All language subtitles for Combat.Ships.S01E10.Secrets.And.Lies.1080p.WEB.h264-CAFFEiNE_track3_[eng]

[missile roars]

Narrator: For centuries,
an extraordinary war has raged

Across the world's oceans,
above and below the waves.

Man: You could kill hundreds
of people with one broadside.

These were extremely powerful
war machines.

Narrator: Shipbuilders designed
bigger and faster vessels

To outwit and crush
their opponents.

Man: That nation that has the
most powerful battleship fleet

Can destroy the enemy's
battleship fleet

And therefore control the seas,

And if you control the seas,
you control the world.

Narrator: They carried
terrifying weapons.

Man: This was gonna be
the first time

That somebody had fired
a torpedo in anger

Since world war ii.

They needed to get it right.

Narrator: But ships
have also liberated

And rescued thousands.

Man: You could think
of gerda iii

As basically a lifeboat for
persons hunted by the nazis.

Narrator:
And inspired men and women

To acts of incredible bravery.

Man: I will take you there now,
to your cannons,

To your death,
we will sink before surrender.

Narrator: These vessels
and their crews

Have shaped world history.

Man: As the commanding officer
of a missile-carrying submarine,

I was directly responsible

For helping to prevent
world war iii.

[missile roars]

Narrator: This time,
the dark side of naval warfare.

A world of deception
and double-dealing...

And vessels in disguise.

Man: He'd get his crew
to come out on deck,

Sure that the ship
they were about to inspect

Was not carrying any guns
and then, whoops...

Sides would drop down,
lifeboats would turn into guns,

Royal navy crews
would appear from nowhere.

Narrator: The spy boat that
spurred japan into the war.

Man: This must count
as the most valuable

And unexpected
intelligence windfall

Possibly of the 20th century.

Narrator:
And the mysterious death

Of britain's
most famous soldier.

Man: The coffin was put
in a chapel overnight.

When it was opened, it was found
there was no body inside at all.

♪

[explosion]

♪

Narrator:
Warships may look invincible,

But they've always been
vulnerable in one area--

Attack from below.

For centuries, there have been
attempts to perfect a vessel

That could strike
while underwater.

The submarine.

After much trial and error,

One man created the blueprint
for all the subs that followed.

But his determination
for success drew him

Into the 19th century world

Of violent revolution
and political intrigue.

[explosion]

By the end of the 19th century,

Britain had the biggest and
most powerful navy in the world.

But they had no submarines.

One british admiral
described them as "underhand"

And a "damned un-english
weapon!"

But as other world powers
started to build subs,

The admiralty desperately
tried to catch up.

They searched for the most
technologically advanced design

And decided the vessels built

By an irishman
named john philip holland

Were by far the best.

Bob mealings:
John philip holland was a sort

Of natural born engineer,
self-taught.

He emigrated to america in 1873.

It is said that he emigrated
with just one suitcase,

And even the suitcase had plans

For early submarine
designs in it.

Narrator: In 1900,

The royal navy purchased
holland's designs

And built their own version.

This is the first submarine
commissioned by the royal navy,

Hms holland 1.

♪

Mealings: The holland boats
were the first real submarines

Primarily because

What john philip holland's
real genius was

Was to combine a number
of different technologies,

All of which were available
in the late 19th century,

Into a single unit.

So the holland-class boats
have petrol engines

To drive them on the surface,

Which gives them
the real ability

To travel a fair distance.

But that petrol engine
can be shut down,

And then once they dived

The submarine can then operate
off an electric motor.

Now, when the submarine
surfaces again,

The petrol engine is restarted

And the electric motor
is turned into a dynamo--

It recharges the batteries.

In the holland 1 class

You see basically all
the fundamental technology

That was to shape submarine
design for the next 50 years.

Narrator: But the holland boats
had a secret.

They were funded
by an organization

That hated
the british government...

An organization prepared to use
violence to achieve its aims.

The fenian brotherhood
was an irish organization

Fighting against british rule.

They had plenty of supporters
in the united states.

One was john philip holland's
brother, michael.

In 1880, michael holland
made an audacious proposal--

That the fenians
finance building a sub

To terrorize the british.

