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The wolfpack tactic was made famous by Admiral Karl Donitz, Hitler's mastermind of submariners. His strategy: to send teams of U-boats to bear against the convoys of ships heading from Canada to Britain, cut maritime lifelines, and starve the enemy into defeat. Take a deep dive into the North Atlantic as we go above and below sea level to relive one of the first attacks of Donitz's lethal subs in 1940, headed by leader of the pack Commander Otto Kretschmer. Then follow Britain's war strategists as they race to combat this new deadly attack.
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00:00In the early days of the Second World War, one of Hitler's most successful U-Boat aces, Otto Kretschmer, sinks dozens of Allied ships.
00:21First alone, then as part of the lethal wolf packs.
00:25Until a fateful mistake threatens everything.
00:44In World War II, a subsea weapon allows warriors to fight from beneath the waves.
00:51With cunning, force, and tenacity, their enemies strike back.
01:01Revolutionary, but still sometimes primitive, it's a desperate bid to change the course of war.
01:10Their stories are legend.
01:16July 8th, 1940.
01:17The Nazi U-Boat U-99 has sunk an Allied merchant ship just south of Ireland.
01:27The Nazi U-Boat U-99 has sunk an Allied merchant ship just south of Ireland.
01:32Now a British escort turns in pursuit.
01:33When you attack the enemy, you are the hunter.
01:35And as soon as you get attacked by the escorts, you are the prey.
01:39The crew of U-99 performs a dive to escape.
01:40And as soon as you get attacked by the escorts, you are the prey.
01:42The crew of U-99 performs a dive to escape.
01:47You beat the up-bunch!
01:48JORGE RAVO-
01:51Bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye!
01:53The U-9-9 fight!
01:55He has no idea.
01:56When you attack the enemy, you are the hunter.
01:57U-9-9 is near a see-and-game.
01:58And as soon as you get attacked by the escorts, you are the prey.
02:00The crew of U-99 performs a dive to escape.
02:06The U-9-9 fight.
02:09U-Boat Commander Otto Kretschmer has served Hitler's underwater service since the start of World War II.
02:22He's just sunk his 12th ship in 10 months and earned a reputation as the best torpedo shot in the German Navy.
02:31He proves ruthlessly efficient. His motto is, one torpedo, one ship.
02:43Otto Kretschmer was not one of the ordinary submarine commanders.
02:46He's part of an elite group to really do most of the damage.
02:51Not only is he pleasant and skilled, but he's cold as a cucumber.
02:54It's only Kretschmer's second patrol aboard the recently commissioned U-99.
03:06He and his untried crew face an explosive initiation.
03:11It's the first time when the cool and calm character of Kretschmer is virtually forged in flames.
03:19Because it's the first time when he's attacked by Allied escorts.
03:24The warship that hunts Kretschmer is one of Britain's new flower-class corvettes.
03:39205 feet long, with a displacement of 940 tons.
03:44It's been adapted from commercial whalers to hunt submarines.
03:48So when the war starts, the attack that the Germans launch on British trade is unanticipated.
04:00And the British are simply not materially prepared for it, nor are they psychologically prepared for it.
04:05And the Brits have to adapt their maritime preparations to deal with warfare that they just are not ready for.
04:15Just after 8 a.m.,
04:20the Flower-class corvette launches underwater bombs, called death charges,
04:26in a bid to sink Kretschmer's submarine.
04:33They weigh about 400 pounds and detonate when they sink to a preset depth between 50 and 500 feet.
04:41All of a sudden, there will be the explosions.
04:43Submarine is thrown around underwater.
04:53Kretschmer described it like a thousand hammers knocking on a submarine.
04:57And when the death charge exploded, one after the other, they look around in the submarine.
05:13Is there something broken?
05:15Is the hole still fully intact?
05:16You need to, to be attacked,
05:19They were now not only drop one, two, or three salvos, they start attacking for hours and hours.
05:23U-99 is a Type 7 U-boat, first commissioned in 1936.
