Mildew blossomed on their shoes, and charts even rotted from the oppressive heat and dampness. U-boat crews inhaled a foul cocktail of bilge water, sweat and diesel fumes. Fifty men shared two toilets-one of which doubled as a food locker at the start of patrols-that couldn’t function when 80 feet or more below the surface because of the outside water pressure, according to The U-Boats by Douglas Botting. Inside the dimly lit, claustrophobic submarines, sailors couldn’t shower or even change their clothes during patrols that could last two months at sea. These U-boats (an abbreviation of Unterseeboot, the German word for “undersea boat”) prowled the oceans in search of prey and could attack ships 20 times their size from both above and below the surface with their deck guns and torpedoes. The most formidable naval weapons in both world wars, German submarines devastated trans-Atlantic shipping while sinking 8,000 merchant vessels and warships and killing tens of thousands.
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