LEIGH MP Lawrence Cunliffe has launched a bitter attack on Hollywood film-makers for ignoring the British sailors who seized the vital Enigma codes and machine from a German submarine, and making them American instead.

He has joined Bolton North East David Crausby and Chorley's Lindsay Hoyle to put down a Commons motion attacking this distortion of the truth for financial gain.

The move at Westminster is the latest in a chorus of criticism over the movie, which makes it appear that it was the Americans who made the crucial breakthrough, when it was actually the crew of a British destroyer.

The motion appeared on the Commons Order Paper -- Parliament's daily agenda -- circulated to all Ministers, MPs and senior civil servants.

The MPs say: "We regret that Hollywood has chosen to distort the truth and detract from the valour of the British sailors concerned by appropriating this story for its own financial gain."

The machine and book were taken to a special centre in Bletchley Park, north of London, where they cracked the vital German codes used for important secret military messages. This gave the Allied Forces vital information and intelligence to defeat the Germans.

It reads: "We note the release of the feature film U571 in the UK, which purports to tell the tale of the capture by the United States Navy of a Nazi submarine during World War Two, with the intention of retrieving an Enigma code machine and code book, and that this story is entirely fictional.

"We note that the capture of the Enigma machine actually took place in May 1941 when the British destroyer, HMS Bulldog, commanded by Captain Joe Baker Cresswell, disabled and seized submarine U-110 , after which members of its crew, led by Lieutenant David Balme and including, among others, Chief Engineering Officer G E Dodds, then risked their lives to board the stricken submarine, facing the danger that it might sink at any time.

"We note that members of the boarding party were decorated for their heroism in retrieving the encoding device and that King George XI described their actions as perhaps the most important single event in the war at sea.