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01:00U-534 presents a melancholy sight, a ghost of the menacing craft which once hunted with
01:07the deadly wolf packs.
01:09We can still clearly see the impact of the marks left by the depth charges, which sank
01:16her on the second last day of World War II.
01:19U-534 was hit on the surface by British depth charge, which lodged in the conning tower and
01:28then exploded, rendering the ship impotent.
01:31A second depth charge blew in the side of the craft.
01:37Fortunately, all of the crew escaped the sinking.
01:42Although three crew members later died of exposure, U-534 was not designated as a war grave.
01:50So, fifty years after her sinking, she was salvaged and brought to the surface.
01:57Ironically, she was taken to England to rest in the home of her greatest enemy.
02:07Today, for the first time, a camera crew is being allowed to film inside the U-534.
02:19Fifty years on the seabed have taken their toll on the U-534, but the main features are unmistakable.
02:29These are the deadly torpedo tubes, which once spelt death for Allied ships.
02:37And this is the one toilet which had to serve the needs of fifty men on board.
02:43The ravages of time and tide have given the interior of U-534 a fantastic quality.
02:51The tangle of steel and equipment looks almost like a piece of modern avant-garde art,
02:58but with a little imagination, it is not too difficult to roll back the years to the glory days of the early 1940s,
03:07when ships like the U-534 were masters of the Atlantic.
03:28When U-534 settled on the muddy bed of the ocean, a covering of Baltic silt accumulated around the wreck,
03:42as she lay forgotten on the sea floor.
03:45Over the years, the silt crept into the ship and formed a protective layer.
03:52In this way, the treasures of the World War II were preserved as if in aspic.
04:01Pencil notes in log books can still be read.
04:04The Enigma encoding machine survived intact.
04:09Discarded uniforms, gramophone records, books and food stocks can still be seen as if it were yesterday.
04:17Most eerily of all, when she was raised, the Kriegs marine battle flag still hung limply from her masthead.
04:26U-534 was a Type 9 German U-boat.
04:34The Type 9s were quite a large submarine.
04:38They actually varied in length and size as the war progressed.
04:47About 1,500 tons, but very long range, about 12,000 miles,
04:53which meant they could go a long way.
04:57And really, they could stay at sea as long as their food lasted.
05:01She was actually a weather submarine used to operate up from Iceland down to the Azores.
05:08Near the end of the war, she started moving to Japan and back,
05:11bringing stores, things like rubber that they couldn't get in Germany.
05:14Near the end of the war, she was taken in to Poland under the orders of the SS
05:20in a place called Stetten.
05:22She then sailed to Kiel, where a crew was put on board her, a crew of 52.
05:29On the 4th of May, Donuts told all the submarines to pack a colour of the day.
05:34She didn't.
05:35She was the last boat to leave Kiel, leaving on the 3rd of May 45, and the briefing given
05:40to the captain was to remove his boat out into the Kattegat, and to submerge on the point
05:44of Helsingor and Helsingbor, and there to await final instructions coming through.
05:49But as the surviving crewmen on board have said, at the time, they were junior eights,
05:53so they were kept out of the idea of the final instructions.
05:56But what is known is it was going to be a special mission, and very much the boat was
06:02going to be running towards Norway, Kristiansand, there she was to offload the spurs that the
06:06boat was carrying, and more importantly, the crew were to prepare the boat for a human cargo.
06:10She was also carrying with her an Argentinian radio operator.
06:14By the facts that it was inside the boat, and the information coming through, it looks
06:20as though she was destined bound for Argentina.
06:22On the 5th of May, she surfaced, and she was attacked by two RAF liberators.
06:29She shot one down, the other one sank her, three men died, and all the rest escaped.
06:37When the submarine started to sink, every hatch was utilised, so five chaps found themselves
06:43up here in the front of the torpedo compartment. Now, when it settled on the bottom, they realised
06:48the only way to get out the compartment was to open the top hatch, which was the torpedo hatch.
