00:59The U-boat will decide the outcome of the war.
01:12This is what Hitler is telling the Germans as his underwater sailors harvest victory
01:16after victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.
01:19The realities support him in mid-1943.
01:23The massacre by German submarines is costing the American republics
01:26and the British Empire millions of dollars.
01:29Thousands of Allied sailors are dead.
01:32And for this, Hitler honors his naval high command.
02:01Medals? Yes, and more medals.
02:12Glory to the Fuhrer. Glory to the Third Reich. Glory to the victors.
02:22Hitler presses his propaganda machine to the ultimate, squeezing each drop of triumph out of each victory.
02:30Every German is told his submarines threaten the entire Allied war effort with collapse.
02:35Germany rejoices in the news that if the United States and Great Britain continue losing at sea,
02:41they will be defeated everywhere.
02:58Hitler, whose pride has been his army, is now convinced that submarines deserve top priority in his war economy.
03:06Newer and deadlier U-boats are put into mass production.
03:09Factories throughout Germany and occupied Europe fabricate parts that are rushed to shipyards for final assembly.
03:32But as the Nazis turn out newer and more murderous models,
03:36the doom of the submarine is being sealed by the Allies.
03:45To counteract enemy submarines, a ring of strategic air bases has been forged.
03:52One by one, key areas are developed from which planes can cover most of the Atlantic with an umbrella of aircraft.
03:59Step by step, the sea becomes as deadly for the Germans as they have made it for the Allies.
04:05Arc by arc, in 600-mile sweeps, planes encompass the North Atlantic.
04:12Sector by sector, aircraft, one of the most potent of anti-submarine weapons, spreads its protection over ocean routes and coastal lanes.
04:21Base by base, planes reach out, curtailing the range and speed of the U-boats by keeping them submerged.
04:29Area by area, protection grows as the mere presence of aircraft overhead discourages attacks on combat, breaking the morale of U-boat crews.
07:59But there is still a center ocean gap.
08:26The black pit left uncovered by land-based planes.
08:31U-boat paradise.
08:36Allied bombs are not only over the Atlantic, but from English bases they are being flown over Germany where they are dumped by the millions, despite Goering's promise to the contrary.
08:46Bombs on factories where U-boat parts are made.
08:50Bombs on railways that bring the parts together.
08:53Bombs on pens where the submarines hide.
08:56U-boats are being destroyed before they can stalk the sea.
09:23U-boats are being destroyed before they can stalk the sea.
09:36U-boats are being destroyed before they can stalk the sea.
10:06And in the United States, shipyards work around the clock to supply part of the answer to the challenge of the mid-ocean black pit, where U-boats still roam unmolested.
10:18Critical materials and supplies are diverted to the construction of a new class of ship in the United States Navy, officially designated the CVE.
10:28Their crews will call them jeep carriers or baby flap cars.
10:33But jeep carriers alone are not enough.
10:36The Navy begins training pilot candidates with special aptitudes and building the planes for those who pass the rigid test.
10:44All three elements of the plan, building the ships, training the men, turning out the planes, progress simultaneously in an all-out effort aimed at killing enemy submarines.
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12:57Sidewinders, old Great Lakes steams, have been converted into seagoing schools where pilots learn to negotiate tiny, unstable flight decks.
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13:37Baby flap cars, small but tough, a new dimension in convoy protection has been added.
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15:06Carrying their aerial umbrella with them, cargo and troop ships can safely sail across the fatal mid-ocean gap, soon to be U-boat hell.
15:16No enemy submarine can surface anywhere in the Atlantic, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, without fear of destruction.
15:23The Allies force the sea lanes open for the liberation of Europe, for ultimate victory.
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16:04While the U-boats are being run down on a hundred ocean fronts, another campaign is being waged against them ashore.
16:11The Tenth Fleet, which has no ships and will never put to sea, is the directing mind of anti-submarine warfare.
16:19Its function is to coordinate all intelligence, ships, and devices used against enemy submarines, and devise the best possible protection for Allied shipping.
16:29It replaces haphazard methods with a unified assault against the U-boats.
16:37Ships designed to kill U-boats, the destroyer escorts, are the final, basic component needed to annihilate the Germans operating under the Atlantic.
16:48The ships, and the gallant sailors who manned them.
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17:44Many a U-boat's death is plotted in research centers, where extraordinary instruments are invented and perfected to aid in detection, pursuit, and the fight.
17:53Instruments that link ship to ship, ship to plane, plane to plane, in unified hunter-killer groups.
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18:15The jeep carrier, Guadalcanal, has one of the most exciting tales to tell of the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.
18:23On June the 4th, 1944, two days before the Normandy invasion, the Guadalcanal, with escorts, is cruising off the Azores in search of prowling submarines.
18:34She already has four kills to her credit, and is looking for more, but this time with an added flourish.
18:40She has her heart set not on sinking another submarine, but on capturing one.
18:46All hands in the task group are looking for trouble.
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19:49Then it comes. Submarine contact. Out goes the word. We are starting attack.
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20:02Inside the unsuspecting submarine, everything is relaxed and routine.
20:07It is Sunday, and the Germans are taking it easy.
20:11But there is a surprise in store for them.
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21:01Planes from the Guadalcanal spot the Germans, and report to the ships below their target is changing course.
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21:29One of the planes swoops down to mark the U-boat's location with machine gun fire.
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22:02Deeper, deeper, deeper goes the sub.
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22:11Cut the engines. Silence.
22:15But there is no escape.
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23:02A fatal wound. The sub must die below, or fight it out on the surface.
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23:15She's coming up.
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23:30Small-caliber guns take the submarine under fire to keep her crew from using their deck gun and force them to abandon their boat.
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24:06The ancient order rings out. Away all boarding parties.
24:11Not since the war of 1812 has a ship of the United States Navy captured an enemy man of war on the high seas.
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24:34Forty German sailors are taken prisoner, including the captain of U-505.
24:39Only one has been killed.
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25:01The Guadalcanal brings her prize, defeated and helpless, alongside foretoeing back to Bermuda.
25:08And with the U-505 vanishes the German dream for conquest of the Atlantic.
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25:25Before Germany's unconditional surrender, 866 Axis submarines lie dead on the ocean floor.
25:33Victory in the Battle of the Atlantic is the result of teamwork between the Allies and integration of all weapons.
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25:45The Germans surrender. The Battle of the Atlantic is won.
25:51The desperate, vicious struggle is over.
25:56To Allied airmen and sailors who have restored freedom to the sea,
26:01all honor for making victory possible in World War II.
