All language subtitles for World.War.II.in.Colour.S01E07.Turning.the.Tide.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

As World War Two
got underway

both the Allies and the Germans
were looking for the
knockout blow,

the new weapon that would
decisively defeat the enemy.

For Hitler's Germany the problem
was that Britain was an island.

His tanks couldn't
Blitzkrieg across the Channel.

The only way to defeat her

was to strangle
her seaborne supply routes.

That meant warships
and above all submarines.

For the Western Allies, the
problem was attacking Germany

when there were no Allied
troops in mainland Europe.

The solution they adopted
was strategic bombing.

Aerial bombardment aimed
at destroying Germany's

infrastructure and pounding
its people into submission.

The two sides had adopted
two very different tactics,

but with one aim.

To save their troops and
to bring the war to an end

as quickly as possible.

Ironically, it was the Germans

who first started
strategic bombing.

In August 1940,

Luftwaffe bombers
accidentally hit London.

The RAF retaliated
by bombing Berlin.

By the autumn, Germany was
bombing Britain's cities
almost daily,

convinced the British
would eventually crack.

But the Blitz -
as it was called -

never showed any sign of forcing
the British to surrender,

and by the summer of 1941,
it was dying away,

as the Luftwaffe turned its
attention to the war in Russia.

But for the British
military command,

bombing remained
the only way of striking

directly at Hitler's Germany.

Moreover, by early 1941,

the RAF was starting
to receive a new generation

of bigger, more powerful,
four-engined bombers.

These could carry loads of
up to 18,000 lbs of bombs,

four times the capacity
of earlier aircraft.

The first of these was
the Short Stirling.

To begin with, the plan was not
to hit the German population

but specific
infrastructure targets -

cutting transport
and oil supplies -

damaging Germany's
ability to wage war.

But it suffered
one central problem.

Britain's bombing was
extremely inaccurate.

In August 1941, a secret
British report showed

that over the crucial
German Ruhr industrial area,

only 10 percent of British
bombers were getting their bombs

within five miles
of their target.

At the same time,
the German air defenses

were taking a terrible toll
on British planes.

By late 1941, up to 10 percent
of the bombers on any raid

were being shot down,

a loss rate which
couldn't be sustained.

The Royal Air Force High Command
decided to change tactics.

It gave up any pretense of
trying to hit specific targets.

Instead, Bomber Command was
instructed to undertake

what it called "area bombing",

a euphemism for what is
known today as carpet bombing.

The idea was to deliberately
target an entire area

of a city regardless of
the civilian population.

In the chilling words of
the British Air Ministry,

it would destroy "the morale
of the civilian population

and, in particular,
of industrial workers".

It's leading exponent
was Air Marshal
Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris,

who was now appointed
Commander-in-Chief

of RAF Bomber Command.

There are a lot
of people who say

that bombing
can never win a war.

Well, my answer to that

is that it has never been
tried yet and we shall see.

They sowed the wind and now

they are going to
reap the whirlwind.

In spring 1942,

Harris launched
what was, in effect,

a huge public relations stunt

for what he preferred to call
"strategic bombing".

He gathered every available
aircraft in Bomber Command.

Over 1,000 took off for
the German city of Cologne.

The city's defenses
were overwhelmed.

600 acres were destroyed.

But only 39 British
aircraft were lost.

Harris had won his point.

He now had the full support of
the British Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill.

He also now had an outstanding
new weapon, the Avro Lancaster,

the finest heavy
night bomber of the war.

And he had a new partner.

By the summer of 1942,
the United States

had joined the air war
in Europe.

American planes began
to appear in Britain.

The majority were the Boeing
B-17 Flying Fortress.

It was heavily armed with
13 machine guns and could,

in theory, fight its way through
to a target in daylight

without a fighter escort.

It was also equipped with a new
bomb sight that would supposedly

allow it to drop its bombs
with almost unerring precision.

These features encouraged
the Americans to ignore

the lessons of the early
British campaign

and return to targeted raids
on Germany's infrastructure.

In August 1942,

the Americans put the
Flying Fortress to the test.

Twelve of them attacked
marshalling yards

near Rouen in France.

Damage was slight,

but the United States
lost no aircraft.

For the Americans, it was
the proof that daylight raids

on infrastructure targets
could work.

For the British, it simply
showed the Americans

could hit a minor and
relatively undefended target.

But that winter,
the two Allies agreed

to combine their approaches.

They would launch
a massive bombing campaign

against Germany's
industrial heartland.

