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00:00The Atlantic Ocean.
00:02The scene of one of World War II's bloodiest battles.
00:06The Battle of the Atlantic.
00:08This is the forgotten front line.
00:12It's a battleground that saw the deaths of thousands of British sailors.
00:17And here, danger was everywhere.
00:20Not only did they have the harsh Atlantic weather to contend with,
00:25but beneath the waves could be a German U-boat ready to fire a torpedo.
00:35The Battle of the Atlantic is much more than just a single battle.
00:41It's a bloody and devastating campaign.
00:44In this war, we can't just survive it, we have to win it.
00:48Britain's forces risked everything they had.
00:51The war was an extraordinarily bloody conflict.
00:56As an ex-Marine, I'm going to reveal how British troops coped
01:00with the constant threat of German U-boats.
01:03Over the course of just a few months, 300 ships were sunk.
01:08And as an engineer, I want to get to grips with these incredible killing machines.
01:15What made them so deadly?
01:17The more ships it took down, the greater the fame and accolade.
01:21And how they were eventually defeated.
01:27This time, Churchill plots to wipe out the U-boats.
01:33It was an idea that if they just kept dropping bombs on the U-boat pens,
01:38eventually they would break.
01:41The Royal Navy struggle with sailors' mental health.
01:46If something goes wrong, they're going to be killed.
01:48And that preys on sailors' minds.
01:51And an epic showdown for the control of the Atlantic.
01:56They're not the hunters anymore, they're the hunters.
01:59This is the campaign that decides the outcome of World War II.
02:37The Royal Navy
02:38At the end of 1942, the Battle of the Atlantic has been raging for over three years.
02:44And essential supplies are running perilously low.
02:47Defeat for Britain is a real possibility.
02:51If the Nazis are to be beaten, Britain and her allies must work together.
03:0114th of January, 1943.
03:04Morocco.
03:07The location of a top-secret Allied meeting.
03:12Held on the shores of the Atlantic.
03:16The meeting is so secret, it's given the code name, Symbol.
03:21And it's attended by two leaders fighting the Battle of the Atlantic.
03:24British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt.
03:30And they're both determined to plot a fight back against the U-boats.
03:38Nobody knew that Roosevelt or Churchill had gone to Morocco.
03:42It's an opportunity for them to digest the state of the war.
03:47After their first day of talks, the Allied press arrive in Casablanca to hear from the two leaders.
03:56This is a chance to get together face-to-face to discuss the next steps.
04:01One of the key decisions that they make is that they should seek unconditional surrender from Germany.
04:07And that the Atlantic was the critical battleground.
04:12Churchill and Roosevelt are already plotting the D-Day landings.
04:17They need to build up a huge military force on British shores, ready to carry out the largest amphibious attack
04:24of all time.
04:27In order for that to happen, you're going to have to bring across the Atlantic about 1,800,000 men.
04:38You also need munitions, you need aircraft, you need food.
04:43That means the Atlantic needs to be a safe space.
04:47And in January 1943, it isn't.
04:56Lurking beneath the waves, Nazi U-boats are still a deadly threat to the Allies.
05:02During their meeting, Churchill and Roosevelt devise a plan to wipe out the U-boats.
05:09Not out at sea, but on land.
05:14After its first day, a directive is delivered to the Royal Air Force.
05:19It's frank and brutal.
05:22A decision has been made to subject the following bases to a maximum scale of attack.
05:29This is Churchill declaring all-out war, ordering British bombers to use anything they have in their arsenal to flatten
05:37the German U-boat bases at any cost.
05:40And in order to get the job done, he turns to his trusted Commander-in-Chief, Arthur Harris.
05:52Harris was an absolute zealot who believed that the answer to everything was a lot of bombers.
05:57It was a question of faith. He believed that strategic bombing was the answer, because that was the whole mantra
06:03that the Air Force had been built on.
06:06Arthur Harris' great vision was for area bombing, for bombing not just military targets, but also civilian cities, to really
06:14strike at the heart of the German war effort.