05:36They are 218 feet long and 20 feet wide.
05:39type 7s normally carry 14 torpedoes and a crew of 45 men
05:46germany produces more of them than any other submarine
05:52the type 7 u-boat is actually a bit on the small side it's developed from the so-called ub submarine
05:59one of the smallest submarines of the first world war it did have significant seagoing capacity
06:04more than 700 were built based on its relatively simple and inexpensive design
06:11the man who deploys the u-boats is karl donitz hitler's mastermind of submarines i think the
06:24best way to understand karl donitz is he's a consummate professional submariner he lived
06:28breathed thought submarines all the time donitz launches his u-boats to key shipping routes in a
06:35bid to strangle the british isles this became the core strategy of the german naval command to cut
06:44those lifelines those maritime lifelines fighting the convoys starving britain into defeat the whole
06:53thing turns into quite literally as often said a chess match because you're matching which with the
06:58other guy where is he now and where will he be you've got to be thinking several moves ahead
07:02donitz uses naval intelligence to assign the few submarines he has to locate ships
07:09there are not many u-boats at sea at this stage of the war the germans have had to make choices in
07:16their war production and u-boats were not one of those choices because of course they were
07:20planning to fight on land first in the west and then in the east
07:23so he had to use these small numbers and the only thing he could do is to spread them over the ocean
07:32like butter on a very big sheet of bread therefore in the first stages of the second world war they
07:41were still fighting like in the first world war one submarine on one petrol on its own
07:46early on july 8th dunitz's u-99 attacked the enemy alone and has been under siege for hours
07:57everybody is under stress so the sweat is coming on their face dropping down and if you are under
08:08stress you breathe a lot uncertain of how long the attack will last kretschmer takes action
08:16to preserve the submarines limited supply of air commanding officer needs to conserve the oxygen
08:24and so the people get the order to lie down to sleep
08:29they get biscuits and they get chocolate to get over the situation after hours they're probably very
08:41fatigued some of the crew don masks that absorb carbon dioxide in an effort to make the u-boat's atmosphere last
08:51it's almost impossible to imagine what these people felt at this very moment
09:03um it must be must have been horrendous
09:07but as another salvo hits
09:14the man who commands the u-boat appears unfazed
09:20kretschmer was sitting very calm and reading a novel a criminal novel
09:24and the guy on the hero acoustics castle was looking at him and he thought oh that's a great guy
09:32we are under the pressure he's just sitting around reading his novel
09:37after some minutes castle again is looking at him and he realized the book is upside down
09:49so he can't read and all the time he did not flip any page
09:53so kretschmer in this case was a brilliant military leader
09:59i can take the time to just read a novel so you could keep calm too
10:05when the attacks are going on for hours kretschmer had to keep in mind a lot of different things
10:28the first thing is to keep the submarine in a depth where it doesn't get destroyed by the pressure of the water
10:35and therefore he needs propulsion and to produce propulsion he needs to use battery energy
10:41submerged 124 battery cells power u-99's propellers and all its systems
10:49they can only be recharged on the surface
10:5312 hours after the depth charge attack begins
11:01kretschmer and his crew remain pinned down
11:05kretschmer is told by his engineer that he's running low of battery fuel
11:16kretschmer must make a move or u-99 will be lost to the sea
11:25to wait until the battery is totally down
11:29then there's no chance of surviving
11:31during the 12 hours of depth charge attack
11:41u-99 has been cruising just fast enough to maintain a constant depth to conserve power
11:50to keep his submarine moving he needs the propulsion and therefore he had to use
11:56the battery fuel in an efficient way as long as possible to keep the boat on moving
12:02for propulsion or for operations
12:04as his batteries die kretschmer risks the last of his power on a course change
12:17in a final bid to escape
12:19kretschmer and his crew tried to evade by zigzagging changing depth and the likes
12:27more than 14 hours after the attack began
12:30the sound of enemy propellers fades
12:34and then they had the information that the escorts were moving away
12:40u-99 survives 127 depth charges
12:49menna bernard man zum auftauchen
12:53battery fuel was extremely low and oxygen was nearly disposed and therefore
13:01he had to get up
13:03when they surface the escorts have moved out of sight
13:16it is said that the air is yellow greenish and the author of one famous novel about kretschmer
13:31he explains looking like the death leaving the submarine
13:38he was one of the first german commanding submarine officers to have an experience of
13:43a long-lasting depth charge he was lucky so the escorts really disappeared