The Americans
would attack by day

against carefully selected
infrastructure targets.

The British would
attack by night,

carpet bombing whole areas,

destroying war production
and civilian morale.

They hoped it would be
so devastating

it might even bring
the war to an end.

In March 1943,
British planes took off

for the German
industrial city of Essen.

High-speed Mosquito
light bombers went in first,

dropping flares to
highlight the targets.

Then a force of nearly
450 Lancaster bombers

swept over the city
dropping their loads.

The German defenses
were overpowered.

Only 14 British
aircraft were shot down.

The Essen raid was followed
by wave after wave

of similar attacks on
industrial towns in the Ruhr.

But the German air defenses
now began to get the measure

of the Allied attacks.

Britain's losses
climbed to one in ten.

Harris was forced to reluctantly
call a halt to the attacks.

But then he was informed
about a new Allied invention.

Code named "Window",
it consisted of

clouds of aluminum foil strips
dropped from an aircraft.

As the foil fell,
it jammed any radar system.

It promised to cripple
the German air defenses.

Harris seized on it and four
months after the Essen Raid,

in July 1943,
he went back on the offensive.

He called it Operation Gomorrah.

The target this time was
the industrial port of Hamburg.

Bombers, equipped with "Window",
jammed the German radar.

Other aircraft dropped
incendiary bombs.

A giant firestorm
engulfed the city center.

40,000 people died and half
a million were made homeless.

More raids on
the port followed.

It was an enormous shock
to the German people.

Four months later,
in the autumn of 1943,

Harris followed Hamburg with
a series of attacks on Berlin.

But by now, the Germans
were learning to overcome
the effect of "Window",

and by spring 1944
British losses were back

at nearly one plane in ten.

Worse, there was no sign German
civilian morale was cracking.

Harris's carpet bombing
campaign was just not working.

But neither was
the American alternative

of targeting infrastructure.

By the spring of 1943,
US Army Air Force daylight raids

were steadily reaching
deeper into Germany.

But American losses
were climbing.

Around one in every 15 planes
was being shot down.

Yet undaunted, the American
command now launched an attack

on factories in the German towns
of Regensburg and Schweinfurt.

It was hugely ambitious.

Both were deep
in southern Germany,

far beyond the range
of US escort fighters.

It was a disaster.

The 380 Flying Fortresses,

which US bomber chiefs
had assured everybody

wouldn't need a fighter escort,
were harried and shot down.

The loss rate
was over 16 percent.

The US was forced to suspend
its bombing campaign.

The war in the air
had reached stalemate

and there was still no sign
of it helping to usher
in a victory.

Then, in the early
summer of 1944,

as the Allies prepared
to invade mainland Europe,

the British and American
air forces were tasked

with disrupting Germany
communication lines
and oil supplies.

It represented a return to
targeted infrastructure bombing.

But this time, the Allies
had a new weapon.

The British had experimentally
modified a US fighter,

the P-51 Mustang.

The US engine had been
replaced by a British-made

Rolls Royce Merlin.

It gave the plane
a much longer range.

It was the ideal
long-distance bomber escort.

The Allied bombers hit
bridges and roads leading to

the German front in France
with almost surgical precision.

Oil supplies to
the German military

were drastically reduced.

Once again, the German
fighters attacked.

But they were now
outmaneuvered by the Mustang.

Much of the German air force,
now running low on fuel,
was grounded.

The campaign of targeted bombing
on Germany's infrastructure

may not have been the knockout
blow the Allies hoped for,

but it was finally
paying dividends.

But one man was not impressed.

Bomber Harris was still
obsessed with the idea

that ever more devastating
carpet bombing attacks

would stop Germany in
her tracks once and for all.

So it was that in late 1944,

Britain returned
to carpet bombing.

German city after city
was hit and devastated.

Then in February 1945,
Harris attacked Dresden,

a city with virtually
no military significance.

The city's civilian
population had been inflated

by refugees fleeing
bombing raids elsewhere.

Yet Harris seems to have had
no regard for civilian life.

The city was flattened.

Some 50,000 people died.

It was a raid too far.

Finally, questions began to be
asked about the morality,

let alone the efficacy,
of carpet bombing.

Whatever it had achieved,

it had been done
at an horrendous cost

of civilian and military lives.

Critically, it had failed
to break German morale.

Yet 60 percent
of RAF crews had died

before they had
completed 30 missions.

For all the hopes put in it,

carpet bombing had not come
up with the knockout blow.