06:23The night after the directive is issued, British bombers begin preparations to destroy U-boat bases.
06:33One base has been marked for special attention.
06:37L'Oreal in France, a U-boat command centre.
06:46And in the early hours of the 14th of January, the bombing begins.
07:07We're talking about something like the blitz over London.
07:11Thousands of tons of incendiaries and bombs dropped.
07:16It really wasn't about targets.
07:19And area bombing sums it up. You bomb the area, you don't bomb a target.
07:26On the first night, 122 aircraft are sent to raid the city of Lorient.
07:32And it's estimated that about 74 tons of high-explosive bombs are dropped on the city altogether.
07:40By the second night, that figure doubles, 140 tons.
07:45The scale of the bombing offensive on the city of Lorient is shocking, and it quickly reduces the city to
07:51rubble.
08:00There was an idea that if they just kept dropping bombs on the U-boat pens, eventually they would break.
08:07They didn't break, and they remain intact.
08:18The city of Lorient lay in ruins, but Commander Harris writes,
08:23The concrete shelters housing the submarines were impenetrable.
08:28The task of destroying the U-boat pens and wiping them out has been a failure.
08:34The biggest question that Churchill has, naturally, is after such intense bombing, how are these shelters still standing?
08:45As an engineer, I want to find out how the U-boat pens survived such a ferocious bombardment.
08:54And the answer lies in images that reveal the secrets behind these structures.
09:02I've got here some images that help illustrate the U-boat bases along the west coast of France.
09:08Now, at the beginning of the war, these bases were relatively open, relatively open to attack.
09:13And so in 1941, Hitler ordered that they were all to be bomb-proofed.
09:19And it was the bomb-proofed bases that became known as U-boat pens.
09:24Now, this U-boat pen in Lorient was completed in January 1942, and it was absolutely enormous.
09:37These blueprints reveal the scale of this project.
09:44The base is able to protect up to 24 U-boats.
09:50Each huge pen has a hydraulic system capable of lifting U-boats out of the water.
09:57And if we take a closer look at some of these photos,
10:01you start to get an idea of that scale.
10:05I mean, look at this one here.
10:08I mean, down here, these are people.
10:11And this is part of that U-boat pen.
10:17And I can see from these blueprints
10:22that what makes these pens bomb-proof is the roof.
10:27Some of those U-boats were protected by roofs consisting of concrete up to 16 feet thick,
10:34which was almost impossible to penetrate even with a direct hit from above.
10:42Churchill's plan to destroy the U-boats has been a failure.
10:47One person who celebrates the failure of the British bombing is Admiral Dönitz,
10:52the head of the Nazi U-boat.
10:56He now knows that the submarine's pens are untouchable.
11:01And January 1943 ends with another good piece of news for Dönitz.
11:05Hitler sees fit to promote him to commander-in-chief of the entire German navy.
11:15He's now, in essence, got to a degree what he wanted in the first place,
11:21which is full access to Hitler.
11:24And his key priority is to go and try and up U-boat production.
11:31He's managing to win a few more of those battles about resources,
11:35to get a few more people, a few more tons of steel,
11:39using proper mass-production technology to mass-produce U-boats.
11:46Dönitz is delighted as U-boat production increases.
11:51Now, more and more of these deadly vessels are heading into the Atlantic than ever before.
11:57He tries to make sure that the U-boat commanders and their crews
12:00to focus attention on this critical moment in the battle of the Atlantic.
12:07And really, the fate of the entire battle and the entire Allied war effort
12:13is hanging in the balance.
12:17After surviving the Allied bombing raids,
12:20the U-boats head out to strike back against the Allies.
12:30Dönitz reassures his U-boat commanders that they are his priority.
12:36He still believes that destroying the Atlantic supply line to Britain
12:39is the key to winning the war.
12:43Dönitz believes that this radical increase in U-boat numbers
12:47will be a game-changer.
12:50To fight back, Britain turns to an unlikely individual.
12:54A university lecturer.
