Original subtitles

(narrator) The Atlantic. Britain's lifeline.

Treacherous enough in peacetime,

in war, black with menace.

U-boat packs stalk through the night.

Knowing the danger, their victims still plough on.

(speaking German)

(narrator) Ships and cargoes go down.

Their crews - some of them - surVive,

but early in 1943 it is Britain's surVival

and the Allied hopes for victory over Germany which are in doubt.

When war began, Britain saw Germany's big ships

as the main threat to her sea trade.

So did the Germans.

Germany's surface raiders savaged the merchant fleet

on which Britain depended for much of her food,

most of her raw materials, and all of her oil.

Germany's U-boats were to operate in coastal waters,

sweeping up anything leff by the battleships.

Both Britain and Germany were wrong.

The real naval menace was to be the U-boat.

At least one man knew this - Karl Doenitz, chief of the U-boat arm.

He could've been wrong too, if Hitler had delayed his war with Britain

until all the battleships planned for the German Navy had been built.

As it was, Doenitz was certain

that with enough submarines, he could win the war at sea.

He had proved it to himself 20 years before.

ln October 1918,

(Doenitz) l was captain of a submarine

in the Mediterranean near Malta.

ln a dark night l met a British convoy

with cruisers and destroyers

and l attacked

and l sank a ship,

but the chance would have been very much greater

if there had been a lot of submarines.

That's why the idea of a wolf pack,

to put the submarines together that they could attack together,

was very impressive,

and that's why in all the years from 1918

until the year 1935

when we had the first submarines again in the German Navy

l never had forgotten this idea.

(narrator) Underwater, the 1939 U-boat was slow.

On the surface, it was faster than any convoy of merchant ships.

With its low silhouette it could not be seen easily, especially at night.

But its targets were outlined clearly against the sky...

and with radio, the U-boats could quickly assemble into hunting packs.

Doenitz knew Britain would try to protect essential Atlantic trade

by a system of convoys escorted by warships.

To attack these convoys, Doenitz wanted 300 U-boats.

When the war started he had only 26.

And these boats had long, dangerous voyages from base

before they could reach their targets.

When France fell,

Doenitz gained new bases much nearer the shipping routes.

His Sea Wolves returned to these French ports as heroes.

One especial hero was Otto Kretschmer.

ln all, Kretschmer sank over a quarter of a million tons of British shipping.

ln October 1940, he joined the first real wolf pack.

l remember that there was a signal that a convoy was coming in

from America to England

and that its position was not known

and that Doenitz ordered all the submarines there,

to the west of lreland,

to form a sort of recce line, a stationary recce line,

to let the convoy pass through.

And when the first submarine was sighted

the convoy made a signal, its contact signal,

and this recce line was dissolved automatically,

and every boat was free to go in for the attack.

(narrator) Convoy SC-7 , on the night of 17 October 1940,

was passing Rockall.

34 merchantmen, four small escort ships.

Seven U-boats attacked on the surface.

The attack took the same form as that we were used to,

which was a single ship being struck.

Very shortly affer that a second one was struck,

and then, within a matter of five to ten minutes,

further ships were struck.

l tried to get through the escorts into the convoy,

which was my own peculiarity of attacking,

and failed the first time.

They saw me and shot star shells so that l had to draw away again.

But the second time l succeeded and was inside the convoy

going up and down the lanes looking for the most important, valuable ships

and had the opportunity to expend all torpedoes.

l had 12 in all.

(Sherwood) l could see ships in various stages of sinking.

A Dutch ship had stopped

and was attempting to pick up surVivors,

and whilst l actually watched her doing this

and was considering what to do about it,

she also herself was torpedoed.

This, along with another torpedoing,

set the whole place ablaze.

(narrator) That night 17 merchantmen, exactly half the convoy, were sunk.

The escorts had not been able to damage a single U-boat.

l don't think l had ever seen more than one ship sunk at a time before,

and this was something very different indeed.

This really was the first time

that these tactics could be experienced by all of us

and also by Doenitz himself,

who, of course, knew it only from our peacetime training.

And the whole night, l think, was a success.

lt was called the Night of the Long Knives

because so many ships were sunk.

(narrator) ln the first nine months of the war,

the Allies lost over 2 million tons of merchant shipping.

ln the next six months, with the U-boats operating from France,

nearly 2.5 million tons more went down.

There were medals galore.

U-boat crews called this "the happy time".

(man) l saw the ship going up, the stern going underwater.

She went right up on end, then backwards.

And l went down with her. Affer a bit l came to the surface,

and l was still sitting on the overturned bridge boat,

when l saw the submarine surfacing.

