All language subtitles for BBC The Battle of the Atlantic S01 E03_track3_[eng]-en

(NARRATOR) From this seaside villa
on the edge of the French port of Lorient,

Karl Denitz directed the Battie of the Atlantic.

By the summer of 1942,
Dénitz commanded 330 U-boats,

five times more than at the beginning of the war.

With these, he hoped to strike
a decisive blow against the convoys

on which the Allied war effort depended,

Fast on the surface, able to hide beneath it,
the U-boat seemed an invincible enemy.

This is the story of how the Alties fought back

and, within a year,
drove the U-boat from the Atlantic

After three years of success,
the Aunter became the Aunted.

Hitler's U-boats sank
more than BO ships in fune 1942,

The crews called this their “happy time".

(TRANSLATION) We were convinced
we were fighting in the right service.

We expected to have success in battle,

We were young, optimistic, and we'd sworn
our oath of alliegiance to the Fatherland,

and to our...well,
as he was then, beloved Fuhrer.

(NARRATOR) The U-boat
was winning the Battle of the Atlantic.

More than 500 Allied ships were sunk
in the first half of 1942,

for the loss of just 27 German U-boats,

The leader of the U-boat arm

judged a decisive victory in the Atlantic
to be within his grasp.

But Karl Donitz's confidence
was shaken that summer

by a new and entirely unexpected threat.

On the night of july Bth 1942,
U-159 was making good speed home

to its base on the French coast.

/ts crew felt safe.

The dark hull of the boat
was almost invisible at night.

(TRANSLATION)
We were sailing at full speed at night

when we were suddenly caught
in the glare of a searchlight.

A plane was running In to attack us.

(NARRATOR) The U-boat had been detected
by a Wellington from RAF Coastal Command.

(WITTE) It dropped five depth charges
next to the boat, pretty close.

We didn't know how it had found us.

We only knew for the first time
a plane had attacked us, at night,

and caught us in the full beam of its searchlight.

(NARRATOR) U-159 limped back into Lorient

to discover that two other boats
had been attacked that night.

The mystery was, how had
the Allies found them in the dark?

(TRANSLATION) /t was a surprise for us,

The U—boats were now always being detected
and we didn't know how it was happening.

(NARRATOR) British aircrews
were using a new detection device,

one that threatened to force
the U-boat from the surface.

in the first months of the war,

the Admiralty had contacted a small civilian
research team that was working for the RAF.

(HANBURY BROWN)
Admiral Somerville rang from the Admiralty.

"Do you think with an aeroplane
you could detect

“a...a conning tower of a submarine?

‘ll give you a submarine in the Solent,
127, you go and try it.”

So / fitted a Lockheed Hudson
with an early form of radar

and we went out to meet our submarine.

We saw it at three and a half miles,
peering into a cathode ray tube anxiously,

and it was the first detection
of a submarine, {| think, by radar.

(NARRATOR)
The radar was a crucial breakthrough.

The U-boat spent more
than 90% of its time on the surface.

Beneath it, it was slow and blind.

ff it could be detected above the waves,

a vital step would be taken
towards victory in the Atlantic.

The lessons of radar
were not lost on the naval stafi

By the summer of 1942,
the Admiralty and the Air Ministry

had opened their doors to a new type of scientist,
the operational researcher.

For the first time,
civilians were given the freedom

to assess not just the equipment needed
to defeat the U-boat, but the tactics too,

After three years of war,
the number of U-boat kKilis from the air

was still disappointingly low —
it was soon clear why.

Aircraft could be spotted,
by day, many miles away.

Time enough for a U-boat to dive.

The solution was astonishingly simple —

to paint Allied planes
the colour of the Atlantic sky.

The scientists were also able to prove
that a large number of small depth charges,

timed to go off close to the surface,
would improve the chances of a kill

Their work promised to turn the radar—guided
aircratt into a formidable Aunter.

On December 8th 7942.

a Liberator from the RAF’s 120 Squadron
set out from fceland.