Mealings: There isn't actually
any great deal of evidence

That john philip himself
was politically motivated,

But as a true
and obsessive engineer,

He was quite happy to receive
finance from wherever he could,

And the design of his submarines
and their construction

Was expensive,

And the fenians were prepared
to put up the money

To develop a weapon
which they thought

That they could actually deploy
against the royal navy.

Narrator: The result was
the fenian ram.

Launched in 1881,
the submarine was equipped

With a revolutionary
"dynamite gun"

That could fire
steel projectiles.

Early trials were successful,

And the fenians were confident
that their experimental sub

Could soon be used against
the despised royal navy.

But holland became unhappy
with his financiers.

Mealings: He fell out
with the fenians

Because they wanted to take
control of the submarines

And operate themselves,

And as a result
they ended up sinking

At least one
of the submarine designs,

Which they stole
from john philip's yard

Without telling him.

Narrator: Holland split
with the brotherhood.

He started his own company,
perfected his designs,

And in 1900 sold a submarine
to the u.S. Navy,

Who christened it
the uss holland.

Across the atlantic,

The royal navy soon followed
with hms holland.

Mealings: The holland design

Was a brilliant design
for its time.

Had it not been so good

The royal navy might have
discarded the whole notion

Of developing submarines.

The holland design
really sets the blueprint

For the next 50 years.

[gunfire]

Narrator: 13 years after
the launch of the holland 1,

Britain was at war with germany.

The country was in desperate
need of men willing to fight.

[explosion]

This recruiting poster became
one of the most famous images

Of the first world war.

Urging men to enlist is
the secretary of state for war,

Lord horatio herbert kitchener.

By the end of the 19th century,

Kitchener was known as the man
who'd conquered the sudan.

The poster became
a powerful recruiting tool.

But two years later,
the great war hero was dead--

Drowned off the coast
of scotland.

His death remains one of
the great mysteries of the war.

In the spring of 1916,

The situation
on the eastern front

Was deteriorating.

The russians were short
of munitions

And morale in the army was low.

With a german victory imminent,
the british decided

A confidential diplomatic
mission offering help

Was urgently needed.

It was to be led by a man

Greatly respected
by the russians--

The 65-year-old war hero
lord kitchener.

On June 4, 1916,
kitchener traveled from london

To the naval base at scapa flow
in the orkneys.

There he boarded the cruiser
that would take him to russia--

Hms hampshire.

♪

Andrew hollinrake: She was very
heavily armored for her time;

Six-inch armor, and cruisers
were designed to be long range.

Basically to operate for
the fleet anywhere in the world,

All around the empire.

Designed to be fast

And take on really anything
smaller than a battleship.

Narrator: German u-boats
patrolled the north sea.

So when hms hampshire
set sail on June 5th,

She was escorted
by two destroyers.

They were ordered to sail
at a speedy 18 knots.

Ships traveling at that speed
were a hard target for u-boats.

But then, a violent storm

Suddenly blew in
from the northeast.

Emily turton:
So the decision was made,

Instead of going
the normal route,

Which would have been
out to the east

Of the northern isles of orkney,

The decision was taken
that hampshire

Was going to go out to the west

And therefore would be protected
from the northeasterly gales

By the big cliffs
that run up the west side

Of orkney's mainland.

Hollinrake: Now, they regularly
swept the east coast of orkney

For mines, because it was
such a regular route.

Now, this hadn't been done
on the west side.

Turton: During the voyage,
the wind shifts dramatically

And increases
to gale force nine,

But from the northwest.

Because of this,
the escort ships with hampshire

Had to turn back,
and hampshire continued alone.

Narrator:
At 7:40 in the evening,

About a mile from land,
hms hampshire suddenly exploded.

[explosion]

The center of the vessel
was ripped apart.

She began to sink...Fast.

Turton: So I think for the men
that went into the water,

They would have been able
to see the cliffs.

They would have been able to see

What would have been
their salvation,

And I think to perish
that close to shore

Would have been just terrifying.

♪

Hollinrake: It's thought that
probably about 500 of the crew

Died within the first hour--

Some from the explosion,
some from exposure,

Some of them dragged down
as the ship sank.

Narrator: Only 12 men survived.
737 died.

The bodies recovered from
the sea were buried on orkney.

But what of lord kitchener,

The man synonymous
with the war effort?

There were reports
that he was on deck

As they struggled to get
the lifeboats launched.