14:02to the east the man in charge of germany's u-boats gains a critical win hitler's troops have invaded france
14:11jernitz can use its atlantic ports to launch his submarines
14:18after the fall of france in 1940 the germans suddenly possessed new bases ideally suited for attacks on the british convoys in the atlantic
14:29before that they had to send out their bases from their bases in germany
14:36which meant they would spend a lot of fuel for traveling to and fro those operational areas
14:44and so now in france the boats had considerable more time for actually hunting and fighting the allied convoys
14:51so now in france the boats had considerable more time for actually hunting and fighting the allied convoys
14:58so
15:05on october 13th 1940
15:07dunitz deploys u-99 from lorient france
15:13intelligence has learned 34 enemy ships transport timber steel and other war materials
15:18and a convoy from canada to britain
15:21a convoy is a grouping of ships a number of ships together escorted by a number of warships
15:27you might think that putting a lot of ships together is a lot of eggs in one basket but actually because the sea is such a big place
15:33if you concentrate shipping then it's very difficult for the enemy to even find them and when they find them
15:39they find them escorted with warships and it's a hard job to attack them
15:46kretschmer and his crew race northwest in search of convoy sc-7
15:52all convoy routes have their own designation
15:56hx halifax
15:58sc slow convoy for slow ships when they start convoys for slow ships
16:03so it normally means something and it helps divide convoys up
16:08durnitz assigns more u-boats to join kretschmer in locating the convoy
16:15it's one of the first mobilizations of a wolf pack
16:20a tactic that hitler's submarines would make famous
16:23the essence of the rudel tactic the wolf tactic was to bring several submarines to bear against the convoy
16:33the control of the wolf pack is done ashore had done its headquarters on the big board
16:40you have a big plot and pins and move submarines around
16:42think of it as a kind of vast drift net of submarines at about twice the visibility distance apart one from the other
16:48deployed perpendicular to the line of advance that you'd expect convoys to follow
16:55and the idea is simply to use it as a kind of tripwire system so you can snare them
17:00another submarine to join the hunt is u-100
17:15the u-boat is commanded by joachim shepke
17:22friend and rival to kretschmer and u-99
17:26shepke and kretschmer were among the first to complete dunitz's elite submarine training
17:33thirteen months into the war they rank among hitler's u-boat aces
17:40cunning men driven to sink britain's ships
17:44the number of aces in the u-boat fleet is never very big and they do most of the heavy lifting
17:50if you look at the success rate for german submariners
17:55about three quarters of the tonnage is sunk by like twenty percent of the captains
18:01because they're they're prepared to take things right to the edge
18:06but can these lone wolves hunt as a pack
18:18by fall of 1940 a new era of submarine warfare has begun
18:23admiral karl dunitz counts on aces kretschmer and shepke
18:28to deliver on his new wolf pack tactic
18:34germany has only 27 operational submarines
18:38nearly a third of dunitz's active fleet is at stake
18:42his strategic objective is tonnage sunk per u-boat day at sea
18:47it's also a logical strategy it's just about the only one they've got
18:51but it means you do have to sink ships you have to destroy their carrying capacity
19:06attacking a convoy presents the perfect opportunity
19:10the thirty-four merchant ships of slow convoy seven are protected by only four escorts
19:17their main weapon for detecting u-boats is sonar
19:22an active pinging system also known as azdick
19:27echo bearing green two zero drawing right
19:31azdick was invented towards the end of world war one
19:34it uses sound pulses called pings to search the ocean for submarines
19:44the big innovation in the fall of 1918 was the introduction of an active acoustic location system
19:50developed primarily by the french and then shared with the british
19:53so what you have is that stuff you see in hollywood movies where a sound goes out
19:59it hits something and it comes back and you measure the distance
20:03and that gives you some idea of how far away the object is
20:08it was the key to the existing anti-submarine tactics of the royal navy
20:12a submerged submarine in fact was vulnerable
20:15but the biggest drawback is that it doesn't work against surface vessels
20:20and when a submarine becomes a low hard to detect surface vessel at night
20:25it soon proves to be a very dangerous enemy indeed
20:34after convoy sc7 is intercepted kretschmer and the rest of the wolf pack close in
20:40and then the order would be given that at the right moment in the dark of night
20:46you're free to attack
20:48and then the pack would come in
20:52there's a lot at stake not simply in sinking the ships
20:56but in creating that shock effect
20:59and demonstrating to the british that they can sink their shipping at will
21:03shepke and the other commanders prepared to fire from outside the convoy
21:07we've been waiting for a long time
21:15but kretschmer has his own plan
21:18one more speed?