(BULLOCH) It used to take us five hours
to get out to pick up a convoy,

and sometimes they were
hundreds of miles out of position.

We'd pick them up on radar.

A big convoy of about 50 ships would
show up enormously on the radar screen,

so we used to home in on that

(NARRATOR) Bulloch and his crew
picked up the ships of Convoy HX—277.

Within minutes, he'd made another contact.

(BULLOCH) We knew there were
about 1 U-boats in the area.

You'd pick up...its wake, first of all,
a big stream behind it.

There was one there, about 70 miles astern,
and we spotted him on the surface.

(BOMBARDIER) Bomb gone.

We felt...a lot of satisfaction
that we'd made a good attack.

You don't worry about
the 48 people on board the thing.

(NARRATOR) Bulloch had sunk the U-671

That day he attacked
and damaged another six U-boats,

Jn the first three years of the war,
aircraft had sunk just 15 U-boats,

but in the six months
from September 1942, they sank 29.

Naval intelligence began
to detect encouraging signs —

a new reticence among U-boat crews
to press home the attack

when they came within range of Allied aircraft.

The Allied staff effort was bearing frujt.

The contrast with U-Boat Command in France
couldn't have been more marked.

In 1942, Donitz's headquarters
was based in a villa

on the outskirts of Lorient,
the Chateau Kernevel

The U-boat war on the Atlantic

was run from two rooms on the ground floor
and the small bunker beneath the Aouse.

Headquarters was so small
staff dubbed jt the sardine tin.

Donitz relied on a core
of just six young staff officers,

(TRANSLATION) Orders for the U—boats

had to be written with stencils
and water soluble ink,

S80 that if the U-boat was sunk,
it would be impossible to find.

/ would firstly hang up these stencils to dry
in my little room on a washing line over my bunk.

They had to dry first of all, you know.
That was a joke in itself.

How primitive this whole warfare business was.

(NARRATOR) Donitz's headquarters
looked across to huge new U-boat pens.

Millions of marks were spent
protecting the U-boat in port,

but next to nothing on improving
its fighting capability at sea,

Donitz and his staff relied entirely
on navy experts in Berlin for technical advice.

Their record was poor.

(TRANSLATION)
The boats hardly differed from the ones

already in service at the end
of the First World War.

That meant no significant improvements
had been made in 20 years.

(UP-BEAT MILITARY MUSIC)

(NARRATOR) The same old U-boats
were still being launched.

No serious effort had been made to develop
a submarine with high underwater speeds,

one that would be safe from Allied air attack.

(MUSIC CONTINUES)

There was one stretch of ocean where the old
U-boats could still operate on the surface.

Donitz began to direct his packs into the waters
south of Greenland — the Air Gap.

Here they were beyond the range
of ali but a handful of aircraft.

By September 1942, it was clear to Donitz

that whilst the Allies might be
one step ahead in the technical race,

the battie was stili there to be won.

“Sinkings were as high as ever,

“and the number of frontline U-boats
was still steadily rising.

“But the more distant future
caused me some anxiety.”

(NARRATOR) Donitz took his fears to Hitler.

Hitler had a simple solution.

Shoot survivors of a U-boat attack, then
Allied seamen would no longer want to serve.

Donitz refused to consider such a brutal step.

But two weeks after his meeting with Hitler,
an event took place

which hardened Donitz's
attitude towards survivors.

The liner “Laconia” was homebound
from Cape Town with 2,700 people on board,

4800 of them ftalian prisoners—of—war.

She was sailing alone — unprotected.

We thought we were fast enough
to survive anything,

so it was speed and zigzagging,
you know, which is the usual thing.

(NARRATOR)
On the evening of September 12th,

the "Laconia" was 900 miles from Freetown,
on the west coast of Africa.

Among the passengers were janet Waiker
and her five-year-old daughter Noreen.

| was putting my little girl to bed,
getting her to say her prayers,

and she was sitting up in bed
and | heard this bang.

