I never saw the movie but I have been told by my parents and aunt that her husband (latest uncle), had serviced the radar systems on that vessel a few days before they had put out. He met many of the crew and even now can't watch the movie without getting very misty and walking out for certain parts she says. I do not recall what company they work for (A&U) but it is one of those that provides radar and navigational equipment to various vessels and buyers, and then provides the tech support for serious problems should the manuals become too confusing.
Also on the man overboard thread, several years ago there was an accident between an Ohio-class SSBN and a tug that had come out from either Guam or the Phillipines to conduct a personnel transfer. One of the crewmen leaving the boat was given his dolphins pin while topside prior to boarding the tug so there was a video camera from the ship up on the missile deck to record it and also as a possible use for training purposes for future personnel transfers. Well to make a potentially long story short, The tug came alongside, the transfer was completed, and just as the lines were thrown back to the tug, the diesel engines on the tug shutdown for unknown reasons. On the video could be seen a man running from the bridge back to the engine room hatch as the tug drifted aft of the submarine. The tug could be seen to lift up out of the water by about 6 feet as it hit the vertical stabilizers on the submarine's stern planes (stabilizers are so that the sub won't do a barrel roll underwater while turning at high speeds). After nearly two minutes of being stuck on the stabilizer, the tug came free and went down in less than a minute. Luckily there were only 2 casualties, the tug's engineer and captain (the man seen running earlier). All the other crewmen from the tug and those that had been transfered to her abandoned ship as quickly as they could. The kid that had his dolphins pinned on earlier was in his dress blues (very heavy and constricting when wet). The sub's Deck Div leader wouldn't permit the ship's diver/swimmer to enter the water to render help until the ship had completed her turn away from the area to keep her screw from churning through the survivors. A chief who was topside told THAT man what to go do with himself as he dove in and kept the kid afloat. All the survivors were pulled aboard and the sub then went all the way in to port to offload them before being sent back out to cover her required target package. The chief was "reprimanded" and then given I believe either a Navy Commendation Medal or a Legion of Merit. But that kid was scared out of his wits by the experience and apparently left the Navy soon after that. When this happened I hadn't enlisted, I was still in high school probably. But we were shown the video aboard my ship as training of what could happen if somebody screwed up royally and also as a point that an accident could happen at anytime.
Boy that was a mouthfull and a headfull to remember. I think I rambled a bit but even now I'm not sure even why other than to tell my only experiences with man overboards (even though it didn't happen to me). Luckily my only man overboards were floating can's painted in International Orange and when we came to a point that the Captain of OOD determined we had reached a point where we had picked them up, the cans were sunk with rifle fire.