13:06South of Iceland,
13:08British tanker Cordelia is struggling to keep up with the other ships in her convoy.
13:19Under the cover of darkness, a U-boat attacks.
13:31The Cordelia sinks, killing all but one of her crew.
13:43She is just one of 57 Allied ships, sunk by U-boats in February 1943.
13:54Sinkings have rocketed by 70% in just one month.
14:00After nearly three and a half years of fighting,
14:03the total losses in the Atlantic are truly staggering.
14:20March 1943 is an especially dark month for Britain in the Battle of the Atlantic.
14:26U-boats are hunting in packs across the ocean with great success,
14:30and with every passing week, Allied losses grow.
14:36By the end of the month, 108 ships, totalling 700,000 tons, have been sunk.
14:44It's the fifth highest monthly total of the war so far.
14:49With fewer supplies reaching British shores,
14:53there could soon be huge shortages in food, fuel and weaponry.
15:01In the early months of 1943, things start looking bad for the Allies,
15:06and things are looking problematic.
15:09The sinkings are going up and up again.
15:23The Allies can't afford to lose control of the Atlantic.
15:28If they do, it will be almost impossible to launch their D-Day landing in Europe.
15:36Helping the British government fight back is an unexpected figure.
15:41University lecturer, Professor Patrick Blackett.
15:44Patrick Blackett is a really interesting figure.
15:46He is an academic. He's a professor of physics.
15:50So his job is to try and find advantages through technology
15:55and through examining in an almost mathematical way what's happening.
16:01His famous line was that you can't run a war on gusts of emotion.
16:09Blackett heads up a team of statisticians and scientists who become known as Blackett Circus.
16:15Their analytical approach makes huge differences.
16:21They suggest simple things like repainting the underneath of planes from black to white to camouflage them in the sky.
16:30And when Blackett's team focuses on Atlantic convoys, they make a major discovery.
16:39The size of the convoy has no effect on whether it's safe or not.
16:43And what he argues for is that they should be increased.
16:51His thinking was bigger convoys, more easily protected, not necessarily requiring any more of an escort and not even really
17:01requiring much more air support.
17:02So all in all, your losses will be thoroughly reduced.
17:08Given that a submarine only has one chance to attack as the convoy goes past,
17:14the more ships that go past at once, the less are going to be sunk.
17:19Blackett's discovery means Atlantic convoys grow much bigger.
17:23Many in 1943 contain over 60 ships.
17:28More supplies are now reaching Britain's shores in fewer crossings.
17:39But as the months pass, a growing problem emerges for the Allies.
17:45Most sailors have never experienced a long conflict like this before.
17:49And it's beginning to take its toll.
17:54In 1943, the Royal Navy is witnessing a growing number of sailors unable to carry on with their duties.
18:02Each month, more and more are proving incapable of doing their jobs.
18:07And quite frankly, they're becoming liabilities.
18:10Doctors examine them.
18:12And after listening to their complaints and analyzing their symptoms,
18:15decide that they're all suffering from what's being called fatigue.
18:23As a trained Marine, I know being in the armed forces can be incredibly stressful.
18:31So to understand how years of fighting in the Atlantic took its toll on those brave sailors,
18:37I'm meeting with Professor Edgar Jones.
18:39We hear the use of the word fatigue when referring to the mental state of military personnel.
18:47It's a bit of a soft term, really, to describe what they're experiencing.
18:50In order to disguise a psychiatric diagnosis, they come up with the term fatigue.
18:55So fatigue is the term that the Royal Navy use in the latter part of the war for all of
18:59those stressed out, traumatized sailors who are no longer able to function.
19:05Why did that have an effect on the state of mind of sailors?
19:10Well, those sailors knew that going to sea was dangerous.
19:17They know that the chances are that if they're in a big battle and something goes wrong, they're going to
19:22be killed.
19:24And that that preys on sailors' minds over time.
19:28What do they do about it?
19:30They open four specialist naval hospitals for psychiatric casualties.