(HOLDING) People said, “What was that?”
/ already knew. I'd heard that “bump” before.

| didn't want to panic them. | said, “I don't know,
we might have hit something, another ship."

(GOODE) We were looking at one another,
“What's happened?" like,

when the second torpedo hit.

(ALARM)

(WALKER) There was a lot of screaming,
children screaming in the passage.

/ was just stunned, / stood there
because { didn't know where to go.

(MORSE BEEPING)

(NARRATOR) No one picked up
the “Laconia's" distress signal.

(WALKER)
This Navy boy came up and he says,

“Come, ['ll show you where the lifeboat is.”

He took my lttle girl and he said,
"Follow me," so f followed him.

"Go down first and (ll hand her to you,"

When | got in the lifeboat
| looked up and he wasn't there.

| started screaming.

This Air Force man was in the lifeboat
and he said,

"ll go up and get her.”

He came back and said,
"He's taken her to another lifeboat.

"Don't worry, you'll see her in the morning.”

(GOODE) The port side was coming up

and you could see the rust
and barnacies on the bottom.

Sof jumped and that was that reaily.

(NARRATOR) Hundreds, mostly Italian
prisoners, were struggling in the sea,

They were desperate for a piace on a lifeboat.

(HOLDING) There were sharks about.
Screams there were, some of them, yeah.

On, aye, one fella in the boat says, “/f any
of them are hanging onto the side, call out.

‘Vl give you the hatchet, chop their fingers off.”
/ wasn't thinking like that.

| could see ahead of us a low vess...
it was a submarine really,

and she had a lamp on corners, circling light,
and she was picking people up.

(WALKER) He drew up alongside us and said,

“The women and children
must go on the shi... the submarine.”

One of the men said,
"They are not going in the submarine."

He said, "Don't worry, they'll be all right."
So we went on the submarine.

(NARRATOR) The crew of the U-B6 had
heard the ftalians crying out from the water.

its commander sent a message to U-Boat
Headquarters, asking for immediate assistance.

Donitz directed three of his nearest
boats to join the rescue operation.

(WALKER) They were quite concerned
about me losing my wee girl

Whenever they saw a lifeboat,
they would call me up to the conning tower,

and tell me to see if she was
in the boats. They were very good.

| said to them, "Cigarette." This German took
a cigarette out and | gave it back to him.

"Kamerad, give them to your mates."
| thought this was a funny German,

the way I'd been brought up
to believe about them.

(HARDEGEN) The U-boats had hundreds
of survivors standing on their decks.

They'd made Red Cross flags
and kept sending radio messages,

so that everyone would Know where they were.

Then American planes arrived
and Hew over the boats.

They asked their commander what they should do,
and the order came back, “Attack!”

(NARRATOR) The American aircraft
knew nothing of the rescue operation,

but thought it had caught
the enemy on the surface.

No boats were lost. but Donitz was furious.

On September 77th,
he sent a new order to Ais commanders.

No attempt was to be made
at rescuing enemy crews,

No help offered. Be harsh.

The war called for the destruction
of men as well as ships.

Above all, no commander was to risk
his U-boat to help survivors.

4600 people were lost with the “Laconia”.

(WALKER) / never gave up hope, never.

/ used to spend as much
money on fortune tellers,

Maybe they would give me some clue,

/ heard later on that this boy was drowned,

trying to save a little girl.

They didn't know who the little girl was,
but | presumed it was mine.

And yet | still didn't believe it.

(NARRATOR) By the winter of 1942,
the war was becoming more brutal elsewhere.

News began to reach
the U-boat bases of a terrible defeat,

not at sea, but more than
3,000 miles away, on the Eastern Front.

The unthinkable had happened at Stalingrad.
The German Army had surrendered.

90,000 men marched off into Soviet captivity.

Only at sea were there still victories to report.

On the day before the final
surrender at Stalingrad,

Adolf Hitler appointed Donitz GroBadmiral,
to head all operations at sea.

it was a sign of the confidence he placed in him.

