice. You know it’s either this situation or that situation.” The next morning, Chatterton consulted the submarine crew list he had copied from the Bredau archives in Germany.At the bottom of the record is the crew list for U857.The list includes the names of 59 crew members, such as Dyernst, Kossler, Rofgrey and Woolf, among others.Some crew members are only 18 or 20 years old.The senior operator is Eric.Cora was born on March 14, 1917.If the Ring Torpedo had hit the sub, he would have been the first person on board to spot it.Koehler found a photo of the 25-year-old captain, Pramore, in his book.Chatterton and Kohler still had two months before the 1993 diving season, enough time to study the submarine's last year of warfare, the year the submarine they were studying sank. By 1993, Kohler's collection of submarine books rivaled that of a university library.He spread all his books out on the living room floor like a kid collecting cards of basketball stars.He divided the book into two parts, lent one part to Chatterton, and kept the other part for himself.These books set before them the last year of warfare on the submarine, and the stories of the sailors who died in it. Chatterton and Kohler sat at their desks at home and began to read the books from scratch.First page: The prototype of the submarine in the American Revolutionary War.They turned impatiently to the second page: The torpedo was invented by a British engineer in 1866.They turned impatiently to the third page.They are eager to know what happened to the crew on the submarine.They skipped the earlier chapters and went straight to the last few chapters of the book.They found hundreds of pages of gore. By the end of World War II, more than 30,000 of the 55,000 submariners had died in action—a 55 percent mortality rate.The submarine force continued to fight with such a high death rate, which is unique in the modern armed forces.Submarine forces have always participated in battles.But to make matters worse, the end of the war was the period with the highest submarine casualties. In 1945, the chances of an ordered submarine—such as U857—being able to complete a patrol and return home were only 50 percent.According to statistics, during that period, the life of a crew member in the war could only last 60 days.Those submarines that were ordered to patrol the waters of the United States and Canada never returned.The two read a lot of war books, but no part touched them as deeply as the last few pages.As Chatterton and Koehler gazed at the photographs of the dead bodies, they found themselves hoping for a better end to the war, not for the Nazis or Germany, but for the one or two crew members, for the boots The young soldiers neatly arranged in the mysterious submarine.When they couldn't face the tragic end of the crew in the later part of the war, they would call each other and decide that they would never open a book like this again because they couldn't bear the end of someone they knew. Various records show that the submariners of the late war did not just hold out until the last moment of World War II. They knew that they had little chance of surviving, but they fought heroically to the end.The Allies had predicted a possible mutiny aboard these soon-to-be-defeated submarines, but that never happened.The Allies also hoped that the submarine's crew would surrender, but this again did not happen. In January 1945, even after the Allies launched incessant attacks on submarines, Churchill appealed to warship captains not to underestimate the "super aggressive spirit" displayed by German submarines at sea.It was this thought—that a defeated submariner was not looking for an easy life—that kept Chatterton and Koehler reading. October 1940 was the peak period of German submarines, known as "good times".The U-boats sank sixty-six enemy ships, losing only one of their own. In the first half of 1942, the German army launched a surprise attack on American warships on the eastern coast of the United States, called "Operation Drum", which was regarded as another "good time" for German submarine warfare.During this operation, the German submarine was lurking near the coast of the United States. The crew could smell the smell of the forest, see cars driving on the road, and even hear jazz played by American radio stations from the deck.In the first few weeks of Operation Drumbeat, German submarines used torpedoes to wreak havoc on unsuspecting ships.Body parts, gasoline, and shipwrecks littered the eastern coast of the United States.Five months later, German submarines sank 600 ships in American waters at the cost of only six submarines, inflicting unprecedented damage to the U.S. Navy.When the submarine returned to Germany, colorful flags were flying in German ports, flowers were dancing, and beautiful girls were everywhere to welcome the hero back.Churchill once wrote: "The thing that really scares me during the war is the threat of German submarines." Like the invisible David, submarines always threaten the safety of the giant Goliath. But the situation in which the United States was passively beaten did not last long.The U.S. Navy makes heavy use of escort ships.This is an ancient naval tactic that uses warships to protect a fleet of ships sailing together.In this way, when German submarines attacked Allied ships, the escort ships would rush to the scene and pursue the submarines.With the addition of escorts, the chances of submarines sinking Allied ships became very slim. Scientists from every major laboratory and university in the United States eventually joined the war effort.The most powerful weapon they offer is radar.Radar-equipped aircraft and ships can detect submarines surfacing at great distances, even in the dark of night or during storms.Submarines have long had the upper hand in surface warfare because they can sink much faster than aircraft or ships can.But now, they suddenly discovered that the Allied aircraft always appeared in the sky like magic.At first, Karl, the commander-in-chief of the German submarine force.Doenitz hadn't fully realized the enormous threat of radar.His submarines kept getting sunk.Even when the Germans fully realized the seriousness of the situation, there was only