He went round and started picking up cases out of the water -

general cargo, possibly spirits, foodstuff and so forth.

They looked at us, circled round for a bit,

laughed at us and went away to the northeast.

They never asked if we had any water, if we had any damages or anything else.

And we were leff floating amongst wreckage in one boat.

We were halfway between Brazil and North Africa.

The only thing l could think about

was trying to get to the land as near as possible,

so l set the course as near as l could to the northeast.

All we had was the one lifeboat, which was made for 48 people.

We picked up 58.

There wasn't really room enough for anybody to sit down.

The boat was leaking badly through being on the chocks for some time.

You had quite a bit of trouble getting the crew to move so you could bail,

and you bailed for nearly two days

until the wood of the boat started to swell and to tighten up.

Affer that it wasn't so bad.

The worst days, of course,

were when there was no wind.

Absolutely becalmed.

The sun was terrific.

So we started off by giving 4oz of water -

2oz in the morning and 2oz at night - and one biscuit.

There was a lot of noise in the boat. There were Chinese.

l said, "What's all the bobbery?"

Which is a lot of talky-talky, you know.

He said, "l think number one fireman go crazy."

So he eventually jumped over the side with a lifejacket on.

And affer a wee while we got him back again.

And later that night in the darkness he jumped again.

We didn't get him back because the sharks got him.

On the morning of the 13th -

l'd sit on the water barrel to make sure nobody helped themselves -

and somebody shook me and said, "Hey, Captain, we see lights, green lights."

"Oh," l said, "you're dreaming, you're dreaming."

And l looked round and l saw some green lights.

lt looked to me like New Brighton pier. l couldn't make it out.

So l said, "Well, burn a flare."

They burned a flare. Jimmy said, "Burn another flare."

They burned another flare.

And affer a bit l saw the green lights getting closer. More visible.

Then affer a bit l saw a red light above the green,

and then it dawned on me that it was a hospital ship.

(narrator) The U-boats had eyes in the air.

Focke-Wulf Condor aircraff could range 1,000 miles out to sea

to scout for convoys.

When used to bomb shipping, the Condors sank 30 ships in two months.

Luckily for Britain,

this partnership with the U-boat was never properly exploited.

But Doenitz did exploit the fact that German naval intelligence

had broken the British codes.

We were aware that the intelligence for some reason was good,

but l myself put this down to very superior hydrophone equipment

that the submarines had,

that the U-boats had in their boats,

probably being able to pick up the noise of a convoy's propellers

up to 80 or even 100 miles.

But in addition,

l know that they would place their U-boats

in a line across, at right angles to the expected line of the convoy.

And this line for, say, five U-boats, could be 100 miles from end to end.

And so with good hydrophones,

very little disguise of the position of a convoy could be effected.

lt was only affer the war that we knew that they were breaking the codes

and that they knew very well

the time of leaving port that the convoys had

and how many escorts there were

and how many merchant ships in each convoy.

(ticking)

(explosion)

(narrator) The Royal Navy, searching for U-boats underwater,

had pinned its faith on asdic, an echo-sounding device.

But U-boats were attacking convoys on the surface.

The navy was not prepared for this.

(man) Convoy defence is not very glamorous

and between the wars, l think rather naturally,

the navy were inclined to concentrate on more glamorous activities

like great mass torpedo attacks

and that sort of thing.

All the information about the lessons

of World War l were available.

For those who wanted to read them, the lessons were there.

But l'm afraid no one bothered.

And as a result trade defence as a whole, was very badly neglected.

(narrator) The neglect continued.

ln the early days, convoys could only be escorted

for about 300 miles from each Atlantic coast.

There just weren't enough escort ships.

Those available lacked endurance and their crews were virtually untrained.

(Sherwood) My officers were RNVR officers.

One was a civil engineer by profession.

The other two were Canadian sublieutenants,

both of the age of between 20 and 21 ,

who had come from Canada as passengers

and that was their seagoing experience.

The heads of department were regulars -

some of them had retired and called back -

and there were two or three seamen who were of the pukka serVice,

and the rest were straight in.

(narrator) Air cover was to prove all-important,

but surprisingly the navy's carriers did not at first supply it.

That task went to the RAF, although Coastal Command was ill prepared.

(man) With the exception of Sunderland flying boats, a very small number,

all the other aircraff except the Anson were lash-ups.

They were borrowed from entirely dissimilar functions

in order to do this job in Coastal Command.

Secondly, the navigation aids were not there.

lt was entirely dead-reckoning navigation.

And whereas an experienced navigator can look at the sea,

estimate the wind and where he's likely to be in an hour's time,

this is very difficult for a new boy.

