The $4 Submarine
Henry here. The ferocious Battle of the Atlantic between German submarines and Allied convoys was critical to the winning of the war and the defeat of Germany. The stories merchant marine sailors and navy and submarine personnel are legion and hair raising.
Our culture is flooded with movies, books and memoirs and official papers of the submarine menace and how close Hitler came to defeating the Allies combined navies. The submarine is an archetypal figure of fierce, hostile, aggressive force.
With the advent of the nuclear submarines since the war the image of submarines has deepened. The nuclear submarine was one of the powerful weapons of the Cold War and threatened the initiation of the last Armageddon. It is hard to love a submarine and equally hard to ignore them. They are a powerful presence,
This is why I was startled to see that the Canadian navy is selling one if it’s old, dated Oberon class submarine to a museum in Quebec for the princely sum of $4.00.
It seems anticlimactic somehow. Here is one of the silent, lethal hunters sold for the cost of a cup of coffee. It reminds me of the scriptures where the writer says that the day will come when men will change their swords into plowshares. But then, with all the tension in the world toady, I guess that day is not here yet.