Hollinrake:
One of the survivors reported

That he heard
the gunnery officer saying,

"make way for lord kitchener,"

But, uh, none of the survivors
say they saw kitchener

Getting into one of the boats.

Narrator:
The news of kitchener's death

Made headlines around the world.

The british public found it
hard to believe

That the man who embodied
the british war effort was gone.

With the death
of such a public figurehead,

Conspiracy theories immediately
began to spring up.

One rumor claimed kitchener
was alive and living in russia.

Another suggested that
a german spy on the hampshire

Directed a u-boat
to torpedo the ship.

[explosion]

One man determined to solve
the mystery of kitchener's death

Was a journalist
named frank power.

The government had remained
quiet about the drowning.

So power came up with
some theories of his own.

Hollinrake: Now he was stirring
the story up in 1925, 1926,

Mostly to sell
his own publications,

And the navy reacted
at the time by saying

That they saw no need
for a public enquiry,

That's not how they did things,

And that there was no need
for further investigation.

Narrator: One claim by power

Was that kitchener did flee
the sinking ship,

But was shot by a british agent
as he made it to shore.

Hollinrake:
The day after the sinking,

Soldiers were posted to prevent
the public from getting close;

Not because
of any great secrecy,

But they did want
to keep them away

Because there were a lot
of bodies washing ashore,

And, uh, not intact bodies
at that.

Narrator: Frank power persisted
with more outlandish theories

And continued his search.

He even claimed to have found
kitchener's body,

Which had been washed ashore
in norway.

Hollinrake: And then he brought
it all the way down to london,

And the intention was
that it would be, uh,

He would be buried
at westminster abbey,

So the coffin was put
in a chapel overnight,

But the coroner in westminster

Decided that the coffin
should be checked,

And, uh, when it was opened,

It was found there was
no body inside at all.

Narrator: In 2014
all the government papers

On the loss of hms hampshire
were finally released.

Despite rumors of sabotage,
it's now certain

That she was sunk by a mine
laid by a german u-boat.

One of hampshire's propellers
was brought ashore

And stands as an unofficial
memorial on orkney.

The sinking was a stark reminder

Of the deadly threat posed
by german u-boats.

To defeat them, the royal navy
turned to a form of deception

That was quite
out of the ordinary...

Modern art!

A long-retired warship is moored

On England's river medway
in kent.

Her unique paint job
and her hull shape tell a story

Of wartime lies
and deceit on a massive scale.

This is hms president.

♪

In the first world war,

The greatest menace
to allied shipping

Was the formidable
and elusive german u-boat.

[explosion]

Merchant vessels
were an easy target.

The british needed a plan.

Christopher cooper: The ships
themselves were often done out

In very proud british colors,

But that gave anyone
who wanted to attack them

A very clear idea
of exactly what ship it was.

Once it became clear
that that was helping u-boats,

They had to think
about other changes.

Narrator: Desperate measures
were needed, and in 1917,

Inspiration came not from
the world of naval architecture,

But from an unlikely source.

Cooper: An idea came up
which had been used by artists,

Young contemporary artists--
picasso, for instance--

Who were breaking up the lines

Of paintings and portraits
and still lives

In order to show people
a different view

Of what that object looked like.

And the concept came about,

Well, if you could do that

With paintings,
with bowls of fruit,

You could do that with a ship

So that it would confuse
the u-boat captain

As to which direction
the ship was going,

And what speed was it going,

And was there one ship
or two ships or three ships,

Because that was what was
necessary for the u-boat captain

In order to decide
where to fire his torpedo.

Narrator: The man behind
this extraordinary idea

Was an artist named
norman wilkinson.

He worked out
that you could never

Completely camouflage a ship,

Because the funnels
would always give it away.

But you could confuse the enemy

By turning your ship
into a floating picasso!

The technique became known
as dazzle painting.

Cooper: Norman wilkinson threw
a great deal of enthusiasm

Into the idea of
dazzle painting the ships.

In fact, he set up a studio in
the royal academy in piccadilly

Where he had 50 or 60 people

Working on little models
of ships

And painting them in a way

That the models could then
be sent to the dockyard

Where, heaven knows
what they thought,

But the ship painters
would be there

With all these bright,
brilliant colors,

Painting the ships
to these extraordinary shapes.