19:36So they improve the monitoring and treatment process.
19:40But then they also try to manage their sailors better and try to spot those sailors who are vulnerable to
19:46psychological stress.
19:51I can't imagine fighting for over three years against a U-boat enemy hidden under the waves.
20:03And it's no surprise to me that as the battle in the Atlantic continues, thousands more sailors struggle to fight
20:10on due to psychological issues.
20:21Luckily, Britain is not alone.
20:24Brave men and women from the British Empire join the fight.
20:28But only after a prejudice rule is abolished.
20:32At the start of the war, the RAF, Navy and Army refused to accept anyone who isn't of European descent.
20:42Now that the numbers of fit and capable adults is declining, this policy is shelved.
20:49And Britain steps up its search for new recruits overseas.
20:54India, Australia and Canada all provide thousands of troops ready to fight.
21:00And they joined up to defend Britain, a Britain that they felt that they were also part of.
21:05And so they rose up to defend the empire, which they felt was under threat.
21:09There were others who joined up because they understood the political implications.
21:15Should fascism win?
21:16Because they felt that if Britain fell, fascism would spread to the rest of the world.
21:23One of these new recruits is Wasudev Garaya, who signed up from Mauritius.
21:31I'm meeting his daughter, Prabha, to understand how her father ended up fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic.
21:38Prabha, what do you think would have motivated your father to join the forces here in the UK?
21:44I mean, the war would have seemed like a million miles away from Mauritius.
21:47Personally, I probably thought that he would have seen a means of leaving the island and getting a broader perspective
21:54on life and, you know, doing something, you know, for his country.
22:05Wasudev is assigned as wireless operator on one of the most incredible vessels used in the Battle of the Atlantic.
22:14A short Sunderland.
22:21This flying boat is capable of hunting down and attacking U-boats, but can also land on water to rescue
22:30Allied sailors.
22:33It takes several months of training around the UK, including Scotland and Pembrokeshire, before Wasudev is able to fly its
22:42first mission.
22:47And if he was based up in Scotland and Blackpool and places like that, flying around in Sunderland flying boats,
22:53he must have spent some time out in the Atlantic over the convoys looking after them.
22:57Yes, he would be going out over the Atlantic.
23:00They used to go out and do escorts and, because all the convoys were coming in from America with all
23:06of the supplies, the troops, everything, looking for submarines that were tracking the convoys and trying to torpedo them.
23:20They spotted a periscope and they dropped, if you see the bombs up there, they obviously dropped some of those
23:27on the periscope and then they went up into the clouds out of the way.
23:32Also quite hard to hide in the clouds as well, I would imagine.
23:35In the Atlantic you probably had a lot of clouds to hide in.
23:40Are you proud of your father?
23:42Yes, I am actually.
23:43I'd like to make sure that future generations and, you know, my nephews and their children in the future and
23:52their children will be able to read about their granddad, their great granddad and know what he did in the
23:57war.
24:01The commitment and bravery of people like Wasudev Garaya enable the Allies to keep fighting against the relentless Nazi war
24:09machine.
24:11This influx of new sailors and airmen are able to take advantage of new technology.
24:17Since the start of the war, there's been a mad rush to stay ahead of the technological curve.
24:23Britain's become a hive of creativity and evolution.
24:27And in 1943 there's a breakthrough that might just remove the U-boat's greatest strength, its stealth.
24:38This equipment could be the final piece of the puzzle the Allies need to win the Battle of the Atlantic.
25:01Early April 1943, a convoy of over 60 ships is travelling from Canada to Britain.
25:16Out in open water, they're attacked.
25:22A large U-boat wolfpack strikes and six of the convoy are sunk.
25:32But the Allies hit back.
25:36With an aircraft that's changing the Battle of the Atlantic.
25:42A liberator arrives, damaging five U-boats and destroying two.
25:47This aircraft is becoming a common sight, flying above convoys, providing essential air support over this vast ocean.
25:56I want to understand how the Liberator became so influential in the skies over the Atlantic.