06:54So they realised they had to flood the compartment to equalise the pressure. So they flooded the
06:59compartment, and the top hatch opened. Now, the eldest was the chef who was 18-year-old,
07:05and he told them, whatever you do, don't go up too fast. But one chap wouldn't listen,
07:09and he died on the way up, but the other four chaps survived.
07:13And this is the actual compartment where they escaped from.
07:19For centuries, men had been fascinated by the possibility of underwater vessels,
07:25the ultimate method of improving the odds against powerful surface fleets.
07:31Submersion beneath the sea was the obvious means by which a warship
07:36could be approached and attacked without detection. But until 1776, such schemes had proved to be simply
07:45pipe dreams. It's not a joke, but to do justice to the earliest attempt to create a fighting submersible
07:54would require a comic genius. During the American War of Independence, the very first submarine appeared
08:02in conflict. The turtle was no more than a waterproof egg held upright by 700 pounds of ballast at its base.
08:12The means of propulsion was a manually driven screw. The sole occupant observed progress from a porthole
08:21and steered by means of a rudder held under his arm. He had enough air for 30 minutes of frantic activity
08:29once the turtle was sealed. The turtle was designed by a chap called Bushnell. And they say at the time
08:37it looked like two turtle shells joined together. But in essence, it looked like a large large easter egg
08:44with a dome on the top. She had two propellers, one to take her up and down, another propeller to take her
08:50forward and back. And they were both used by hand. It was one man who operated. And to dive, he would put his
08:58foot on a pedal and open a flooding valve. And the ballast tanks were actually below the craft. And it
09:03could dive down to 10 feet. Now it also carried on its back 150 pound of gunpowder. And what you would
09:10do is he would dive down, go underneath the target, surface again, and then screw a screw underneath the
09:17target. Release the gunpowder and it would go underneath the target again. And then he would sail off.
09:23He had two air vents to let air into the submarine. And once it was dived, the turtle had air for,
09:30say, half an hour. After that, he would seriously think of coming to the surface.
09:35In August 1776, during the American War of Independence, the British were blockading New York
09:42Harbour and the 64-gun flagship of Admiral Earl Howe, HMS Eagle, was riding at anchor in the mouth of the river.
09:51She would go down in history as the first target of a submarine attack.
09:57The intrepid Sergeant Lee of the Patriot Army, under cover of darkness,
10:03bogged and drifted towards the Eagle. And the scene was set for the birth of submarine warfare.
10:10Well, he got underneath Eagle, but he spent about 30 minutes, poor chap,
10:16operating his course screw into just about the only bit of metal on Eagle, which was the transom
10:22that connected the hull to the rudder. And after 30 minutes, I mean, he was obviously getting quite
10:28tired and using up his oxygen and all these sort of perils that future submariners would face,
10:34and decided to make good his escape. And also, the fuse on his clockwork mine was ticking off.
10:41So, out he popped. He was spotted by the British in a rowing boat, and they made chase. So,
10:51Ezra Lee slipped his mine, it went bang, and in the confusion, off he went.
10:56So, in tactical terms, he'd failed. He did not sink Eagle. But in strategic terms,
11:06he succeeded, because the Brits had no idea what this huge explosion was. And indeed,
11:13he did weaken the blockade. I think Ezra Lee was a dedicated man, and a real pioneer,
11:21a very brave man. He was going into the unknown. But, um... Now, the world's first submariner,
11:30who went into war, must have been an extraordinary character.
11:34The first successful submarine attack would have to wait for nearly 100 years, until the time of the
11:42American Civil War. On October 5th, 1863, the USS New Ironsides, a 3,500-ton United States Navy ship,
11:54found itself under attack from a steam-powered semi-submersible. The David, or Cigar Boat,
12:03as she was known, had a 134-pound explosive charge at the end of a long spar attached to her bows.
12:13The explosion caused several leaks, but did little serious damage to the hull of the Navy ship.
12:19David wasn't actually a submarine. It was submersible. It was only trimmed down to the upper deck,
12:27and it was steam-driven, and it would show the funnel, and it would show a little hatch,
12:32viewing hatch. And from a distance, it would look like a log. But in essence, they weren't submarines,
12:38they were actually submersibles. Now, they would tack, on the front of them, they had a 20-foot spar,
12:43and on the end of it, they had 135 pounds of gunpowder, and had seven chemical detonators.