Narrator:
The technique was unproven

And hugely time-consuming.

But it was taken up
on a massive scale.

Merchant ships, warships
and troop ships

Were all painstakingly repainted
in minute detail.

Cooper: When we decorated
this ship with the dazzle design

To help the commemoration
of world war I,

It took us six or seven days
to get the ship covered

In the dazzle paint
that we have now,

And they were six or seven
intensive working days.

To do 2,000 ships,
as they did in world war I,

With a broom and a bucket,
it was an awesome task.

I suspect the royal navy
were rather shocked

And perhaps appalled
by the fact that their ship

Was suddenly turning,
went off to the dockyard

And came back looking
like a children's playground.

But if it meant the ship
was gonna be safer to operate,

Then I think the crews
were much happier.

Narrator: Hms president
wasn't just disguised.

She also had a secret weapon.

She and hundreds
of other warships were designed

To lure u-boats into a trap

By exploiting
the submarine's weakness.

Cooper: Torpedoes were expensive

And a submarine could only carry
a limited number.

So the u-boat captain
would prefer

To approach the cargo ship
on the surface,

To check and see what goods
the ship was carrying.

Narrator: A submarine is
most vulnerable on the surface.

[gun fires]

So the british admiralty created
a whole new class of vessel

With the codename queenstown,

After the irish port
where they were based.

But they were known
simply as q-ships.

Cooper: It was created
so that the u-boat thought

It was an unarmed cargo ship,

And therefore the u-boat

Would approach the cargo ship
on the surface.

It did have the ability
to turn very quickly

And ram the u-boat.

Narrator: Q-ships were designed

To inflict maximum damage
in a collision

While staying seaworthy
themselves.

Hms president was one of the 360
q-ships built by the navy.

Cooper: One of the key things
you'll notice about the ship

Is how close the ribs
of the ship were constructed,

Therefore making the ship

An extremely strong vessel
altogether.

And if you go
to the bow of the ship,

It's rather beautiful,

But you'll see these ribs come
closer and closer together

So that the actual point
of the ship

Almost looks like an axe,

And the reason for that was

That was the strength
of the bow of the ship,

Reinforced as it was,

Could take on any u-boat and
disable it just by ramming it.

Narrator: Hms president
was built as a ram,

But she also packed
a lethal punch.

She had two 4-inch guns
and two 12-pounders

To attack submarines
on the surface.

Some of the guns were
ingeniously concealed.

Cooper: So the u-boat captain

Would be looking
through his periscope.

He'd get his crew
to come out on deck,

Having been sure that the ship
they were about to inspect

Was not carrying any guns,
and then, whoops...

Sides would drop down,
lifeboats would turn into guns,

Royal navy crews
would appear from nowhere,

And before the u-boat captain

Could get his crew
back into the conning tower,

Back into the submarine,
back dive, dive, dive,

The q-ship would have hit her
and rammed her

And disabled the u-boat.

Narrator: Although the concept
of q-ships was deception,

The admiralty insisted
on ships' captains

Sticking to the rules
of engagement.

Cooper: The meeting of a u-boat
and a q-ship

Was a little bit of theater.

So before anybody could pull
the trigger on any gun

Or turn the ship to,
in actual fact, ram the u-boat,

The flags had to be changed

And then men in royal navy gear
could appear on the decks.

So an exciting piece of theater
which would take place,

Being fatal for either
the u-boat or the q-ship.

Narrator: One of the two vessels

Was certain not to survive
the encounter.

The q-ship confrontations
of the first world war

Showed just how effective
disguising a ship could be.

20 years later,
a german vessel would achieve

An even greater level
of deception

And make an amazing discovery.

During the second world war,

The germans engaged
in the art of deception

With an audacious scheme
of their own.

This is the story of one
of the most successful con games

Of the second world war.

Germany knew
that to win the war

They had to hit
the british merchant fleet.

But their navy lacked resources.

Three pocket battleships
weren't enough.

They came up
with an ingenious idea

Of converting existing ships

Into something
much more menacing.

Andrew gordon:
If you add a number

Of merchant ship conversions,

Which went out into
the sea lanes in disguise,

More or less equipped
as q-ships,

With guns and things

Behind behind false bulkheads
and so on,

Then they, too, could act
as merchant raiders

And disrupt the passage of
merchant ships around the world.