26:02So I'm meeting Harry Raffel at London's RAF Museum.
26:06This aircraft was a game-changer for the Allies during the Battle of the Atlantic.
26:11Why did we need an aircraft with such vast range?
26:14This can reach much further out into the Atlantic and stay out there for a long period of time.
26:19And effectively protect the convoys, observe U-boats and drive them beneath the surface.
26:24And that's hugely important.
26:27The Liberator provides an essential role in the Atlantic.
26:31Since the start of the war, there has been a mid-Atlantic air gap, where convoys are exposed to U
26:38-boat attack without air support.
26:41Liberators are adapted to be very long range, enabling them to close the gap.
26:54What sort of endurance would that give this aircraft? How long could it stay airborne?
26:58So for the very long range types, they could get 2,100 miles in terms of an operational range.
27:05And patrols, well in excess of 12 hours, are not uncommon for VLR types.
27:09These aircraft carried out an offensive role. They struck out at the U-boats.
27:13What sort of munitions did it carry?
27:16Well, the depth charge is probably the most effective weapon that it carries.
27:20Importantly, they need to land and detonate in close proximity to the U-boats.
27:25It's important to remember that as much as this is a war about trying to sink submarines,
27:32more important than that is the war to protect the convoys.
27:36So even those patrols which go out and don't make an offensive attack against a U-boat,
27:40they're doing a hugely important job.
27:42What they're doing is stopping that U-boat attacking a merchant ship.
27:46Liberator really is a bit of an unsung hero, isn't it?
27:48Absolutely. More than any other aircraft, this helps win the Battle of the Atlantic.
27:53And in many ways, win the war.
27:57The Liberators are one of the last pieces of the puzzle for the Allies.
28:02Convoys travelling through the treacherous mid-Atlantic gap
28:06now have the peace of mind in knowing that should they be attacked,
28:09they've got a central air cover right behind them.
28:15There are key developments for the Allies on the waves of the Atlantic too.
28:20Since the start of the war, destroyers have been crying out for an accurate radar to hunt down U-boats.
28:31In 1943, improved equipment is installed in more and more Allied warships.
28:39To find out how this impacts the Battle of the Atlantic, I'm meeting with Naval historian Richard Holdsworth.
28:46Can you tell me a little bit about how radar and radar technology developed during the Battle of the Atlantic?
28:52Radar at the beginning of the war is in its infancy.
28:55The big challenge that the Navy faced was actually getting things small enough to be able to be mounted on
29:02ships.
29:02What was the capability of radar systems on ships towards the beginning of the war?
29:07The bigger ships and sort of surface warning radars would be able to pick out surface ships at a distance.
29:13They were able to detect large things close up, I think, at its crudest level.
29:17Large things close up, yeah.
29:19But then towards the end of the war?
29:20Towards the end of the war, they have got much more accurate.
29:23They're at a position where actually you can pinpoint a periscope a few miles away through radar as it pops
29:30up.
29:31And that is a game changer for attacking submarines that are submerged.
29:37And I guess one of the massive advantages in the Battle of the Atlantic, being able to detect German U
29:40-boats at night time.
29:42Yes. Yeah. And actually picking up threats to you earlier than you could do before.
29:48Yeah. And what a huge advantage that was.
29:51Very much so.
29:55Very much so.
29:56With this evolution in radar, U-boats are no longer the hidden enemy.
30:01Now allied ships in the Atlantic can see a U-boat conning tower surfacing from over 12 miles away.
30:10Constant innovation of the radar systems throughout the Battle of the Atlantic has helped transform the fortunes of those brave
30:18sailors battling U-boats.
30:20And this mass rollout of the radar has arrived at just the right time.
30:35There are now more and more U-boats patrolling the Atlantic than ever before.
30:43By 1943, the Allies anti-submarine warfare is really coming together.
30:50And it's the culmination of lots of different strands that are knitted together.
31:07The developments in sonar, the developments in radar, the developments in long range aircraft and the increasing capacity of the
31:16destroyers to search, locate and destroy U-boat activity meant that the U-boats were now often isolated.
