U-571

Jonathan Mostow co-wrote and directed it, and the film left the 73rd Academy Awards with one win from two nominations: the award then called Best Sound Editing went to Jon Johnson, and the Best Sound nomination lost to Gladiator. The louder argument happened in the Commons. In June 2000 the MP Brian Jenkins called it an affront to the memory of the British sailors who died in the action; Tony Blair agreed entirely. David Balme, who boarded U-110 from HMS Bulldog in 1941 and carried the Enigma machine out, took the opposite line: he advised the production, spent two weeks with the crew off Malta, and defended it for bringing the Battle of the Atlantic to a generation that had not heard of it. Screenwriter David Ayer told BBC Radio 4 in 2006 that it was a mercenary decision to build a parallel history for an American audience, and would not repeat it. The closing credits name the Royal Navy captures from U-110 and U-559 and the US seizure of U-505. A good fit if you want the pressure-hull and chain-of-command scenes, with the invention held apart from the record. Not for anyone watching to learn how Enigma was taken; the first naval Enigma was a British capture in 1941, and the film moves it to 1942 and to Americans.