Narrator: One of the ships
they converted

Was a cargo ship
called the goldenfels.

A feat of naval engineering
and disguise,

She used her best attributes
to her advantage.

She was renamed atlantis.

♪

Gordon: She was quite a big
merchant ship for her day.

And she had a range
of about 60,000 miles,

Which was just astonishing,

And not really until
nuclear propulsion

Could warships match that.

Narrator:
The idea was a simple one.

Atlantis would use
her enormous range

To hunt merchant ships
and capture or sink them.

She would have
the element of surprise,

Because her firepower
would be cleverly concealed.

Gordon: Her weapons would be
hidden behind hinged bulkheads,

Which could drop down,

Revealing guns already loaded
and waiting to open fire.

Narrator: If stopped
by a british warship,

She would be hard to identity
as an enemy vessel.

Gordon: Atlantis had to become
expert at disguises,

So she'd have ways
of altering her profile,

And she could claim to belong
to various different nations,

And she was really buying time,

And maybe if darkness
arrived fairly soon,

She could slip away
before the british cruiser

Got the answer back
from the admiralty

As to whether that was
a genuine identity or not.

Atlantis would be able to alter
the shape of her funnel.

She would have false masts

Or maybe change the height
of her masts.

She could change
her paint scheme

And she could put up
canvas screens

To look like bulkheads
or structures on board.

Narrator: In March 1940,

Under the command
of captain bernhard rogge,

She sailed from germany

While undergoing a number
of disguises along the way.

Initially, she was disguised

As a neutral soviet vessel.

As she headed for the shipping
lanes of the south atlantic,

The kim transformed
into a japanese vessel

Called the kasii maru.

Her first victim was a british
cargo ship called scientist,

Sunk off the coast of africa.

Atlantis then sailed east,

Pretending to be a dutch ship
called the abbekerk.

By November 1940, atlantis
had sunk 11 vessels.

When possible, captain rogge
rescued their crews

And transferred them
to other ships.

He looked after his own men
as well,

Sharing captured goods
such as beer and sweets.

[crew laughing]

The atlantis was feared.

British merchant vessels
began lengthening their voyages

Just to avoid her.

The royal navy
sent four warships

To track down
the audacious raider.

Then, on November 11th,

The atlantis came across
a british cargo passenger liner

Called the automedon.

The confrontation
would reveal a secret,

Highly advantageous for
the germans and their allies.

Gordon: And when she's
really quite close,

Up goes the german flag,
down go all the fake bulkheads,

And she starts revealing
her guns

And starts firing
a couple of warning shots.

And does an awful lot of damage
to her superstructure

And upper works,
killing several men.

Narrator: A boarding party
crossed to the automedon.

The expectation was that they'd
discover weapons, ammunition,

Or even riches.

But what they found was
food supplies and bags of mail!

Gordon:
In the ship's chart house

They found a green bag
full of some documents,

And they just grabbed them
along with everything else,

But no indication that this was
anything out of the ordinary

Except another
successful interception

And destruction
of an allied merchant ship.

Narrator: Captain rogge
could read english

And recognized the significance
of the papers.

Gordon: On board automedon
were some war cabinet minutes

Which contained
a completely blunt appraisal

Of how vulnerable britain
had become in the far east.

The papers should have been
thrown overboard, they weren't.

Narrator: The officer assigned
to protect the documents

Had been killed.

Britain's far east assessment

Was particularly valuable
to japan,

Anxious to expand its empire

And take on british
and american territories.

Gordon: This must count
as the most valuable

And unexpected
intelligence windfall,

Possibly of the 20th century.

This is world
strategic importance,

And, in due course,
those papers ended up

In possession of
the japanese navy in tokyo.

Narrator: The japanese realized

That if they attacked
an american base,

Britain couldn't help.

[explosion]

They targeted pearl harbor.

Atlantis continued
her remarkable secret mission

For 12 more months.

Then, on November 22nd,
she rendezvoused with a u-boat

North of ascension island
in the south atlantic.

She was spotted by the british
heavy cruiser hms devonshire.

The warship signaled
to the merchant vessel

To identify herself.

Gordon: Devonshire isn't fooled
by the reply atlantis gives,

And she has the sense
to keep away,

Out of the range
of any possible guns

That this strange ship
might have.