31:26While the Allies enjoyed major technological advances, the same cannot be said for the Nazis.
31:35The standard German weapons in 1939 were as good as or better than everybody else's.
31:41But by now they've fallen behind in key areas.
31:45Germany is caught in a technological gap and it's not able to catch up.
31:54One of their failings wasn't to see out of the box.
31:58That's partly because it was an authoritarian regime.
32:02So people are more afraid to think out of the box.
32:05You know, you're going to get stripping down a 90-minute rant from Hitler and possibly be killed.
32:10You know what I mean?
32:11You're not really going to try to go in for too much blue sky thinking, thank you very much.
32:16The Nazis put their faith in numbers and the Allies put theirs in innovation.
32:22It leads to a major confrontation in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
32:41In late April 1943, a convoy enters the Atlantic en route to North America.
32:52Among the 43 merchant ships are some older vessels that slow the speed of the convoy down to just 8
32:59miles an hour.
33:01The convoy is given a large armed escort.
33:05Two destroyers, four corvettes and a frigate.
33:09And in charge of this deadly battle group is Commander Peter Gretton.
33:13And he's a no-nonsense kind of commander with a very loyal crew.
33:19His son, Mike Gretton, explains what his father thought about this Atlantic crossing.
33:26His expectations were of a very difficult crossing because intelligence had reported a large number of U-boats out there.
33:37They were under no illusion this was going to be a very, very difficult crossing and they had to fight
33:41their way through.
33:45The convoy travels around the edge of the Atlantic to try to avoid the waiting U-boats.
33:52But this doesn't keep them safe.
34:12They got up to just south of Iceland and past Iceland, which is where the action started and they had
34:19a couple of quite bad nights.
34:23On one of the difficult nights, my father had four separate contacts with submarines.
34:29It was a staggering number.
34:31There were neither submarine losses nor merchant ship losses.
34:34And then got into some really very nasty weather indeed.
34:40Strong winds batter the convoy which means maintaining formation is very difficult.
34:45Their speed slows right down and worse is yet to come.
34:53Admiral Dönitz has sent at least 31 U-boats into the Atlantic to hunt down and attack this convoy.
35:05This was the largest concentration of U-boats that there had been up until that time in the world.
35:14U-boats strung out in a great line waiting to hit the convoy as it approached the danger zone.
35:24Dönitz at this point is thinking that he's got enough U-boats heading for this area that he really ought
35:30to be able to effectively force a massacre.
35:42The convoy is about to face the greatest show of power ever seen from the Nazi U-boats.
35:50Dönitz issues a rallying cry to his crews.
35:53Something can and must be achieved from 31 boats.
35:58He expects his U-boats to send this entire convoy to the bottom of the ocean.
36:17A large Allied convoy is eight days into its Atlantic crossing.
36:23It's being tracked by the largest U-boat Wolfpack the Atlantic has ever seen.
36:31Lieutenant Commander Peter Gretton prepares for battle.
36:36But suddenly he is faced with another opponent.
36:46As the convoy continues, it's battered by a Force 10 gale.
36:5330-foot-high waves.
36:55As the slow ships scatter because of the weather, it makes the defending escort's job of protecting them very, very
37:03difficult.
37:05Gretton's son explains how the storm isn't the only problem his father faces.
37:11At that stage, my father had his worst fear. He was running out of fuel.
37:17The convoy still has over a thousand miles until they reach their destination.
37:24With the worsening weather and low fuel, Gretton is left with only one choice.
37:30He has to leave the convoy.
37:40I simply can't imagine how I would have felt in those circumstances.
37:45responsible for this very important convoy.
37:48It must have been appalling.
37:52If this weakened convoy is destroyed and the Nazis take control of the Atlantic,
37:58the Allies' D-Day plans will lie in tatters.
38:07When night falls, the U-boats strike.
38:32Admiral Dönitz has given very specific orders.