And since the point to be navigated to, the convoy, was offen equally at error,

it was no wonder that we failed to meet many convoys.

So lack of equipment, lack of training and unsuitable aircraff

were certainly severe handicaps at the beginning of the war.

What is more, cooperation between the navy and the air force in the field,

while they're at sea, was very bad indeed,

mainly due to stupid quarrels between senior officers in Whitehall.

lt took nearly two years before we had anything like the right cooperation

between ships and aircraff.

lt was a disgrace and a tragedy.

So many ships were sunk and so many lives lost unnecessarily

during those first few years.

(narrator) So seamen suffer

from quarrels in Whitehall, from the U-boats and from the sea.

(man) Now by popular request, the Western Approaches signature tune.

♪ Someone's rocking my dream boat

♪ Someone's invading my dream

♪ We were sailing along so peaceful and calm

♪ Suddenly something went wrong

lt's very hard to describe to someone on the land affer a tough convoy -

by tough l mean bad weather,

especially in the wintertime -

what just over two weeks at sea is,

living on corned beef and hard tack.

And this is not a fallacy.

We used to do this quite offen

when the seas came in and put the galley fires out.

You couldn't just cook anything hot.

The lucky ones had hammocks

and the unfortunate ones had to lie on the lockers,

and it was very discomforting.

You used to get chaps coming down from the middle watch, four o'clock,

wet through, just cgambering on a gocker

and the poor chap already trying to sleep would get soaked.

There was no hygiene there.

We really started smelling affer about a week if you didn't watch it.

We had a feeling that it was a necessary job.

l'm not sure we realised that it was all that important.

To us it was a very boring job.

We were on lookout for anything that might come up and it was bitterly cold.

lt was an open bridge, open to all weathers,

and we were more, really, trying to keep warm,

trying to keep the cold out, trying to keep dry,

rather than realise that we were doing an important job.

(narrator) But they were doing an important job.

They brought the cargoes, without which Britain could not have kept going.

(man) You sit down in the cabin. That's when you think:

"We're in the open sea, we can catch a pack at any moment."

(Butler) Many times we saw little lights in the water

and we assumed these were surVivors, but we couldn't stop and pick them up.

(man) The normal comparison that seamen made with their wage

for the hours that they worked was with the ammunition workers,

who were making a fabulous amount of money,

with no more risks than our housewives leff at home.

(Eyton-Jones) We lost one out of every three men, and without them

this nation wouldn't have surVived more than three or four months.

(narrator) But the Germans were still celebrating.

ln the first half of 1941 they sank nearly three million tons of shipping.

Ships were harder to replace than cargo.

lf they could be sunk faster than they could be built, Britain would starVe.

But now the Canadian navy, tiny at the outbreak of war,

was expanding to 50 times its original size.

lt would take on nearly half the burden of convoy escort in the north Atlantic.

More and more convoys were leaving Canada,

decks laden with tanks, holds full of supplies

from the neutral United States under lease-lend.

Alarmed at continuing losses, the British war cabinet

set up a new Western Approaches Command to reorganise convoy defence.

For the first time, the RAF and the navy worked closely together.

And in March 1941 , Doenitz lost three of his ablest men.

Günther Prien, who had sunk the Royai Oak at Scapa Flow...

depth-charged and killed.

Joachim Schepke, rammed and drowned.

And Kretschmer, depth-charged to the surface...

and taken prisoner.

Only one third of Doenitz's fleet could be on patrol at any one time.

His best captains had suddenly gone.

Now he could only keep some half dozen U-boats at sea.

With this small number of U-boats,

of course any decisive success

in the battle of the Atlantic was not possible.

That's why it was necessary for the building of submarines

to get first place in the German armament plan.

But this was not done,

in spite of all the requests

made by Admiral Raeder,

who then was chief of the German navy.

(narrator) Worse was to come for him.

The United States was still officially neutral.

(PA) General quarters, general quarters. On the double.

(narrator) But affer Churchill's Atlantic meeting with Roosevelt,

September 1941 , America announced she would protect ships of any nationality

plying between her shores and lceland.

There were now enough warships

to provide continuous escort across the Atlantic.

lt was time to counterattack.

l got hold of a number of escort commanders,

who l asked the question:

"When a U-boat is known to be attacking a convoy,

as they do now by night",

l asked them what they did,

and the answer in most cases was, "Well, what can you do?"

"lt's a very tiny little thing and we can't see them."

Radar, of course, in those days was very elementary and we had very few sets.

But in fact there was one escort commander

who had the idea,

which is still absolutely relevant,

that when an attack, of which there is no warning, takes place,

that all of the escort should do the same sort of thing

on a planned line

at exactly the same time

so that it has the maximum effect over the broad ocean around that convoy.