But Donitz's job changed ttile,

Germany's small surface fleet
had claimed less than 4% of the ships sunk.

The struggte in the Atlantic had rested
from the first with the U-boat.

Donitz continued personally to direct them.
By now, there were 405,

There was aiso a new man in charge
of the Royal Navy's escort ships.

A poacher turned gamekeeper,
a former submarine commander,

Admiral Max Horton.

Horton was to bring a new vigour
to the war against the U-boat.

His captains were sent back to school

to learn new group tactics
for the defence of the convoys.

3,000 officers were to play
what was known as "The Game".

Wrens would come behind the curtain and say,
"Ship number so and so's been torpedoed,

“and what action are you going to take?”

(ADAMS) What type of searches
should you use in this weather?

If it's really, really, really foul weather,
is it worth it at all?

Should any escorts go back to pick up stragglers?

All these things you need
to have a co-ordinated plan for.

(GUEST) Terrible criticisms.
/ mean, you got murdered if you made a mistake.

We got all the right ideas of defence,

and then we got the right ideas
of how to attack a U-boat.

(NARRATOR) By the spring of 1943,

the Allies were beginning to make
the training and the technical edge count.

(NEWSREEL)
A second volley of high explosives...

(NARRATOR) On April 7th, the U-175
was detected by a US Navy cutter.

(NEWSREEL) There's the Nazi submarine,
forced to the surface.

(NARRATOR) Donitz's packs
were still sinking ships, but at a price.

457 U-boats were sunk
in the first four months of 7943.

But now the Allies had access again
to a vital source of intelligence.

The cryptographers at Bletchley Park
were able at last to read some of the messages

sent by the U-boats
in the key Enigma cipher, “Shark”.

(WYLIE) We were well in
on the "Shark" traffic for some time.

The common signal was "Gustav Gelb” —

and that means "Geleitzug gesichtet" —
"Convoy sighted".

Unfortunately, the one we most often saw.

(NARRATOR) ft was clear from the decrypts

that Donitz was able to maintain
as many as 100 U-boats at sea every day,

most of them in the Air Gap.

That spring, a convoy would sait
into this huge concentration of boats.

/t would be one of the most
decisive moments of the Battie of the Atlantic

“ONS 5” set out on April 22nd
with just six escorts in support.

(ATKINSON) We had fog, icebergs
drifting south with the cold Labrador current.

(BENCE) It got worse and worse and eventually
we were making only about two or three knots.

We were being routed further north all the time,

as they knew U-boats were packing onto us.

(NARRATOR) Admiral Horton
was notified by Naval Intelligence

that "ONS 5” was sailing into trouble,

and for a time he was able
to offer some air support.

But by May 4th, the convoy was on its own

and on that day it sailed into packs
"*Aamsel" and "Fink’.

(ATKINSON) We received a signal,
and f remember it quite well:

"You are encircled by approximately 34 U-boats.

"You may expect attack from down moon,
at approximately 02.30."

(NARRATOR) Donitz sent a message
to the waiting boats, stating simply,

“Fight with everything you've got.
Strike the enemy dead.”

(LOOKS) / was able to take up
position on the port side of the convoy.

And when a gap opened between the destroyers,

| turned towards the convoy
and fired two double shots.

(ORDER IN GERMAN)

(LOOKS) A steamship was hit
and began to sink at once, on an even keel,

(NARRATOR)
That night, the pack sank seven ships.

When you had a mass attack,
as you had on “ONS 5",

the thing to do was to get them under the water
and they would lose contact with the convoy,

and that would be another night
they would be out of action.

(NARRATOR) On the morning of May 5th,
40 U-boats were still in pursuit.

But the escorts had one hidden advantage.

Some ships were equipped
with the latest radio direction—finding sets.

A great deal of chatter
went on among the U-boats,

the U-boats hadn't realised
that we were able to work on this chatter.

(NARRATOR) When the escorts picked up
a radio signal, they went in pursuit.

A log of contact was kept
by the commanding officer of HMS “Oribi".