The Germans, meanwhile,
had put their faith

in an altogether
different technology,

to give them the knockout blow
they needed to win the war.

For Germany,
Britain was a problem.

It was an island and, for once,

Hitler's formidable
land forces were useless.

Britain also had a much
more powerful navy.

Yet Hitler calculated
that if he used what he had,

strategically,
he could fatally disrupt

the sea convoys that were
keeping Britain supplied

with everything
from oil to food.

In the first
18 months of the war,

German raiders sank more than
130 British merchant vessels.

Some of the most
effective raiders

were the so-called
pocket battleships,

small but powerful warships

designed in the 1930s
to circumvent restrictions

imposed on German
re-armament after World War One.

One, the "Graf Spee",
became particularly notorious.

In a matter of weeks, she sank
nine Allied merchant ships

in the South Atlantic
before being cornered off

the River Plate in
South America and scuttled.

But the raids were
taking a serious toll.

If the losses continued to rise,

Britain would have
real supply problems.

Then in early spring 1941,

Germany's first and only
two full-sized battleships

completed their sea trials.

They sent a shiver
through the British navy.

Their potential for
destruction was enormous.

First into action was
the "Bismarck".

In May,
RAF reconnaissance aircraft

spotted her in
the Norwegian port of Bergen,

trying to sneak out
into the North Atlantic.

The British navy
set off in pursuit.

Two days later,
the "Bismarck" was sighted

in the North Atlantic.

Britain's latest battleship,
the "Prince of Wales",

was sent to intercept her.

With her was the British
battlecruiser "Hood".

Early on May 24th, 1941,
the two forces met.

It was the first time
the two sides' battleships

had squared up to each other.

Almost immediately,
a shell from the "Bismarck"

plunged through the weak
deck armor of the "Hood".

It penetrated one of
the aft magazines.

There was a huge explosion.

Only three of the "Hood's"
1,200 crew survived.

The "Prince of Wales",
now outnumbered, retreated.

It was round one
to the "Bismark".

Two days later,
"Bismarck" was spotted again,

this time far to the south,

several hundred miles
off the coast of France.

British Swordfish
torpedo bombers swooped in.

One hit and jammed
the "Bismarck's" rudder.

The following morning
two British battleships,

the "Rodney"
and "King George V",

caught up with
the crippled "Bismarck".

They started pouring
heavy caliber shells

onto the hapless German ship.

She was soon reduced
to a blazing wreck.

"Bismark" was finally
sunk by a torpedo.

All but 110 of her
2,300 crew perished.

The "Bismark" had been sunk

before she'd had a chance
to prove her worth.

Then, in June 1941, Hitler
invaded the Soviet Union.

The war at sea
entered a new phase.

Britain began sending
supply convoys

to the Russian Arctic ports
of Murmansk and Archangel.

Immediately, the German navy
prepared to cut them off.

Convoy after convoy was
attacked or threatened.

By summer 1943,
it had become so dangerous,

further convoys to
Russia were suspended

until the autumn when,
it was hoped,

bad weather and poor visibility
would offer some protection.

While the convoys
were suspended,

Britain turned its attention
to one of the biggest
threats it faced -

the "Bismarck's"
sister ship "Tirpitz".

She'd spent months hiding
in the Norwegian fjords

waiting for
the moment to pounce.

All the while, the British navy
had been keeping her

under close watch -
determined to eliminate

Germany's last battleship.

In September 1943, five
British midget submarines,

known as X craft, were sent
into the Norwegian fjords
to sink her.

The attack caused
only minor damage

and by the following spring
the "Tirpitz" was, once again,

ready the menace
the Arctic convoys.

The Royal Navy now sent in
a massive force to attack her.

It included
six aircraft carriers.

They took the Germans
completely by surprise.

British dive-bombers
attacked "Tirpitz".

But she was heavily armored
and the relatively small bombs

caused only superficial damage.

Three months later, she was
ready for action again.

She was soon spotted in
another Norwegian fjord.

Lancaster bombers carrying
massive 5-ton Tallboy bombs

were sent in to sink
her once and for all.

"Tirpitz" put up a smoke screen
which partially obscured her.

Nevertheless, several bombs
struck her bow

causing severe damage.

Finally, two months later,
a squadron of Lancaster bombers

caught her in
perfect weather conditions.

Three Tallboys struck home.

"Tirpitz" slowly capsized.

Almost a thousand crew
members went down with her.

After more than two years
of hiding and running

from the British navy,
she had been sunk.

Germany's battleships
had promised much.

