Other mistake: As the Germans open fire on the British sailors in a life boat, there is a panning shot of the crew. In this shot, a hair (or scratch) that made its way onto the film itself is visible on screen. (00:27:20)
Other mistake: There is a scene where Eddie, the mess steward, is taunting the German prisoners while writing numbers on their chests. Watch his writing hand as he's working on 11. He makes an awful lot of strokes, including several horizontal ones. You can see from the next guy, 12, that Eddie's ones are just simple vertical lines, so there's no reason for him to have spent so much time writing on 11's chest. Except that it gave him time to say his whole line. (00:45:40)
Other mistake: A German U-boat could dive in less than 30 seconds. By the time the boarding party even got to the conning tower the boat would already have been submerged.
Suggested correction: Just because it can, doesn't mean it has to. Not a mistake.
Yes mistake. The order to crash dive is heard. On a German sub the cry "Alarm!" always implied an order to crash dive as quickly as possible. A bit later the order to dive is given again. Practice on German subs was to open the quick-release vents as soon as the prompt "hatch latched" was given - in case of air attack often before that, meaning the vents were already open while crew members were still dropping through the hatch, resulting in the last guy getting an involuntary shower. True, the boat couldn't have dived in record time because they had no way in the ship, but still, at the very least the first thing the boarding party should have needed to do after taking the Central of U-571 should have been to close the vents and blow the tanks.