"There's constant enemy wireless activity.

"A first-class bearing at 7-5-5,

“We see the smoke haze
from the submarine's diesel engines.

"The submarine dives and we have contact.
We drop a 10-charge pattern.”

(NARRATOR) The escort group sank a U-boat
that day, but four ships were lost.

At nightfall on the 5th, at least 1 U—boats
were still in close contact with the convoy.

(LOOKS) We heard the radio messages
from ali the other U-pboats.

We thought, "Oh, God, if they all
rush the convoy at once,

“this will end up as a ‘night of the long knives'.”

Suddenly, a thick pea-souper appeared.

i'd never seen anything uke it
out at sea — it was dreadful.

We heard on the radio that two or three
U-—boats were already in danger.

(NARRATOR)
At Western Approaches Headquarters,

the battle around the convoy
was plotted through the night.

Only if the escorts could find the pack
and drive it from the surface

would the defence succeed.

Radio detection, and above all radar,
would be the key to victory.

(ARCHIVE) Radio contact picked up on
the port bow, close to investigate at 14 knots.

(ARCHIVE)
We picked the submarine up on ASDIC.

(ARCHIVE) Radar contact, picked up ahead
at 3,400 yards, a torpedo fired from Red-20,

(ARCHIVE) Turned towards it
and passed it down on port side,

(ARCHIVE)
our pattern was dropped set at 150—feet.

(ARCHIVE) fé was a most promising attack.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

(TRANSLATION) While we doddered about
in this pea-souper, trying to achieve something,

we were almost rammed by a destroyer.

it suddenly appeared behind us,

Lighting up the stern of our U-boat
with a big searchlight on its foremast.

It thundered past our stern
with about three metres to spare.

(NARRATOR) Five U-boats
were sunk on the night of May 5th.

The operations chart
at U-Boat Command told its own story.

A total of nine boats lost
in the week—long battle.

A small escort group equipped
with radio detection and radar

had beaten off the largest concentration
of U-boats ever assembied.

Donitz called off the rest of the pack.

(LOOKS) That was depressing.

We realised that the “ONS 5” operation
had pretty much failed

and that it represented
a colossal setback for the U-—boats.

(SPEAKS GERMAN)

(NARRATOR) The crews that managed
to make it home in the spring of 1943

began to grumble about their U-boats,

it wasn't just Allied aircraft.

The escort ships were now able to detect them
as soon as they approached the convoys.

(TRANSLATION) We had one song,
which went something lke this.

(SINGS IN GERMAN)

(TRANSLATION) "Give me a little U-boat,

“a U-boat that can no longer be located,
Karl Donitz."

That was the kind of thing.

Once, coming into port after a short trip,

we were welcomed
by people singing these songs.

(NARRATOR) After "ONS 5", the convoy
battle seemed to follow a new pattern —

U-boats sunk for tittle or no loss.

By the end of May 7943,
the Air Gap had all but closed.

The huge Aliied technical and training effort
had thrown the U-boat on the defensive.

Among the dead was Donitz's own son, Peter.

On May 24th,
Denitz ordered ali his boats to withdraw

from the main North Atlantic routes.

ft was a bitter blow.

(TRANSLATION) He was really in despair.
He saw how things were going.

This was a very great burden for him,

(NARRATOR) As if to underscore
the importance of these successes,

just six weeks later,
the Allies celebrated the news

that American yards had replaced all the ships
lost in almost four years of the war.

They were building ships really...
very fast indeed.

In fact, it was a joke in America
that they were building ships so fast

that they were running out
of names for the new ships.

They couldn't come up with enough names.

(NEWSREEL) In one 24-hour working day,
27 brand-new ships slid down the ways.

Nowhere in the world
is such production possible.

The goal for 1943, 23 million tonnes of shipping.

(NARRATOR) Donitz called a meeting
with six of Ais most senior officers.

He asked if the campaign
in the Atlantic should continue.

The Aliies enjoyed overwhelming
material and technical superiority,

and it would be two years before
a submarine with high underwater speeds

could be developed.