12:50And what they would do, believe it or not, they would run at the target, ran the target, and it
12:56would explode. And they just hoped that they would survive, but they never did. Encouraged by the
13:02success of the David, a wealthy engineer from Alabama, Horace Hundley, put up the money to build the
13:09the first privately operated submarine, the 34-foot Pioneer. This odd creation was powered by three
13:19men driving a crank by hand. In theory, it shouldn't have worked, and in practice, it didn't either.
13:29It was not until February 17th, 1864, that the first surface ship was sunk by a submarine.
13:36The unfortunate victim was the USS Housatonic. She was attacked by the Confederate submarine,
13:44Hunley. This extraordinary craft was another of Horace Hundley's creations.
13:54That the Hundley ever reached the point of mounting an attack is remarkable in itself.
14:00In the course of development and testing, it had been sunk and recovered no less than five
14:06times, and 41 crew members had been drowned, including the designer, Horace Hundley himself.
14:15The Hundley was a 42-inch diameter boiler tube, inside which was a crank shaft,
14:23which was powered by eight men. And she also had a captain, a man who sort of stared out of his window
14:31at the front. And her weapon was a 25-foot-long pole that was attached to the front of the craft,
14:41and at the end of that was 100 pounds of gunpowder, plus a harpoon. And the principle was you raised up
14:49your speed, steered for your target, rammed the harpoon into the side of your target, and then you backed off.
14:59And as you backed off, that tightened a rope, which eventually operated the fuse, and the whole thing
15:06went bang. Unfortunately for the Hunley, her explosive hit the magazine of USS Housatonic.
15:16There was a premature explosion, to say the least, and unfortunately that caused the demise of the
15:24Hunley, as well as the Housatonic. However, what we'd seen was the first successful attack by a submarine,
15:33on another warship, 1864.
15:35It was clear that submarines would all go the way of the Hunley. But a weapon system had been found that
15:45would keep the submarine clear from the force of the explosion. In 1870, a Lancastrian engineer,
15:53Robert Whitehead, working for the Austrian navy, presented the first self-propelled torpedo.
15:59The means of propulsion was compressed air, and it had a primitive but effective steering mechanism.
16:08It proved to be the prototype of every torpedo to follow.
16:14At last, ships could be attacked from a safe distance. The submarine now had its teeth.
16:21Whitehead probably cost the world more than any other man in history. It was that important.
16:32The invention of the locomotive torpedo unlocked the potential of the submarine.
16:39And the submarine became the platform that's had the greatest influence on maritime warfare probably ever.
16:50And so that's how important his invention was. But nevertheless, it was a very short range,
16:56and of course, at the end of it, there was a very small warhead, about 25 pounds of gunpowder.
17:02And the range was quite short, about 300 yards. Speed was quite slow, about six knots.
17:12His greatest difficulty was actually keeping it in a straight line.
17:19Because they did tend to wander. But what it did actually was unlock the potential
17:25of this underwater craft as a weapon of war. Although submarines now had an effective means of attack,
17:37the problem of moving efficiently and safely beneath the surface still remained.
17:43The principles on which a submarine works haven't changed in umpteen centuries.
17:48A submarine has got a certain volume, and that volume displaces so much water,
17:55and that volume of water weighs so much. If the total weight of the submarine is greater
18:02than the weight of the water it displaces, it sinks. If the weight of the submarine is less
18:08than the weight of the water it displaces, it comes to the surface again. And the ideal thing is to keep
18:14the weight of the submarine exactly the same as the weight of water it displaces. Now you alter the weight
18:21of a submarine by pumping in or pumping out water into what are called the ballast tanks.