And, in the end, she engaged
atlantis with her 8-inch guns,

And that is the end of atlantis.

Narrator: Captain rogge
was the last to abandon ship.

He and most of the crew
were rescued by a german u-boat.

During her 602-day voyage,

Atlantis achieved
some remarkable results.

She sank 22 ships and managed
to change the course of the war.

In 1986, a danish wreck hunter
made an amazing discovery

In the waters
between denmark and sweden.

It was a german u-boat,
rumored to be full of nazi gold!

It wasn't until August 1993

That the ship was finally
brought to the surface.

It's name: U-534.

♪

Chris ince:
She's a type ixc/40 u-boat,

So she was an ocean-going type.

She could travel in excess
of 13,000 nautical miles,

Stay away at sea
for three months.

Narrator: The salvaged sub
was one of over a thousand

Built by the german navy.

U-534 was well-armed
for conflict in the atlantic.

Ince: She was equipped
for being on the offensive

By having six torpedo tubes;

She had four torpedo tubes
forward and two aft,

And she could fire
different types of torpedo

As well as laying mines.

♪

Narrator: Submarines
could easily be detected

By surface vessels using sonar.

But u-534 had an ingenious
counter strategy.

Ince: U-boats were sometimes
equipped with a device

Called the pillenwerfer,
or pill thrower,

Which is where the rectangular
opening is there.

That would have originally had
a plate over it

With just a small aperture.

From inside the u-boat

They could fire out a canister
of a chemical

Which would react with seawater,
and that would fizz very loudly,

Which would really disrupt
the sonar on any allied ships.

Narrator: Despite bristling
with firepower,

U-534 was not intended
as an attack submarine.

It had a little-known
but crucial role

In the battle of the atlantic.

Ince: She was used for training
and for weapons testing,

And an important role
that she was used for

And one of her biggest patrols

Was actually
weather forecasting,

Weather reporting
out in the north atlantic.

It was very important
for the war effort

To know what weather was coming
across to europe.

Narrator: By 1945,
the allies had the upper hand.

They had warships equipped

With sophisticated depth charges
and short-wave radar sets.

The u-boat crews
were on the run.

Ince: Chances of survival
were fairly poor, actually.

In the early days of the war

When they were being very
successful, reasonably good,

But as we got better and better
at sinking them,

Their chances started
to really diminish.

So you're talking
about 40,000 men

Were trained to work on u-boats
during world war ii,

And about 30,000 of them
were killed.

It's a 75% mortality rate;
it was really harsh.

Narrator:
U-534 should have had

A good chance
to survive the war.

[explosion]

By may 1945, germany
was close to surrender.

Hitler was dead,
berlin had fallen,

And on may 5th, the german navy
ordered all submarines,

Including u-534, to surrender.

♪

But her crew had other ideas.

U-534 was spotted
by raf liberator bombers

Off the coast of denmark.

Ince: She made no attempt
to surrender,

And in fact she
opened fire on them,

Succeeding in shooting
one of them down.

One of the liberator bombers

Succeeded in dropping
a depth charge,

Which landed
upon the deck behind us.

It rolled off, detonated,

Causing the damage
that we can see here.

So clearly we can see the damage
to the outer hull,

It's just a thin plating there,
but inside is the pressure hull.

That pressure hull
was completely ruptured,

There is a large split in it,
and it let in seawater.

It was unrecoverable,

So the order was given
to abandon ship.

Narrator:
47 men escaped in rafts,

But five went down
with the boat,

Trapped in the torpedo room.

After the sub hit the seabed
200 feet down, they bailed out.

Ince: Once the forward
torpedo room had flooded,

They were able to open
the torpedo loading hatch

And surface.

Sadly one of those guys
passed away,

Having held his breath
as he surfaced,

And that caused
terrible lung damage.

We think the other two died
from exposure.

Narrator: Two men managed
to escape and survive.

It was a miracle that only
three men from u-534 died.

But why did the captain
put their lives at risk?

Why did u-534
refuse to surrender?

For years after the war,

There was intense speculation
that she was carrying nazi gold.

This led to the salvage
operation in 1993.

Brought up with the sub were
crew records and documents--

Even a legendary
enigma cipher machine.