(ROSING)
Everybody gave his view and this was,

even if we can no longer expect to make
an impact with the U-boat war,

as long as there is fighting,
we still have to keep up the pressure.

(TRANSLATION)
And when everyone had had his say,

myself last of all, Donitz said,

"OK, you have simply
confirmed what | also think."

(NARRATOR) The U-boat would fight on.

But Donitz knew well enough
that the cost of continuing would be very great.

(RAPID FIRING)

(NARRATOR) That summer,
the Allies mounted their Biscay campaign.

U-boats were attacked
as soon as they left their bases.

60 more U-boats were sunk in just three months.

Most of the crews were lost with their boats.

The few survivors that were fished
out of the Atlantic by the British

began to tell their interrogators of the growing
sense of unease in the U-boat messes.

(McFADYEAN) They knew
it was their duty not to give information,

but they were perfectly happy
to talk to other naval officers.

They then went back to their cabins,

and if they had somebody else
there with them, he might say,

“What are they asking you about?"
and he'd say,

"They wanted to know was so and so,
but | wasn't going to tell them",

and all this was being recorded,

(NARRATOR)
The picture emerging from these interrogations

was of a crisis of morale

Naval intelligence reported that
"Defeatist conversation was common".

The prisoners spoke of frequent fights
between Nazis and anti-Nazis.

Agents in the U-boat bases reported “proof”

that some crews were damaging machinery
to delay their departure on war patrol.

(TRANSLATION) We talked the same way about
this shitty war, if | may use that expression.

We said to each other, "For God's sake,
it just can't go on like this.

"We suffer losses and don't sink a single ship.

"Is it worth carrying on?"

(NARRATOR) Hitler believed so,

In October 1943, the U-boat ace Eric Topp
was invited to Flihrer headquarters.

it was soon clear to him
that Hitler remained stubbornly optimistic

about the future of the U-boat war.

Hopes now rested on the plans
for a revolutionary new submarine.

(TOPP) We were a group
of four or five submarine commanders

who had been invited to lunch by Hitler.

He said they were in the process
of developing new batteries

which would enable a U-boat
to remain underwater for days.

With these new batteries,

the U-boat could at last
become a true submarine.

(NARRATOR) In the meantime,

Donitz was forced to turn
to an old device to protect his crews —

the Schnorkei

Through this, air was drawn
down to the diesel engines.

/t meant the U-boat could remain
hidden just beneath the surface.

On 5th February 1944,

the first U-boat to be equipped
with the Schnorkel left on war patrol —

Hartwig Look's U-264,

(TRANSLATION) We ceased to think
we'd be successful in battle.

We realised that the U—boats arriving from home,
the new U-boats with young crews,

nearly all of them stayed out
and never came back.

(NARRATOR) Just days before,
the six ships of the Second Support Group

had left Northern Ireland to the strains
of “A Hunting We will Go".

The Allies now had enough ships
to form new escort groups

dedicated to hunting and killing U-boats.

(MUSIC "A HUNTING WE WILL GO")

The leader of the Second Support Group
was Captain johnny Walker.

(BUTCHARD) It was a hunt to him.
He would treat it as a sport.

For instance, we sank one submarine.

There was oil and debris on the surface

and he signalled to the captain of the ship
which had sunk the submarine and said,

"Come over here
and look what a mess you've made."

(NARRATOR)
As the Second Support Group was setting out,

@ British intercept station
picked up heavy signals traffic

some 200 miles to the west of freiand.

A pack of U-boats seemed to be
converging on convoy “ON 221",

The Admiralty sent Watker to intercept them,

(FIRING)

The group's hunt was filmed.

Walker had developed a new tactic,
the “creeping attack".

One ship, usually Walker's own,
the “Starling”, held sonar contact.

it directed one or more of the group in a slow,
creeping attack along the U-boat's course.

The rest of the group
formed a ring around the target.

Once a U-boat was caught in this,
it was almost impossible to escape.

