Operation Deadlight was the code name for the Royal Navy operation of November 1945 – February 1946 to scuttle German U-boats surrendered to the Allies after the defeat of Germany near the end of World War II.
Yuliy Borisovich Briner, known professionally as Yul Brynner, was a Russian-born actor. He was known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical The King and I (1951), for which he won two Tony Awards, and later an Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1956 film adaptation. He played the role 4,625 times on stage and became known for his shaved head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long after adopting it for The King and I.
Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was an English stage and screen actor. After varied work in the theatre, he achieved leading man star status in the film Brief Encounter (1945), followed by The Third Man (1949), portraying what BFI Screenonline called “a new kind of male lead in British films: steady, middle-class, reassuring…. but also capable of suggesting neurosis under the tweedy demeanour.”
Hans Wilhelm Langsdorff was a German naval officer, most famous for his command of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee before and during the Battle of the River Plate off the coast of Uruguay in 1939. After the Panzerschiff was unable to escape a pursuing squadron of Royal Navy ships, Langsdorff scuttled his ship. Three days later he died by suicide in his hotel room in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The submarine film is a subgenre of war film in which most of the plot revolves around a submarine below the ocean's surface. Films of this subgenre typically focus on a small but determined crew of submariners battling against enemy submarines or submarine-hunter ships, or against other problems ranging from disputes amongst the crew, threats of mutiny, life-threatening mechanical breakdowns, or the daily difficulties of living on a submarine.
Günther Prien was a German U-boat commander during World War II. He was the first U-boat commander to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and the first member of the Kriegsmarine to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany. It was Germany's highest military decoration at the time of its presentation to Prien.
Eric Braeden is a German-American film and television actor, known for his roles as Victor Newman on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, as Hans Dietrich in the 1960s TV series The Rat Patrol, Dr. Charles Forbin in Colossus: The Forbin Project, as Dr. Otto Hasslein in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and as John Jacob Astor IV in the 1997 film Titanic. He won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998 for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless.
The Enemy Below is a 1957 American DeLuxe Color war film in CinemaScope about a battle between an American destroyer escort and a German U-boat during World War II. It stars Robert Mitchum and Curd Jürgens as the American and German commanding officers, respectively. Produced and directed by Dick Powell, the film was based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Denys Rayner, a British naval officer involved in antisubmarine warfare throughout the Battle of the Atlantic.
A ship is scuttled when its crew deliberately sinks it, typically by opening holes in its hull.
The Decima Flottiglia MAS was an Italian flotilla, with marines and commando frogman unit, of the Regia Marina. The acronym MAS also refers to various light torpedo boats used by the Regia Marina during World War I and World War II.
Bernhard Wicki was an Austrian-Swiss actor, film director and screenwriter. He was a key figure in the revitalization of post-war German-language cinema, particularly in West Germany, and also directed several Hollywood films.
In Enemy Hands is a 2004 American submarine film directed by Tony Giglio and starring William H. Macy, Til Schweiger, Thomas Kretschmann, Scott Caan and Lauren Holly. The film follows an American submarine crew getting captured by a German submarine crew and taken prisoner aboard their U-boat.
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 American Technicolor epic historical drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Richard Harris, Hugh Griffith, Richard Haydn and Tarita in her only role. The screenplay was written by Charles Lederer, based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Bronisław Kaper composed the score.
Virginia Gilmore was an American film, stage, and television actress.
The scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon was orchestrated by Vichy France on 27 November 1942 to prevent Nazi German forces from seizing it. After the Allied invasion of North Africa, the Germans invaded the territory administered by Vichy under the Armistice of 1940. The Vichy Secretary of the Navy, Admiral François Darlan, defected to the Allies, who were gaining increasing support from servicemen and civilians. His replacement, Admiral Gabriel Auphan, guessed correctly that the Germans intended to seize the large fleet at Toulon, and ordered it scuttled.
The following events occurred in August 1944:
Morituri—Latin for "those who are about to die"—can refer to:
The following events occurred in June 1942:
Hôtel Raphael is a French luxury hotel situated on Avenue Kléber in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It is a five-star hotel and belongs to Les Hôtels Baverez. During the German occupation of Paris the hotel was the principal billet for senior officers of the SS, Gestapo and Wehrmacht.
Roy N. Sickner was an American actor, screenwriter and stuntman.