18:29And when a submarine is on the surface, then the ballast tanks are empty. And to let or to make the
18:36submarine dive, what you do is open a valve in the top of the ballast tanks, and the pressure of the water
18:42at the bottom, because the ballast tanks at the bottom are open, the pressure of the water down there
18:47forces the air out through the top of the ballast tanks. And as the tanks fill up, then the whole
18:54submarine becomes heavier, and it gradually just goes down underneath the water. And you catch a trim,
19:02is the expression, when you have just got neutral buoyancy with the submarine weighing as much as the
19:09water it displaces. Once the vessel is underwater, however, it needs to be able to travel beneath
19:16the waves. Early submarines, like the Turtle, were powered by oars and later propellers driven directly
19:25by the strength of human arms. As the 19th century drew to a close, a variety of propulsion systems were
19:34tried. Manpower, clockwork, compressed air and, somewhat incongruously, steam.
19:45The essential problem for powering submarines is that most engines are designed to burn fuel.
19:52Naturally, the burning process requires oxygen as well as fuel. Running a conventional engine in a sealed
20:00pressure hull underwater quickly burned up all the available oxygen. Of course, the crew also need
20:08oxygen to breathe, and they would suffocate as soon as the engine had consumed the oxygen inside the craft.
20:23Well, the diesel engine for submarines invented by the Russians in 1906.
20:27Now, you've got to be on the surface to use your diesel engines. For the simple reason, they need to breathe.
20:33Just like a normal car engine, it needs to breathe. Now, in the 1940s, they brought the snorkel
20:38and the submarine can dive down to 30 feet, throw your snorkel up, and you can breathe that way.
20:51The main problem then is, if it's stuff outside, and you get to, say, a wave into the snorkel
20:55and you can breathe that way. It shuts the flap, and the engines then suck the air up the submarine,
21:00because they've got to breathe. The solution to the problem of submarine power was brilliantly
21:08schemed by John Holland, the father of the modern submarine. It was Holland who pioneered the concept,
21:16which was to lead to submarines becoming the effective weapons of war that they are today.
21:27At the turn of the 19th century, the development of battery-powered electric motors for underwater use
21:34meant that submarines could be taken seriously. Here was a form of power which didn't burn fuel and
21:43therefore didn't use up all of the available oxygen. The result was HMS Holland, the first true submarine.
21:54At the birth of the 20th century, the British Navy cautiously accepted delivery of a small submarine.
22:03Holland One was built under license by Vickers and was the product of 25 years of painstaking
22:11research by John Holland. With the advent of the electric motor, Holland had finally found a means of
22:18propulsion underwater without creating conditions impossible for the crew. Holland One was the
22:27world's first practical submarine. Her shape was quite revolutionary. She's shaped like a mini whale.
22:36That should come as no surprise really, because a submarine in fact is a mechanical whale.
22:42But her shape, her length to beam ratio was about seven to one, which is sort of ideal for control.
22:51She could be controlled quite easily, and that had never happened before to have a streamlined shape.
22:57And in fact, her shape went out of fashion for a while, but was reintroduced really when we started
23:04looking at nuclear power. What was the best shape, the most efficient shape for a submarine to be driven
23:10through the sea. And if you look at the Holland design, that's what you have. She had a single internal
23:18torpedo tube. She had quite a decent battery, consisting of 35 cells. And she had a four-cylinder petrol engine.
23:30So she had all the basic concepts of the submarine as we know it today.
23:38And at the time, she was really quite revolutionary in her design.
23:44On the surface, the Holland submarine was powered by a petrol engine. When submerged,
23:50the submarine was powered by an electric motor. The electric batteries were recharged by a generator,
23:58driven by the petrol engine when the submarine was on the surface.
24:01In time, the petrol engine gave way to diesel. But until the age of nuclear power,
24:10all submarines would follow this pattern. Holland's design also incorporated large hydroplanes,
24:19mounted on the boat's stern. When tilted, this allowed the submarine to dive under its own power,
24:27returning the hydroplanes to a level position, also leveled off the submarine. The hydroplanes could also
24:35be used to maneuver the submarine either up or further down. They are still used today.
24:42In 1914, the nations of Europe descended into the chaos of outright warfare. The submarine was rapidly
24:59assimilated into Germany's strategy for war. For German submarines, the war plan was simple.
