The Enemy Below

On patrol in the South Atlantic, the USS Haynes sails with Lieutenant Commander Murrell, recently appointed after surviving 21 days adrift following the sinking of his previous ship. The crew questions his fitness and leadership as he settles into command.

Nearby, Kapitän zur See von Stolberg commands a wary U-boat and resents fighting for the Nazi regime. The two crews sense the coming clash as the cat-and-mouse game begins in open water.

Murrell subjects von Stolberg's crew to hourly depth-charge attacks, trying to force the U-boat to surface where it is more vulnerable. The exchange hinges on each captain trying to predict and counter the other's move.

Von Stolberg studies Murrell's predictable attack pattern and uses his experience to set a counter. He torpedoes the Haynes, crippling the escort and shifting the advantage.

Murrell orders fires set on the deck to make the damage seem worse than it is, aiming to lure the U-boat into a surface attack. He abandons ship with a skeleton crew maintaining only the essential stations at the bridge, engine room, and a gun.

Von Stolberg surfaces to finish Haynes with a torpedo, but Murrell rams the U-boat with the Haynes' bow. The two ships become locked together, and Haynes rides up over the U-boat's foredeck before becoming stuck.

With their vessels damaged and interlocked, von Stolberg orders scuttling charges and his crew abandons ship. The Haynes, taking in water, drifts toward destruction as fires and explosions multiply around them.

Murrell, the last man aboard, spots von Stolberg on the U-boat's conning tower and refuses to abandon his mortally wounded executive officer Heinie Schwaffer. He throws a line and rescues both officers from the danger as the ships threaten to explode.

Lieutenant Ware returns in the captain's gig with a mixed party of American and German sailors, racing up the cargo nets to save the last survivors before the tangled vessels blow up.

German seamen give Heinie Schwaffer a burial at sea while the Haynes crew looks on with respect. The ceremony marks a solemn moment amid the ongoing danger of the wreckage.

On the stern, Murrell offers von Stolberg a cigarette as a gesture of peace, a brief moment of uneasy camaraderie after the fight.

Stolberg, bitter about his loss and his country, says it should have ended with his death. Murrell answers with quiet resolve, suggesting next time he won’t throw Stolberg the rope, and Stolberg replies that he probably will—ending the encounter on a wary, unresolved note.