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Unterseeboot 691 (U-691) would have been a Type VIIC/41 submarine of the Kriegsmarine, if she had ever been built. Her construction by Howaldtswerke of Hamburg was ordered on April 2, 1942, suspended on September 30, 1943, and cancelled on July 22, 1944. The new Elektro Boat XXI design had made the Type VIIs obsolete.
Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon includes a fictictious U-691, a Type IXD/42, launched at Wilhelmshaven on September 19, 1940 (four years before IXD/42s were actually developed) and fitted with an experimental schnorkel. It is possible Stephenson picked the number not for historical accuracy, but for its being prime.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Unterseeboot 691".
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