25:07All-out attack on the vital Allied merchant fleets to starve Britain of the means to wage war.
25:17Throughout the First World War, a succession of submarines was produced from the German naval dockyards.
25:26Each one was an improvement on the last, with greater speed, longer range, greater submerged endurance,
25:33bigger and more accurate torpedoes, and stronger deck armament. In this new technological war,
25:42the Germans had another vital asset, a great tradition in optics. German periscopes were optically far superior.
25:54The Royal Navy found out the very hard way, very early on, just how effective the U-boats were.
26:00When the U-9 sank three elderly British cruisers in the lower part of the North Sea, right at the start of the war.
26:09But having said that, the U-boat fleet didn't actually affect the operations of the Navy to any great extent.
26:17We were nervous, if you like, about the abilities of the U-boats, but the Grand Fleet in the North Sea carried out its sweeps,
26:27more or less without worrying about whether or not the U-boats were there. Where the U-boat proved itself
26:34to be a most effective weapon was in the war against trade. And in 1917, the German U-boat fleet very
26:42nearly starved Britain into, perhaps, surrender. Who knows? But at all events, the situation in April 1917
26:52had got to crisis point, with U-boats sinking more ships, merchant ships, than were being built.
27:00Britain was ill-prepared for the U-boat onslaught, but there was an Achilles heel.
27:07Because they carried only a limited number of torpedoes, and travelled so slowly under the water,
27:13U-boats had to surface to make their attacks with their deck guns, and they were vulnerable on the surface.
27:22The most effective tactic for British ships was to ram the submarines, which could take up to five
27:28minutes to dive. The downfall of the U-boats came when the Allies decided to integrate the convoy system.
27:36The U-boats operating independently, chasing after the lone merchantmen, had great success.
27:42But now the vast oceans were very barren for the idea that boats were now congregated in a convoy.
27:48When the U-boats did finally find a convoy, now they had to go to the escorts, rather than the other
27:53way around, and the depth charges were proven effective weapon. So our merchant shipping losses decreased,
27:59U-boat losses very seriously increased.
28:03Already, the pattern had been set for the next war, when the battle between the convoy and the
28:09submarine would be fought to a conclusion.
28:12When Germany had re-armed, it was not the imperial eagle which flew above the fatherland, but the Nazi swastika.
28:35Adolf Hitler now led the German people steadily towards his war of vengeance and conquest.
28:47In Hitler's grand design, a resurrected U-boat force was to play a deadly and vital role.
28:55A new generation of German submarines rolled from the slipways in recognition that the old enemy
29:02Britain must be faced. The British Navy was too strong to be confronted.
29:09Britain would have to be starved into submission.
29:14The weapon for the task, as in the last war, was to be the submarine.
29:21The newly appointed commander of the force was Admiral Karl Dönitz, a veteran submariner from the First War.
29:28Dönitz was a brilliant organizer who was to revolutionize submarine warfare.
29:37In September 1939, when war erupted, Dönitz had 57 U-boats, only a fraction of those Hitler had promised.
29:47Nonetheless, the U-boats already at sea struck the first blows in the sea war that would rage for five years.
29:55Even at this early stage, it was obvious that Germany could not hope to win the naval war.
30:04Admiral Erich Rieder, Dönitz's superior, wearily surveyed the odds and announced prophetically to his commanders,
30:12gentlemen, we have no choice. Total engagement, die with dignity.
30:22But the U-boat fleet was not about to die just yet.
30:26With the advantage of surprise, Dönitz's U-boats were able to launch a punishing offensive
30:33as the British merchant fleet hurried for shelter. Quality made up for quantity.
30:40Many veterans of the submarine force of the Imperial Navy provided the skills and discipline of Dönitz's new force.
30:48The brunt of the hostilities would be borne by Germany's legendary Type 7 class.
30:58They proved ideal for the task. With a low conning tower, only 5.2 meters above the waterline,
31:06they were hard to see from over a mile, even in daylight. At night, and head on, they were practically invisible.