But against the overwhelming
might of the British navy

they'd never had a chance
to prove their worth.

Hitler had lost the battle
at sea, at least on the surface.

But below the waves,
it was a different story.

Germany's military
planners had long expected

that the country's U-boat
fleet would play a key role

in cutting Britain's
supply lines.

They could sneak up, underwater,
on British merchant vessels,

attacking them
at the last moment.

The submarines were also
extremely agile on the surface.

To combat the threat,
Britain's merchant fleet

was corralled into
convoys for protection.

But there was a serious shortage
of anti-submarine ships
to escort them.

Many ships sailed
without protection.

Yet Britain's Naval Command
remained remarkably complacent.

They believed they had
the weapons and the technology

to contain the U-boat threat.

It was soon proved wrong.

In the early months
of the war,

Britain's supply lines
were harassed and disrupted.

Often the U-boats would
attack on the surface,

picking off merchant ships
with their deck guns.

In response the Royal Navy
sent aircraft carriers

equipped with submarine
hunting aircraft

to patrol the sea lanes
used by the convoys.

But they had
only limited effect.

By the end of 1939,
over 100 Allied merchant ships

had been sunk
by German submarines.

If losses continued
at this rate,

Britain would face disaster.

Oil, food and weapons
would all begin to run short.

Then things got even
more difficult.

Germany overran France.

Suddenly the German navy,
which until now had been

largely bottled up
in the North Sea,

had access to France's
Atlantic seaboard.

They now had a base to attack
Britain's Atlantic convoys.

France's Atlantic ports filled
with newly built German U-boats,

particularly the Type VIIC
ocean-going vessel.

Admiral Karl Doenitz, head of
the German U-boat service,

now organized his submarines
into what he called Wolfpacks.

A group would be lined up
across a likely convoy route.

As soon as one U-boat
spotted a convoy,

it called in the rest to attack.

Sometimes the U-boats
were also guided

by long-range patrol aircraft.

By the end of October 1940,

up to 40 percent of
Allied merchant shipping

per convoy was being sunk.

Britain's supplies
were under threat.

German U-boat crews called it
the "Happy Time"

and top U-boat commanders
became national heroes.

Britain was paying dearly
for its lack of preparation.

But finally,
things began to change.

A crash building program of
anti-submarine escort vessels

was producing results.

The first corvettes,
as they were known,

were coming off the slipways.

For the first time, Britain
could set up permanent
groups of warships

to escort the supply convoys.

But their effectiveness
was limited by the fact

that their top speed
was 15 knots,

two knots slower than
the surface speed of a U-boat.

At the same time,
the patrol aircraft

of Britain's Coastal Command

were equipped
with depth charges.

They lacked the range to
cover the mid-Atlantic,

but U-boats on the surface
near their bases

could be harried
and forced to submerge.

Then, as in
the bombing campaigns,

it was a series of
technological breakthroughs

that really came to
Britain's help.

In early 1940,
a new type of radar,

known as centimetric radar,
was developed.

It was smaller
than existing systems

and, for the first time,
could be fitted to escort
ships and aircraft.

Now, any German U-boat on
the surface was vulnerable.

Some months later, there was
a second technological
breakthrough.

Huff Duff was a radio detector.

Any time a German U-boat
surfaced to communicate,

Huff Duff could pick up
the radio signal

and pin-point
its exact position.

Steadily,
during the spring of 1941,

Britain began to contain
the U-boat threat.

Merchant shipping losses
fell by more than half.

In early March, Guenther Prien,

one of Germany's
top U-boat commanders

failed to return from a patrol.

Shortly afterwards, two more
top German U-boat commanders

lost their lives
in quick succession.

Then Germany suffered
a major disaster

that would reverberate
through the rest of the war.

In May 1941, the British
destroyer "Bulldog"

forced U-110 to the surface
and captured the submarine.

On board was an Enigma machine

used for encoding
German signals.

More importantly,
"Bulldog" also captured

the naval code books
that went with the machine.

It would provide vital
assistance to Britain's
code-breakers.

Soon, unbeknown to the Germans,

Britain was getting a real
insight into German naval
communications.

For the Royal Navy it meant
convoys could now be routed

away from the U-boat Wolfpacks.

Germany's submarines
had to work harder

and search further to find,
and sink, their prey.

Yet, despite the Allied gains,

by the winter of 1941,
the German war machine

was producing ever
greater numbers of U-boats.

The long-term outlook
for Britain's supply routes

still looked ominous.

Then, in December 1941, the war
at sea changed decisively.

