auto otto kretschmer, pictured here, probably the most famous of the german submarine.st of these men were very young. almost all of them under 30. very few u-boat captains were still in service from the first world war. many of them became like movie stars, particularly in the early phases of the war particularly if they were successful widely in germany, appearing in newsreels getting all sorts of attention and rewards. but the incredible stresses of command led to a cycle problems heavy drinking and a remarkably high suicide rate among those commanders who were not lost at sea. keep in mind, by the late stages of the war, the on a given patrol, you only had about 60% chance of coming back. imagine going to work and having almost a 5050 chance of coming back alive. that was what daily life was like for many of these these sailors. kretschmer pictured here was 28 years old when the war began. in the first two years of the war before his capture he sank nearly 50 ships totaling 300,000 thousand tons of shipping. he was known as silent otto for his tendency to run silent