But there was no nazi gold.

There was, however,
an amazing find--

A secret revolutionary torpedo
called the t-11.

Ince: This was
cutting-edge technology

At the end of world war ii.

It was an acoustic torpedo,

So it would listen out
for its target.

Here at the nose is where

All the listening equipment
and tech was,

Leading onto the warhead.

This warhead, 440 pounds
of hexanite high explosive.

Narrator:
Acoustic torpedoes struck

By homing in on the shockwaves

Created by a ship's
rotating propeller.

However, the allies had designed
a decoy known as a foxer--

A device towed behind a ship

Simulating the noise
of a propeller.

Ince: This version, the t-11,
was actually intelligent

And it could tell
the difference.

Rather than just listen out
for the loudest sound,

It would pick out
the actual ship's propeller

Rather than the foxer device.

Narrator: This high-tech torpedo
could be the reason

Why u-534's skipper
refused to give up his sub.

One theory is that he was
trying to get it to japan--

Germany's ally
still fighting in the pacific.

Ince:
She might have been smuggling

This latest weapons technology
off to their allies in japan.

She had the range to get there.

She was fully fueled up,
full of food,

And quite easily
could have done that journey.

Narrator: But if u-534
had made it to japan,

It would have been too late
to alter the course of the war.

But it wasn't just the germans.

The u.S. Had surprises
of their own.

They were getting ready
for a massive invasion,

And a secret experimental vessel
was a key part of the plan.

Among the iconic
world war ii patrol boats

In the battleship cove museum
in massachusetts

Is an odd-looking wooden craft.

When the museum acquired it
in the 1970s,

They believed it was
a japanese kamikaze boat,

Built for suicide missions
against allied warships.

Then, in 2011, classified
cia documents were released,

Revealing it to be
nothing of the kind.

The boat was not japanese,
but in fact, american.

It was a semi-submersible,

Developed and built
by the forerunner of the cia--

The office of
strategic services--the oss.

Donald shannon: It was designed
to run shallow in the water

Just enough for the glass cupola
and the stacks

To be above the water.

Only two of these vessels
were built.

Narrator: The men who developed
this secret craft

Nicknamed it gizmo.

♪

Gizmo was built for the
pacific war version of d-day--

An amphibious invasion of japan
called operation olympic.

X-day, as it was known,
would be November 1, 1945.

Supported by bombers,

Over 42 aircraft carriers
and 400 destroyers

Would be involved.

Intelligence on military bases
near the invasion sites

Was essential.

Korean spies were key
to operation olympic's success.

Korea had been under
japanese control since 1905,

And there were plenty
of recruits available.

Shannon: The idea was
these two vessels

Were gonna be operated
by one oss agent piloting it

And two korean operatives
inside the vessel.

They would be transported in
on a submarine.

They would sneak in at night
using a compass with no light,

Navigate into the beach
of japan,

Drop off two korean operatives,
return to the submarine,

Pick up two more
korean operatives

And make the trip one more time.

A seven-hour trip with three men
in this very small vessel.

The steering mechanism

Is actually very much like
a similar, like go-kart--

Just a small handle you push
back and forth for the rudder.

Narrator: The gizmos were tested
at night, without permission,

Outside the los angeles
naval base.

If discovered, they would be
treated as enemy vessels.

Shannon: The idea was to sneak
into the naval base undetected--

Even the naval base
was not aware

That they were sneaking in--

To make the challenge
more realistic.

Narrator: The gizmos
succeeded every time,

Thanks to their
ingenious design.

Shannon: The low profile

Just running
just above the water

Was one way to avoid the radar.

The stacks above the waterline

Were actually wrapped
with steel wool

To also deflect
the radar signals.

Narrator: But x-day
and operation olympic

Never materialized.

The gizmo teams never made it
beyond american waters.

Unknown to any of them,

A parallel strategy to end
the war was being developed.

[explosion]

On August 6th
an atomic bomb was dropped

On the japanese city
of hiroshima.

Japan surrendered
nine days later.

The secret gizmo project
was cancelled.

But 60 years of intrigue, spying
and deception wasn't over.

It had become part and parcel
of modern warfare.

The end of the second world war

Meant that all that creativity
and ingenuity

Would now be directed
at a new enemy...

The soviet union.

The secrets and lies continued.