21:20a thousand meters
21:22at 10 pm
21:24u-99 slinks past the escorts
21:27to ambush the enemy from where they least expected
21:30kretschmer has this killer instinct
21:33he is a perfectionist
21:34so he finds a way of sneaking in
21:39on the surface into the convoy
21:42he manages cold-blooded to sail inside the convoy
21:48and then starts to torpedo the merchant vessels
21:52P tissue
22:12torpedoes
22:13The first knowledge they have that there's an attack taking place is when an explosion
22:29strikes a ship and flares start to go up, then the escort has to react.
22:36The allies target the convoy's perimeter, where the U-boats usually prowl.
22:46Others in the Wolfpack are forced to dive.
23:06But inside the convoy, Kretschmer stays on the attack.
23:26It turns into a pyrotechnic nightmare.
23:36They're just sinking ships.
23:40Terrifying for the men in the convoy.
23:41Just terrifying.
23:43No one thought that they would actually get inside the convoy in the dark of night and
23:47spit death and destruction out both ends at a high speed.
23:50In the early hours of October 19th, U-99 fires the last of its 14 torpedoes.
24:13Convoy loses 20 ships while in transit.
24:1680,000 tons of shipping is lost to the war effort.
24:21Schepke claims three ships, Kretschmer seven.
24:27Many more than any other ace in one of Germany's first Wolfpack offensives.
24:31It's a radically new kind of use of submarines that the Brits simply do not have defenses for.
24:39Once the Wolfpack snares a convoy, it's chaos for the Allies.
24:44You look a good idea.
24:49A few days later, U-99 docks to a cheering crowd.
24:59Kretschmer and his fellow commanders are celebrated as idols.
25:03The German U-boot aces were used by the German war propaganda, of course, as propaganda heroes.
25:10You can almost like them to the pop stars of their days.
25:15In any war, it's very much the same.
25:18You need heroes.
25:20You need successors to raise the spirit of your own folk.
25:24In Britain, war strategists race to thwart Germany's new U-boat tactics.
25:36The British Empire's a maritime empire, and it relies on shipping.
25:40Now, that's a strength because it means that the British can access the world as far as supplies are concerned.
25:45But on the other hand, it means Britain must control the sea.
25:50The Royal Navy reassigns warships guarding the British coast to the Atlantic to protect convoys.
25:57It must not allow the enemy to deny it the use of the sea.
26:01Efforts are also underway to apply a new technology called radar.
26:05Radio waves used to detect enemy airplanes to the seas.
26:10In the process of having to make this adjustment, Britain is being bombed.
26:15The ports are being destroyed from the air.
26:17The Blitz is being launched.
26:20It's a very trying period for Britain.
26:28March 1941.
26:30Nazi wolf packs have dominated the Battle of the Atlantic for five months.
26:34Now, convoy HX-112 steams in transit from Halifax to Britain.
26:40HX-112 was the 112th fast inward bound convoy.
