First season episode about a German U-boat?

[justins5256]

Does anyone have more details about this story surrounding an American ship that was allegedly sunk by a German U-boat during WWII? I think the US government covered up the fact that the ship sank, and the men onboard were given MIA designations. Then, on UM, a family member of one of the missing crewmen was reunited with a German U boat commander who remembered sinking the ship.

Is my recollection of the story correct? Does anyone remember any more details?

[TracyLynnS]

This wasn't on UM but I recently saw a show on the 5 sullivan brothers who all signed up on the same navy ship durig WWII, which was unprecendented, since the gov't didn't want brothers to be in a situation where they could all lose their lives, but that's how these guys wanted to do it.

I think it was the Japanese who first fired on the ship from a plane, then once the ship was crippled, they sent a sub to finish it off.

As the story was told, there were several survivors, including one of the sullivan brothers, but the US didn't want Japan to know that it had successfully taken out one of our ships, so they US flew over and saw the survivors floating in a few life boats, but they never sent a boat or ship to rescue them. It took about 8 days or so for the survivors to die. The dead were supposedly even eaten by sharks.

What I couldn't believe was why didn't the US do some serious propaganda spin and accuse the Japanese of firing a missile on a private chartered fishing boat or some rich american's private yacht with 20 american civilians on board, then go rescue those supposed civilians, instead of letting the sailors die the most horrible deaths of exposure, starvation, and dehydration.

I mean, heck, politicians are supposed to be professional liars. They couldn't come up with some kind of cover story to go out and save those men? I'm just a stupid house wife, and I came up with that spin story before the show was even over. Sheesh...