so much the submarines could do.They can only hide at the bottom of the water, but although this prevents them from being detected by radar, it also greatly reduces their speed of chasing or even avoiding enemies. The underwater environment is also fraught with dangers.If an Allied ship suspects a submarine is nearby, it uses sonar -- a sonar -- to detect it.Once the sonar responds to the metal shell of the submarine, the submarine cannot escape the bad luck of death-it cannot escape the enemy's attack underwater, and the risk of surfacing to fight will become a turtle in an urn. Submarines rely primarily on radio to communicate with headquarters.The Allied brain trust seized on this weakness of the submarine.They developed a radio reconnaissance system, called the High Frequency Reconnaissance Detection Equipment, which could be used by Allied ships to easily detect the submarine's location.If a submarine uses radio—even if it uses radio to report the weather—it is effectively reporting its position directly to the enemy ship.In this case, the Allied Forces will not hesitate to send a fleet to round up exposed submarines. But the Allies' deadliest blow to German submarines came from breaking the German codes.From the beginning of the war, the German army used a cipher machine called "Enigma" to encrypt all communications.It's a boxy typewriter-like device that can program millions of different passwords.German high-level command personnel firmly believe that "Anigma" is the most secure form of encryption ever created and is undecipherable.Allied codebreakers estimated that the odds of breaking the Enigma cipher without knowing it were 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. But they still intended to try .Polish cryptanalysts have been studying this for many years. They analyzed the captured "Anigma" cipher machines and key cipher files.At the same time, a large number of cryptographers, mathematicians, Egyptologists, scientists, anagrams experts, linguists and chess masters spent months studying "Anigma".The Allies even built the world's first programmed computer to help.Under tremendous pressure, these experts and scholars continue to conduct research.A few months later, with the help of secretly lurking intelligence personnel, they finally deciphered the "Anigma" code-regarded as one of the greatest intelligence achievements of the twentieth century.By the end of 1943, the Allies had begun to use the deciphered "Enigma" messages to command warships to ambush German submarines.Dönitz once suspected that the "Enigma" code had been deciphered, but many German experts assured him that "Enigma" was undecipherable.The Allies continued to intercept German communications, and German submarines continued to be ambushed by the Allies. In the spring of 1943, German submarines were threatened by various Allied technologies, and there was no safe place to hide in the sea.In May of that year, 41 submarines were sunk by Allied forces. This is the famous "Black May". Dönitz once said: "It is simply incredible, and such a scene has never appeared even in nightmares." "Good times" became "bad times".The predator in the sea in the early days of the war is now the hunted. By the first half of 1945, the chances of submarines attacking enemy ships were greatly reduced, and even the chances of survival were slim.Almost all the excellent crew members selected in the early days were killed, and they were replaced by a group of young crew members.Allied bombs destroyed German cities.Soon France was occupied by the Allies, and Soviet troops set foot on German territory.Every move of the German submarine is monitored by the surrounding Allied forces, and the crew may not be safe even if they return to Germany.Because their homeland is also falling. Chatterton and Koehler savored stories of the late days of the submarine war.The flexibility and tenacity of the allied forces ignited bursts of pride in their hearts. They are proud of the United States' actions in promoting freedom and democracy, confronting unprecedented terrorist threats, and perseveringly maintaining world peace.But none of them could get rid of the concern about the dead crew on the submarine from their minds.They did not share their thoughts with their wives, colleagues or friends.They planned to meet again at Scotty. That night, their conversation was nothing like it had been before.In the past, Chatterton and Kohler had often talked in general terms about issues—research, ideas, strategies—about the ambition of solving the submarine mystery.But this time, infected by the story of submarine warfare, they began to think about some details, some details about the submariners with whom they were intertwined. Over and over, they asked each other, "What keeps these men fighting?" In Chatterton and Koehler's view, Dönitz's description of the submariners partly answered that question.He refers to submariners as a group bound by fate—a group in which each member is "interdependent and loyal to one another."For Chatterton and Koehler, this brotherhood is the most precious human emotion.As they drank their coffee, they felt that this was a reflection of the friendship between the two of them. There is another answer to this question.Both of them realized the answer, but neither said it out loud.In their view, most people go through their lives without really knowing themselves.Someone who thinks he is upright, brave, and just is qualified to draw such conclusions only when faced with a real test.This is what moved Chatterton and Kohler the most in submarine warfare.Although these crew members clearly know that their efforts are futile, they still decide to face all tests at sea.After saying good night to each other that night, both of them wondered whether they had the courage to accept such a test.The mysterious submarine had already killed three divers, and Chatterton and Kohler could have escaped unscathed and abandoned the work of confirming their conclusion that they had been able to determine the identity of the submarine.On the way home, both kept asking themselves: If I backed off, how would I answer that question?If I am not willing to accept the test of life, what is the meaning of my life?