26:47It was composed of different kinds of ships, tankers, cargo ships, etc.
26:51And one of the features which makes this convoy interesting and significant is that for the first time the U-boats are facing a well-trained escort group.
27:01Overseeing the seven escorts that guard the 41 ship convoy is Commander Donald McIntyre.
27:10McIntyre has proved a shrewd hunter since he captained his first British patrol vessel in 1935.
27:18McIntyre was focused on U-boat killing.
27:23That's what he wanted to do.
27:25He wanted to sink submarines.
27:27McIntyre took command of HMS Walker a few weeks before.
27:32The lead destroyer in one of Britain's first dedicated convoy protection fleets.
27:38Escort group five.
27:40It was a very risky business, not only to serve on a warship or a merchant vessel, but also to travel the Atlantic.
27:51There was also this constant threat of being attacked by a U-boat and facing a gruesome death.
28:07150 miles south of Iceland.
28:13McIntyre faces the first assault against convoy HX-112.
28:18The U-boat cripples one of the convoy's prized oil tankers.
28:23Critical fuel for Britain's war effort burns.
28:27Tankers are always spectacular targets.
28:29They go up in huge bouts of flame, and this tanker was no exception.
28:35It made a great impact on McIntyre, who said, you know, it was rather a depressing sight to see this huge explosion taking place.
28:43And it showed that the U-boats were mounting effective attacks.
28:48In the North Atlantic, the U-boat has downed a tanker carrying fuel guarded by Britain's escort group five, commanded by Donald McIntyre.
29:03The submarine that has ambushed the convoy is U-110.
29:10And it takes immediate evasive action.
29:15The dive is ordered by Fritz Julius Lemp.
29:22Like Kretschmer and Schepke, Lemp is one of Hitler's elite U-boat aces.
29:29He's best known for sinking the passenger liner Athenia on the first day of World War II.
29:36The attack on the civilian vessel sends the stark message that every British ship is at risk.
29:43At the start of the war, the Admiralty isn't sure that the Germans are going to start unrestricted submarine warfare.
29:50But when the Athenia is sunk, then the Admiralty decides, yes, it is unrestricted submarine warfare.
29:58And so a convoy system is introduced.
30:17Before diving, Lemp transmits the coordinates of convoy HX-112 to U-boat headquarters.
30:24Dönitz deploys Kretschmer and Schepke in a wolf pack to intercept.
30:31All the first-round draft picks, all the key characters, are in this convoy battle.
30:38But one of the convoy's escorts also carries a new weapon rigged to foil U-boat tactics.
30:49McIntyre's warship fleet includes the HMS Vanoch, recently fitted with radar.
30:56A technology that allows ships to locate submarines on the surface.
31:03Vanoch was one of the first destroyers to be equipped with a radar system.
31:08And this was entirely new and a new threat to the U-boats.
31:12Now they could be detected at night at the surface.
31:18Unaware of this critical development, Germany's top submarine commanders prepare to attack.
31:25They have had great successes against poorly escorted convoys.
31:30Now the tide is beginning to turn, but they don't know that yet.
31:34March 16th, 1941.
31:40Having located the convoy, Kretschmer plots his creep into HX-112.
31:46U-99's commander scans the fog with prized binoculars made for an ace.
31:55As an ace submarine commander, Kretschmer has been presented with a rather higher standard of binoculars than other captains.
32:03And they're part of his ability, especially at night, to seize targets on the surface.
32:10And it's a very important part of Kretschmer's self-image that he has them.
32:16Kretschmer must use his sharp eyes to avoid an accidental crash with an enemy ship.
32:22The North Atlantic in March is not a very hospitable place.
32:27And you get mist and fog and so on.
32:30And therefore it's going to be quite difficult to attack.
32:33But Kretschmer was a person who liked taking risks.
32:36He wanted to get inside the convoy.
32:38That was his tactic.
32:39Get inside the convoy, target-rich environment, sink everything inside.
32:43And he tries to do this despite the weather conditions.
