Book Review: To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander by Georg von Trapp

At least in name, Georg von Trapp achieved international fame as the father of the family portrayed in The Sound of Music musical and film production. How accurate that character was has been challenged by von Trapp's family. One aspect was right: von Trapp was a retired naval officer. Not only did he serve in the Austro-Hungarian Navy, he was a U-boat commander decorated for his actions in World War I and who rose to the rank of lieutenant commander and the command of a submarine base before the war's end.

Long before any films or musicals were made about his family, von Trapp wrote a memoir of his World War I service. Originally published in Austria in 1935, it was not translated into English and published in the U.S. until 2007. Translated by a granddaughter, Elizabeth Campbell, To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander is now out in a paperback edition and provides a rare and intriguing perspective on U-boats in that war.

Much has been written about Germany's U-boat campaign in the North Atlantic and the role it played in ultimately bringing the United States into the war. This memoir explores an entirely different aspect of the Triple Alliance's naval effort. The handful of U-boats in the Austro-Hungarian Navy operated in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas and, less frequently, in the Mediterranean. These were not the U-boats most envision or even what the German Navy had. In fact, when a German U-boat commander visited von Trapp's boat in 1915, the German officer said, "I would refuse to travel in this crate."

In addition to being more primitive than the German equipment, when a quicker dive was needed in these U-boats, men would rush to the front of the boat so there would be more weight there. Most, if not close to all, of the sailors slept on the floor, not in berths. The only time the air could be recycled was when the U-boat was on the surface. As a result, the heat and the smell of petroleum and unwashed bodies and clothes would build up to the point it could leave crew members in a stupor, ill and prostrate. Not only did it mean "[e]verything tastes of petroleum," things got worse in bad weather, when seasickness may strike even the most experienced sailors. In fact, von Trapp writes of one series of squalls endured by the crew of his second U-boat, a captured and converted French submarine. Coming from the conning tower into the interior of the submarine, "takes away your breath," he wrote, as men confronted "a sickening mixture of oil, cooking odors, and sweat stench."

Article Author: Tim Gebhart

Tim Gebhart lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where he practices law in order to provide shelter for his family, his dogs, and his books. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and his blog de guerre is A Progressive on the Prairie.

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