Quote:
Originally Posted by NASAAN101
03USMC,
they needed her intacted, biritain was giving her to us! ok what if it was Helmuth Brinkmann her frist CO, not Hans! how would helmuth play it, he would not have hande her over openly. so the questiong come down to, can you talk him down and se if he'll be willing to give her up, then if he dosent then sink her! But dont sink her off the bat, give him a chance to give her up!! that all im saying ok
Nikki
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If I was to suspend reality for a second and look at the scenario from an end result position (aka the Prinz Eugen breaks free and ends up safely in a neutral port) the first thing I would have to do is look at where it could go and logically the answer would be Sweden as the only other option would be Switzerland and the day a heavy cruiser shows up there would be one for the record books.
Sweden despite dealing with Germany throughout the war also took in escaped Allied POWs and was more in alignment with the Allies than with the Germans so the result would have been that both the ship and crew would have been returned to Germany's allied control council.
The only other option available to reach a neutral port was South America (who were inherently pro-German) and to get there not only would it have had to slip its escort but also avoid the entire Royal Navy and a sizable chunk of the allied air force as its only two options were another channel dash or a long voyage and somewhat suicidal voyage through the GIUK gap (where I suspect almost all of the Allied Atlantic fleet would have parked to wait for it).
Basically no matter how you look at it there was no where for it to realistically run where it would not have faced impossible odds or destruction.
In the end the ship surrendered on the orders of its commander after expending the bulk of its ammunition and fighting itself to a stand still, there is nothing more you could ask of it.