31:16They could dive in under half a minute, they could reach a depth of 100 meters without strain,
31:22and 200 meters if pressed. Depth and endurance at high speed were twice as good as any of their allied contemporaries.
31:33The Type 7 had a range of 7,000 miles at 12 knots on the surface,
31:40and could travel 90 miles submerged at 4 knots.
31:46Progress was painfully slow when submerged, and the U-boats still surfaced to attack even the slowest quarry.
31:55Well, a German 7 class boat, when submerged, had a speed of between 3 to 7 knots.
32:01But the U-boats operating on the water at the maximum 7 knots. Traveling at this speed,
32:06you would deplete your batteries within 30 minutes. So they had to basically travel at a much slower speed
32:12between 2 to 4 knots. And operationally, this was very much restricting the boats.
32:17The major approach to your target very often would be done on the surface. And then you positioned yourself
32:27ahead of the target, and it was at that point you dived, and you conducted your attack.
32:32If your target would match your speed, then the submarine would always be in great difficulty
32:41in getting into a decent firing position. The diesel submarine really only had a single shot in its
32:49locker. It had to get itself into position and be in the right place at the right time
32:53to fire an effective salvo to sink its target. Despite these disadvantages, in the early part
33:03of the war, the submarines had a field day, attacking lone merchant ships, and could operate with little
33:11harassment from escort ships. As with the First World War, in the early part of the war,
33:18most of the destruction of Allied shipping took place on the surface. The U-boats would usually
33:26sink the unarmed ships by fire from their deck gun. Although it was a dangerous maneuver,
33:33there was often no choice. Space onboard was limited, and German torpedoes were plagued by development
33:41problems, which caused many to fail to explode. Due to the restrictions of the electric motors,
33:50which needed frequent recharging, the U-boats spent almost all of their time on the surface.
33:57The submarine was in truth no more than a submersible torpedo boat with limited submerged endurance.
34:04It had to come up at regular intervals for air and to recharge its batteries. This was to prove its
34:14undoing. When a submarine is on the surface, it is vulnerable. And during World War II, particularly
34:21during the Battle of the Atlantic, German submarines on the surface were at risk, particularly from
34:28aircraft. It was one of the lessons which was relearned that aircraft are absolutely invaluable in
34:35protecting surface vessels against attack by the old type of conventional submarine, which has to use
34:41the surface. And submarines could be detected if they transmitted on their wireless sets. They could be
34:49detected by radar. And during World War II, when the German submarines used to make an awful lot of their
34:56attacks on the surface, then radar became an effective weapon for use against them. Destroyers too caught U-boats
35:04on the surface as they attempted to refuel or recharge the batteries. The Royal Navy's response to the U-boats
35:13produced the excellent T-class patrol submarine. It was cheap, but stable, efficient and powerfully armed.
35:22It would prove its worth in the years that followed.
35:29The Alliance is typical of the British submarines of the era. She is preserved at the submarine museum
35:36at Gosport. The accommodation was spartan, with the crew sleeping on suspended bunks. There was a crowded
35:46galley and eating area. The Alliance carried torpedoes with four forward-mounted torpedo tubes, two at the rear.
35:58It was the German seaborne invasion of Norway, which gave the Royal Navy submarines the chance to take the
36:05war to the Kriegsmarine. They certainly did not fail in their challenge. Between April 9th and May 1st, 1940, British submarines like this destroyed 22 German ships.
36:21Both the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneissau were torpedoed.
36:26The British submarines had proved the equal of Donitz Raiders.
36:37In early 1939, hurried arrangements were made for British ships to travel in tight escorted convoys.
36:45The German response was to form wolf packs.