38:36He wants his U-boat commanders to create an Allied bloodbath.
38:41He's sending out signals like,
38:43do not underestimate your enemies, strike them dead.
38:5441 U-boats surround the convoy.
38:57In 24 hours, 12 Allied ships are sunk.
39:04As the U-boats circle their prey, preparing for another assault,
39:08they're stopped in their tracks.
39:15There was then a dramatic change in the weather.
39:20It went from hurricane to flat calm and fog.
39:24The Allies use their radar to navigate safely through the fog.
39:32The U-boats can't do anything.
39:35They're unsighted, they're blind.
39:37Technological innovations give the Allies an advantage in this crucial battle.
39:41For the Germans, this is not a disaster.
39:45Because the escorts now have got radar.
39:55They can fight the battle on screen.
39:58They can see when the U-boats can't.
40:01The escorts and the aircraft had an absolute field day.
40:05Suddenly, over the air they'd be attacked,
40:07or by surface ship they'd be attacked.
40:11Over the next 24 hours, six U-boats are sent to the bottom of the Atlantic.
40:22Dönitz had had enough.
40:24He orders the U-boats to break off their attack.
40:28And even though the odds were stacked heavily in the Germans' favour,
40:33the Allies had managed to fight back and forced them to retreat.
40:39It's the ultimate vindication of that process that was set in place early in the war,
40:45and all of the efforts of all of those people who came together
40:48to fight that war on land, in the air, and on the sea itself.
40:54This battle isn't just a one-off.
40:56New technology has helped turn the tide for the Allies,
41:00and the month of May becomes a time to celebrate.
41:03The U-boat losses that month alone are over 40.
41:08And by the end of the month, Dönitz realises that the game is up.
41:12In the end, Germany is outgoned, outmanned, outresourced.
41:19They're not the hunters anymore, they're the hunted.
41:31After nearly four years of fighting,
41:33the Battle of the Atlantic is all but over.
41:37Although this is by no means the last attack in the Atlantic,
41:41crossings are now significantly safer for the convoys.
41:45The number of ships sunk falls dramatically.
41:49From 39 sunk in May to just seven in June.
41:53And losses stay low throughout the rest of 1943.
41:58Tactical improvements and technological advancements
42:01mean that the Royal Navy and Air Force now have the edge over the Nazi U-boats.
42:08The Allies now have command of the Atlantic Ocean.
42:16If the Navy and the merchant Navy had not driven the U-boats out of the sea,
42:23Britain and the Allies would not have been able to launch their campaign in Western Europe.
42:27That would have been impossible.
42:32D-Day would not have happened without the control of the Atlantic.
42:44D-Day would not have happened without the control of the Atlantic.
42:53During the course of the war, it's estimated that over 100,000 people die at sea,
42:59fighting to control the Atlantic.
43:05The Battle of the Atlantic has been won and it's been great to look back and really understand
43:11how that battle was played out and that it wasn't easy.
43:19It's hard for us to quantify or understand what life would have been like had those convoys not been successful.
43:25There were thousands of sailors lost and you can't imagine how awful it must have been for them out there.
43:36But this is so important for the Allies.
43:39I mean, Rob, let's have a look at D-Day landings.
43:42Look at all the materials that landed on the beaches in Normandy.
43:45I bet you 95% of them came from those convoys in America.
43:51The Battle of the Atlantic was the turning point that allowed D-Day to happen.
43:56And it's really important, I think, to acknowledge that.
44:00It's quite sobering thought, actually, when you look into the detail
44:03and understand how important the Battle of the Atlantic was to the eventual outcome of the Second World War.
44:08It was a hard-fought battle.
44:11It certainly was.
44:45It's really valuable to me, it's relatively difficult to conclude by the allegations of the castle and the town of
44:46the UK.
44:46Of years like that, buongan'sогда were to go on Kazuha.
44:47And now you can't find, you know, when you look into the wall in the rim,
44:47that way this is the hope of the sea and the stairs in the mid-est kind of cleaserie mínston.
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