32:46By 10pm, U-99 navigates the fog to land inside enemy lines.
32:52Where none of the convoy escorts would expect to find a Nazi submarine.
33:02Avoiding underwater detection and cloaked in darkness, Kretschmer and his crew are ready to strike.
33:09They attack at night, on the surface, when the Aztec doesn't work, the sonar doesn't work.
33:25And therefore they create chaos, they create a certain amount of shock effect.
33:29And large numbers of ships and then blow up in quick succession.
33:33Aboard the lead British escort, McIntyre scans the perimeter for the U-boat that's ravaging his ships.
33:54If the escort gets a sniff, it can strike against the pack.
34:00It can push it off and maybe get through the night with very few losses.
34:08But at 1am, another submarine is detected.
34:11McIntyre spots Shepkin in the customary position outside the convoy.
34:17The British destroyer steams toward its target, at 34 knots.
34:31Nearly twice as fast as U-100 can speed.
34:35Fire! Fire!
34:36Fire!
34:37Fire!
34:38Fire!
34:39Fire!
34:40Fire!
34:41Fire!
34:42Fire!
34:43Fire!
34:44Fire!
34:45Fire!
34:46Fire!
34:48Nearly overtaken on the surface, Shepke's only option is to try and hide beneath the waves.
34:55Fire!
34:59In such a battle situation, you can't think for hours, and hours, over what you do next.
35:03And so, we made this split-second decision to evade an attack by the destroyer by diving.
35:14diving.
35:23McIntyre summons HMS Vanoff to join him in a depth charge attack.
35:31Depth charges are very large explosions and if they occur close to the submarine then
35:40they do a lot of damage.
35:47Bulbs become untied, water leaks in, controls burst, bulbs burst.
35:55All kinds of damages are inflicted.
36:07The damage is overwhelming.
36:09It leaks so badly that if it doesn't come up it's probably going to sink.
36:16On McIntyre's ship, HMS Walker, the sonar operator struggles to ping U-100 with the Aztec system in an ocean distorted by explosions.
36:28The sea is a very complicated environment and of course if you're dropping depth charges it's quite hard to actually separate the depth charges from the submarine.
36:37Another problem was that Aztec faced forwards and your weapons were dropped over the stern, the rear of the ship.
36:43So this means that when you're attacking a submarine there is a gap between your losing contact and the depth charges actually being dropped and then you have to re-acquire the target.
36:52Nearby, HMS Vanhock uses its first generation radar to scan for U-100 in case it surfaces.
37:01The new technology could deliver a target but its application is limited.
37:05The first radar they put in service is the type 286 which is a 1.5 meter radar fixed to the mast head.
37:12The essential problem with the type 286 radar is the target had to be straight ahead.
37:17He couldn't turn the antenna so he had to point the ship.
37:20Just after 3am, Shevka pops up a thousand yards away from the escorts, betting he can repair the flooding and limp away to safety.
37:37In an incredible twist, he lands directly in front of the first radar system able to detect him.
37:45If they had been a little bit left or right or some other place, the 286 on the mast head probably wouldn't have picked it up.
37:51Vanhock races head-on.
37:54The commander decides to ramp the U-boat.
38:06Having picked up a surfaced U-boat on its newly installed radar system,
38:11the British ship Vanhock resorts to a standard First World War tactic
38:16and charges to ram the damaged submarine.
38:20The destroyer hits the U-boat, U-100, amid ships and smashes the conning tower.
38:35And Shevka is crushed with his legs between the hull and the periscope,
38:42is thrown into the water and is killed.
38:48And the U-boat is lost.
38:58Aboard U-99, Kretschmer is oblivious to the fate of his fellow ace.
39:02Out of torpedoes, U-99's crew clears the convoy to head for home.
39:09This is a classic Kretschmer attack.
39:13Five ships sunk, so he seems to be doing well.
39:17But now the training of the escort force comes in.
39:21They carry out what they can of a systematic search.
39:24As U-99 slinks away, Kretschmer's lookout spots McIntyre's destroyer.