36:52Well, the Ruudel tactic or pack tactic was very much brought to great effect by Donitz during the
36:56Second World War. And the method used was for some six to ten U-boats to form a patrol line across the
37:03expected path of a convoy. When one of the boats detected the convoy, the initial boat making the
37:10contact would not attack the convoy, but merely send the information back to headquarters, size of the
37:16convoy, speed and location. Then all the other boats would be coordinated in onto the convoy, where again
37:22they would not immediately attack, but merely shadow the convoy until nightless fell, and then attack them
37:28from all sides, and it was sheer mayhem. There were several reasons for the U-boats to prefer the night
37:36attack. Submerged, a U-boat travelled slowly. Eight knots was the maximum practical speed, and the duration
37:45of the dive was strictly limited. On the surface, a U-boat could maintain 16 knots, giving the boats a huge
37:54increased range. At the early stage of the war, the convoy still relied mainly on visual observation to detect
38:03submarines. In the dark, the low profile of a U-boat were easily missed. The U-boat's much larger target
38:13was clearly silhouetted against the sky, particularly if another vessel had been set alight. As they gained
38:21experience in their deadly trade, the wolf packs became bolder, and some adventurous captains even took
38:29to striking within the convoy itself, where the escorts dared not use their guns for fear of hitting their
38:36own ships. In the early years of the war, the British had two devices for detecting submarines.
38:45The first was the hydrophone, a simple listening device which could detect propeller noise.
38:52It could be defeated by the submarine shutting down its engine. It was also unreliable,
39:00and could only be used if the searching ship stopped its own propellers to listen for the U-boat.
39:07Much more was expected of the ASDIC. At the start of World War II, we've now seen ASDIC introduced very
39:17widely into surface ships, and indeed into other submarines. And the principle of ASDIC is a pulse of
39:25energy into the sea. The sea is a very good transporter of energy at about the sound frequency.
39:33It would hit its target, and providing the sufficient energy left in the return signal,
39:40that would be heard, and that would give you a range and a bearing.
39:43The U-boat's main weapon was also its betrayer, the torpedo's wake. As the torpedo's sped towards
39:52their intended victim, the telltale pattern of disturbance in the water gave away the U-boat
39:59position. So, with the torpedo's loosed, there was no time to celebrate victory or to dwell on failure.
40:07In one moment, the hunter became the hunted, and the real trial for a submarine crew began.
40:15It was a battle for survival, to outwit the enemy above in a tense and deadly game of hide and seek.
40:24A pattern of depth charges laid in a spread could either destroy the U-boat or cause damage enough
40:33to force it to the surface, to the waiting guns of the hunters. Often, a damaged U-boat would sink
40:41slowly into the ocean. For the helpless crew, there was the agony of waiting for the point where the
40:49massive pressure would cause the hull to implode.
40:53The worst nightmare was to be trapped alive on the floor of the ocean with the prospect of a slow
41:08death by asphyxiation. Amongst the enemy, the U-boats aroused fear and loathing. Their mode of warfare
41:18appeared ruthless, cunning and impersonal. Yet a U-boat crew was an assortment of very human individuals,
41:27living and fighting under exceptionally harsh conditions.
41:31They remained in their uncomfortable, claustrophobic vessels for perhaps months at a time, rarely seeing daylight.
41:41Lack of water meant that men sported beards.
41:47For all submariners, the war was a silent nightmare world, which tested their stoic resolve.
41:55The psychological strain was immense, as they waited for the shock waves of an exploding charge,
42:01not knowing if it would be a fatal blow. As the boat shook, the hull would spring leaks,
42:09and equipment would be strewn the length of the submarine. As the attack was pressed home,
42:16an equally dangerous hazard arose. Chlorine gas could be produced from the deadly combination of seawater
42:24and leaked battery acid. Just one more danger in a world full of dangers.
42:31Well of the 1170 U-boats commissioned by Germany, some 790 were sunk. And of those, 469 went down with all
42:40hands. The U-boat arm itself was suffering greatly. Of the 40,000 men that they put to sea in U-boats,
42:4630,000 were killed, 5,000 were captured, and even just 5,000 to bring the boats home.
42:53As the U-boat sweeps grew wider, the journeys to safe havens on the shores of occupied France grew
42:59longer. A system for maintenance and supply at sea was devised. It was not easy. Type 9 U-boats were
43:09converted into supply vessels, called Milchkaus. They could refuel, rearm, and even repair a submarine at sea.
43:20This bought valuable operating time. But in the mid-Atlantic, even in calm weather and safe from the
43:28probing eyes of the enemy, it was a perilous operation.
