This book is delightful on several accounts: It's easy to read, Georg Von Trapp is quite humorous, the adventurous stories are one-of-a-kind, and you learn a bit of history all at the same time!
最後，海軍當局撥交給他一艘俘獲的法國潛艇， 馮•崔普對能有較舒適的起居和工作空間感到滿意，但又須擔心不牢靠的引擎和魚雷上的導引系統（the guidance systems on the torpedoes）。 儘管存在這些問題，Ｕ-１４，在他的指揮下，共沉敵船七艘，包括彈藥運輸艦和專門設計用來對付潛艇的Ｑ艇。
All of us are acquainted with the von Trapp family and Maria, their governess and later step mother, because of the popular musical “The Sound of Music”. We may dimly remember the father who played a distinctly secondary role; yet, he was a celebrated Austrian naval hero. This is his memoir.
During WWI, Austro-Hungary had access to the sea and a navy. In 1915, Georg von Trapp took command of one of the seven old submarines in the Austro-Hungarian navy. They were small uncomfortable, and in poor condition. When von Trapp and a German U-boat captain exchanged visits, the former was overwhelmed by the newer and larger submarine which seemed to him like a “luxury steamer,’ In turn the German looked over the U-5 and told its captain that he wouldn’t go to sea in such a “crate.’ Nevertheless, with a good crew and an inspirational, smart commander, the U-5 gained one of the most spectacular victories the Austro-Hungarian navy won during the war. In the first night attack any of their submarines had made, the U-5 sunk an Italian cruiser and made von Trapp a national hero. Later, he and the crew sank an Italian submarine and captured a freighter but were thwarted in the tracking another cruiser when all but five of the crew were knocked out by gasoline fumes because of the poor ventilation.
Eventually when the navy gave him a captured French submarine, von Trapp was pleased with the much more comfortable living and working quarters but was concerned about the unreliable engine and the guidance systems on the torpedoes. Despite these problems, the U-14, under his command, sank seven vessels, including and ammunition carrier and a Q boat specially designed to sink submarines.
With the end of the war, the terms of its surrender forced Austria to give up its sea coast and its navy thus Captain von Trapp’s career can to an end. In the Preface, his Granddaughter tells the story of the post-war life. For a dozen years until a bank failure virtually wiped out his fortune, he lived the life of a well-to-do gentleman. In the early 1930s, he wrote and published his war memoir.
Meantime, his children’s musical talent， which he and his second wife encouraged, blossomed as they became professionals and toured Europe. As the Nazi threat became increasingly dangerous, von Trapp who had turned down a commission in the German navy took his family to America where the von Trapp Family Chorus won even greater fame.
In the rare memoir of a WWI submariner, von Trapp describes his wartime experiences in vivid prose --- the tension of tracking and torpedoing enemy vessels, the thrill of narrowly escaping the trap set by the Q boat and then sinking it, the desperation of suffering a depth charge attack, and the general discomfort of life on a crowded submarine in the pioneer era of that craft.
To the Last Salute