In just 72 days, the group found
and sank five U-poats.

There were no survivors.

(EUSTACE) None of them came to the surface,

so the Admiralty needed proof
that a sinking had taken place.

And whatever tangible things
that they could get hold of

were picked up and put in the boat.

This was a rather gruesome thing,
picking up human remains.

(EXPLOSION)

(NARRATOR) On February 19th, Walker
picked up another contact, the U-264,

(LOOKS) That was really pretty terrible.

During this period, 12 hours,
we were submerged for 12 hours.

We got around 200 depth charges.

Just about everything
in the U-boat was smashed.

We shot out of the water like a champagne cork

and found ourselves inside the circle made
by Captain Walker's submarine chasers.

Captain Walker...

(RAPID FIRING)

(EUSTACE) They were swimming towards us,

We had 2 rule that unless we discovered

the number and name
of the captain of the submarine,

we would not pick them up.

A young boy was swimming towards us...

He came alongside
near to where the scrambling net was,

and | held his arm in my right hand
and another officer said,

“Weill, look, we're going
to ask them for the last time.”

And no sort of unified number came up,

and the call was, “Let the prisoner go."

But | can still feel

this young boy's arm or hand
sliding through my hand,

and | would say this lad
was no more than 16 years of age.

And it's something which has haunted me

for a very long period of time.

(NARRATOR) It was not Navy policy,
but on Walker's ship he made the rules,

The crew of the U-264 was prepared
to furnish him with all the details he required,

including intelugence on the Schnorkel

They were the only survivors
from six U-boats sunk in 20 days.

(TRANSLATION) They took me to the mess,

and three or four British officers
began bombarding me with questions.

One of them said,
"That was a very, very clever fight."

(IN ENGLISH) ..a very, very clever fight.

(TRANSLATION) That wasn't how | felt about it.

(PATRIOTIC MILITARY BAND MUSIC)

(EUSTACE) As we sailed in line ahead,

up the Mersey, / think we feit,
you know, pretty good.

(CROWD CHEERS)

There must have been hundreds of Wrens
and people cheering us as we came in.

(NARRATOR) Waiting to meet the group
was the First Lord of the Admiralty.

it was a moment of triumph which seemed
to symbolise the final victory in the Atlantic.

| want to say to you fellas

that | feel that you've had
an enormous part to play

in settling the issue against
the threat of dictatorship in Europe.

— Hip, hip, hip.
— Hooray!

(NARRATOR) Three months later,
British and American troops landed in France.

The Battle of the Atlantic was virtually over.

There was still rationing and food shortages,
but the convoys were arriving unmolested.

# On the land and the air and the sea
Let's swing out to victory

# Over here, over there, anywhere
We can take them one, two, three

# With a rip, a break and flare
Trumpets blasting through the air

# With a rat and a tat on the drum
Yeah, man #

The U-boat menace has for the time being
been practically effaced.

There was a recent month in which, up till
the last day, they did not sink a single ship.

(NARRATOR)
“Britain's ability to fight,” Churchill wrote,

“to Keep itself alive,
depended on the Battle of the Atlantic.”

Yet it was difficult to cheer the final victory.

More than half the ships sunk in the Atlantic
had flown the Red Ensign,

and 50,000 British seamen
died protecting the lifeline.

Donitz's fleet of new submarines
never sailed against the convoys.

The old boats fought on to the end.

650 were lost, and with them
30,000 U-boat men,

(KUALMAN) | could tell you, / wept.

All my comrades, who I'd spent
all those months with, had perished.

(TOPPS) We had been trained
to do our duty to the very end.

That's why we still put to sea.

(ADAMS) | don’t think many people
thought of us, we were an unseen war.

You didn't see the sunken ships
or the survivors who never made /t.

(HOLDING) Weil, it was our job.

We knew we were going out
and mightn't come back.

You never dwelt on it.

(NICHOLSON) This nation owes
those people a great deal.

if the North Atlantic convoy route had failed,
ali eise would have failed