In December 1941,

Hitler declared war
on the United States.

Sieg Heil! Seig Heil!

Almost immediately,
Admiral Doenitz,

head of the German
U-boat service,

sent submarines to attack
US merchant shipping

along the American seaboard.

At first, only a few
of his submarines,

the new Type IX,

were capable of making
the long voyage from Europe.

They found easy pickings.

The US navy's
Commander-in-Chief,

Admiral Ernest King,
had resisted British advice

to coral his merchant ships
into convoys.

Over a three month period,
more than 400 US merchant ships

were sunk or destroyed.

America was learning
the tough lesson

Britain had already learnt.

Something had to be done.

King now changed his mind,

and by May 1942,

the United States had introduced
a limited system of convoys.

By July, the US losses
were falling.

It forced the Germans
to adopt a new tactic.

They would concentrate
their U-boats

in one particular part
of the North Atlantic,

the "Black Gap" - the area
in mid-ocean too far

from land for anti-submarine
aircraft to reach.

Often a convoy would be hit
by more than 15 submarines

coming at it in waves.

During October 1942,

56 Allied ships were
sunk in the Black Gap.

By the following March,
Allied losses

had reached 120 ships
in a single month.

During the same month, the
Germans lost only 12 U-boats.

Hitler's tactic of disrupting
Britain's supply lines

so severely
the country would collapse,

seemed a real possibility.

It looked as though his U-boats
might win him the war.

But now the Allies
began to up their game.

Britain had brought
in a new commander.

Admiral Max Horton
was former head of the
Royal Navy's submarine fleet.

His first move was to set up
permanent groups of destroyers

and frigates that would provide
additional support to convoys,

rushing in as soon as an enemy
Wolfpack was spotted.

Equally importantly,
a string of yet more

technological developments
came on stream.

The Hedgehog was
an anti-submarine mortar

that fired 24 bombs.

Allied aircraft were
fitted with a new

a high-powered searchlight,
the Leigh Light.

As an aircraft swooped in,

it could be turned on
at the last moment,

catching a submarine
by surprise on the surface.

Right, right. Fire!

The steady technological
advance now began to pay off.

The German U-boat losses
increased.

The German commander,
Admiral Doenitz,

struggled to regain
the initiative.

In April, he ordered
an all-out U-boat attack

on Convoy ONS5,
a convoy of 43 merchant ships

travelling from
Liverpool to Canada.

It was designed to be
a demonstration of German
naval force.

40 U-boats descended
on the convoy.

The British sent in
extra support groups.

Anti-submarine aircraft
flew from Canada.

It would take four days
for the Allies

to beat off the German attack.

Eleven merchant ships were sunk.

But the Germans had
lost seven U-boats.

Two weeks later
Doenitz tried again,

attacking a second convoy.

It was a disaster.

Five U-boats were sunk

without a single
merchant ship being lost.

During May 1943,

a quarter of all Germany's
operational U-boats were sunk.

The Germans were finally
beginning to lose

the U-boat war
in the Atlantic.

So the Allies now took
the battle to the Germans.

A new long-range version
of the US B-24 Liberator
bomber was introduced.

It could now reach the German
U-boats in the Black Gap.

Germany's submarine designers
tried to respond

with innovations of their own.

U boats were fitted
with radar detectors

and anti-aircraft guns.

Some were also fitted with
the Dutch designed Schnorkel,

an air inlet that meant that
submarines could spend longer

underwater,
hidden from Allied radar.

But it was too little, too late.

The Allies still found them.

Hitler's U-boats were now
pinned down in port.

It was too dangerous for them
to roam the ocean freely.

German attempts to
find an answer became
increasingly desperate.

They now produced
a revolutionary new submarine.

It was known as the Type XXI.

It was electric powered

and capable of 17 knots
while submerged,

over twice the speed
of a traditional submarine

and fast enough to out-run
most surface vessels.

But again it was too late.

Only one ever became operational

and it never made
contact with the enemy.

By the end of 1943, the Allies
dominated the Atlantic.

It was a turning point
in the war.

Hitler's U-boat campaign
had taken a terrible
toll on both sides.

The Germans lost
nearly 800 submarines.

75 per cent of
the U-boat crews perished.

On the Allied side,
some 32,000 sailors died.

But now at last,
with the U-boats out of the way,

great waves of US troops
and equipment

could flood across
the ocean in preparation
for the invasion of Europe.

Victory in
the Battle of the Atlantic

would fundamentally change
the course of the war.