39:31In a panic, the crewman is convinced they've been discovered.
39:39On the crewman's warning, the submarine dives.
39:45When he saw this destroyer extremely near, he simply expected that they would have been detected by the destroyer,
39:58and so made this split-second decision to evade an attack by the destroyer by diving.
40:05McIntyre's lookouts were unaware of U-99.
40:14But as the submarine descends,
40:19the destroyer sonar comes into play.
40:23They're listening all the time, and they're playing this kind of deadly game of cat and mouse.
40:30The sub's down here, and he's listening till you ping off him.
40:33And at some point, because the sonar beam is fixed, it's gonna sweep over the sub.
40:41New contact.
40:43Range, 400 yards.
40:45Once it can be picked up on ASDIC, it can be attacked with DAP charges.
40:51McIntyre's crew launches its underwater bombs
40:55in a bid to sink the submarine.
40:59They threw the DAP charges, and they detonated near the U-boat, causing extreme damage.
41:22With controls failing, their equipment and gauges shattered.
41:38Kretschmer and his crew plunge towards the seafloor in a severely wounded submarine.
41:42They got two options at that point. You blow ballast and get out, or you become a bottom feature.
42:00Kretschmer's crew attempts to blow out water to raise their plummeting U-boat.
42:05The only way of escaping was returning to the surface.
42:09So this was the decision Kretschmer made, simply to save the life of his crew.
42:16But the air valve is jammed.
42:19He's forced down. In fact, he goes down very deep indeed.
42:22It looks as if the submarine is going to be crushed.
42:34The crew monitors their descent.
42:36To their horror, they drop deeper and deeper.
42:4520 feet below crush depth.
42:52The valve finally gives.
42:55The U-boat begins to climb.
42:5920 feet below!
43:02A
43:0520 feet above the moon.
43:08Which is cev100
43:19The surface is?!
43:21That is вопросы!
43:22What way do i have the worst admit?
43:24A certain amount of damage is inflicted, and it seems as if the time has come for U-99
43:35to be abandoned.
43:37But from the sinking submarine, Hitler's top U-boat ace orders a final transmission.
43:45After his luck has run out, Kretschmer still is this professional.
43:49He sends a last message to Dönitz, very short, simply says, depth charge, two destroyers,
43:5753,000 tons, a Kretschmer.
44:00That last message he sends from the submarine, have sunk a number of ships,
44:04some 1,000 tons, leaving the sub, Kretschmer.
44:08That's just an indication of what a cool customer he actually was.
44:14More than five hours after U-99 launched its attack,
44:17Kretschmer orders his crew on deck to prepare for surrender.
44:22Kretschmer, I think, to calm his crew, lights a cigar just to show that he's still in charge.
44:30He signals to the British to take off his crew.
44:36And the British will do that because there isn't much hatred man to man.
44:41Once the submarine's sunk, that's the job done.
44:43Kretschmer is the last one pulled aboard the British destroyer.
44:51McIntyre claims the ace's binoculars as his prize.
44:56Kretschmer is treated very well on board HMS Walker.
44:59He plays bridge, he's plied with whiskey.
45:02They're very pleased that they've captured somebody so distinguished.
45:08Kretschmer spends the rest of the war as an allied prisoner.
45:13The battle against convoy HX-112 cost Dönitz two of his top submarines.
45:19When Kretschmer and Shepke go down in March of 1941, that's a catastrophic development for German public relations.
45:29You've trumpeted the success of these heroes, and now all of a sudden they're gone.
45:34And the flip side of that is that the Brits actually appear to be giant killers because they've taken them out.
45:40It's tragic that they lose them all in a very short period.
45:45But you've still got lots of young, very capable submariners coming along.
45:50The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
45:52It's really just getting started.
45:53The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
45:55The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
45:56The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
45:57The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
45:58The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
45:59The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:00The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:01The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:02The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:03The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:04The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:05The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:06The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:07The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:08The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:09The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
46:10The German submarine fleet is by no means done.
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