43:32Inexorably, the balance was tipping against the Kriegsmarine in the Atlantic.
43:39The rate of Allied shipbuilding was climbing far above losses.
43:45In the first three months of 1940, when on average 14 U-boats were on patrol,
43:52over 800,000 tons of Allied shipping had been sunk.
43:56In a similar period in 1943, with 115 boats operating, the tally was nearly 550,000 tons.
44:10100 more U-boats were sinking only some three-quarters of the tonnage.
44:16More significantly, U-boat losses were growing at an alarming rate.
44:21The conventional submarines, which had fared so well in the first winter of the war,
44:27were now highly vulnerable to the Allied hunter-killer groups.
44:32It became rare for a U-boat to survive more than two sorties.
44:38This awful statistic meant that it was impossible to produce experienced crews,
44:44and many new submarines were put to sea commanded by inexperienced officers in their early twenties.
44:54Many new, undermanned submarines and their young crew were lost on their first voyage.
45:01From 1943 onwards, when the major shift in the Battle of the Atlantic occurred,
45:07and as U-boat losses increased, the first effect you have is a general lowering of experience level.
45:18You're losing experienced men, and into the bottom of the sort of training funnel,
45:24you're sucking in less experience.
45:29The less experienced you are, the more likely you are to get sunk.
45:33So what happens is, and what happened was, that they got onto really an absolutely fatal spiral
45:44of reducing experience and rising losses.
45:49And at the end of the war, I mean, really young, very inexperienced crews were taking these submarines to sea.
45:56I mean, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it almost became a turkey shoot.
46:04On all fronts, the Allies were winning the electronic surveillance war.
46:09By March 1943, the air cover gap was bridged,
46:14which meant that no part of the Atlantic was out of range of aircraft from Britain or America.
46:20British Wellingtons and American Liberators, fitted with long-range tanks,
46:27meant that there was no safe haven for the U-boats to surface and recharge their batteries.
46:35A grim situation took a turn for the worse,
46:39with the chance capture of the secret Enigma codebook from a crippled German U-boat.
46:45All signals to U-boats were coded and could only be decoded on the Enigma codebook.
46:55This Enigma machine enabled the Allies to crack the German codes
47:00and enabled the position of the Wolfpacks to be identified.
47:05For months, the German commanders were unaware that their codes had been broken.
47:10Once again, losses rose dramatically.
47:16In the single month of May 1943, over 40 U-boats were destroyed.
47:23The U-boat losses continued to rise at an alarming rate.
47:27In May 1943, over 40 U-boats were destroyed.
47:33Dönitz was forced to order the withdrawal of the U-boat fleet from the North Atlantic.
47:38The Germans had lost the Battle of the Atlantic,
47:43and with it, all chance of strangling the fortress island of Britain.
47:49U-534 is a rarity.
47:52She survived from 1942, right through to the second-last day of the war.
47:58The commander of the U-534 was just 26 when his ship was sunk.
48:08Captain Muller and his crew had slipped out of the harbour
48:12on a mission to escape to Argentina and safety.
48:15They were caught by the ever-present Allied air force and sunk by two depth charges.
48:24Even then, the captain and his young crew rode the luck, surviving the sinking,
48:29to be rescued by one of the few surviving German surface ships.
48:33Like U-534, Hitler's grand designs died with him in the Chancellery bunker.
48:46On May the 4th, Grand Admiral Dönitz, now head of state,
48:51issued the order for the U-boats to cease hostilities.
48:54My U-boatmen, six years of warfare lies behind us.
49:04You have fought like lions against a crushingly superior force,
49:09but unbroken in your warlike courage,
49:12you are laying down your arms after an heroic fight which knows no equal.
49:18In reverence, we think of our comrades who have died.
49:25Comrades, maintain your U-boat spirit,
49:29with which you fought most bravely and unflinchingly during the long years.
49:48In reverence, we've been joined by a force,
50:03and a cState and three years of warlike courage,
50:08and some young people in power,
50:10Gracias por ver el video.
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