And this, of course, was the then Commander Walker.

(narrator) Although he did not surVive the war,

Walker was to sink more U-boats than anyone else.

At the end of 1941 he set a new style for convoy defence.

The convoy was HG-76.

ln it were 36 merchantmen from all parts of the world.

They assembled in Gibraltar for the trudge to Britain.

The navy knew there were at least six U-boats on the convoy's route -

their signals had been picked up by the admiralty.

When HG-76 sailed on 14 December 1941 ,

it had an exceptionally large escort - 17 ships commanded by Walker.

Among them, for the first time, an auxiliary aircraff carrier,

the Audacity.

Three days out, Audscity's plane spotted U-131 .

The escorts quickly sank her.

Doenitz homed five more U-boats on the convoy.

Walker's team soon sank one.

But that night the U-boats attacked again.

An escort and a merchant ship were sunk. Walker counterattacked.

Walker's own ship rammed and sank U-574.

ln the air, Audscity's fighters harried the German Condors.

One was destroyed. Others were damaged.

But some escorts were running out of fuel. They had to leave.

A U-boat penetrated the gap.

Audscity was the next victim.

Another hectic night followed. The convoy lost one more ship.

But Endrass, another U-boat ace was sunk in U-567.

Next day, for the first time, a long-range Liberator

appeared and attacked.

Doenitz decided he must withdraw.

Walker had justified his tactics.

Aircraff had proved their worth.

Four U-boats had been sunk.

But Doenitz was about to be given his greatest opportunity.

(♪ "Moonlight Serenade")

ln December 1941 , the United States came fully into the war -

but leff her peacetime lights on.

(explosion)

Doenitz's U-boats never had it so good.

This was the second "happy time".

The Americans did not have enough warships available for offshore escort

so there were no convoys there.

Many ships were convoyed safely across the ocean

to be torpedoed alone and unescorted offshore.

The slaughter went on.

ln the second half of 1941

nearly 1 .5 million tons of shipping were lost.

ln the first half of 1942 over 4 million tons of shipping were lost -

1 ,000 ships.

At this rate, the Allies would lose the war.

We had to sink as many ships as possible

before our Anglo-American opponent

could develop an effective antisubmarine defence

and could replace the merchant ships which had been sunk.

(narrator) But most of Germany's U-boats were not in the Atlantic.

They were patrolling off Norway, defending Germany's supply lines,

or confined in the Mediterranean.

These dispositions infuriated Doenitz.

He had no doubts where the U-boats ought to be.

(Doenitz) The German submarines must not be used for any other purposes.

Their main strategic purpose was to sink as many ships as possible

in the Atlantic.

But Hitler and the high command would not listen.

(speaks German)

(narrator) Although preoccupied with the Pacific,

the US naval staff were now willing to rethink Atlantic tactics.

They finally established a system of offshore convoys.

Sinkings of merchantmen dropped off.

Sinkings of U-boats began.

Doenitz now switched his boats to the Caribbean,

where many ships were still sailing independently.

(narrator) ln two months, 78 ships were sunk,

more than half of them oil tankers.

(man) lt was a very long time ago, but l can see it now -

the people that lived aff running around on fire

and throwing themselves straight over the side into the oil

which was on fire all round.

ln the meantime, l shouted to the remaining people in the boat

to get the oars out and push her off from the ship's side

because the rivets of the ship's side had burst out and they were on fire.

We rowed around for a wee while and we heard some screams for help,

and we pulled out of the water a fireman, or greaser as we call them,

and he was terribly burned, so much so that when we pulled him in

the skin of his body and arms came off in our hands like gloves.

We set sail and course for Trinidad. l had a rough idea where it might be.

And so we tidied up the boat and set off.

But shortly affer that the greaser,

who'd been in terrible agony all night, he died,

and we laid him on the thwart for a wee while.

And then shortly affer that they told me that the third steward had died too,

so l went to have a look at him, and he was wrapped up in a blanket,

and l took the blanket away

and the whole of his stomach was severely damaged and hanging out.

He'd been very patient during the night

and the only thing he'd complained of was cold.

So we laid him on the thwart and covered him with a blanket for about an hour,

because l wanted to really make sure that they were dead,

because we had nothing to indicate...

Everything l did indicated that they were so.

Eventually, affer about an hour, we committed them to the deep.

Morale in the boat at this time was very low

because these were all young boys - 17, 18, 19, 22.

And by this time it was a boat-load of miseries, pain and death.

(narrator) Only eight men surVived from the San Emiliano's crew of 40.

To Allied seamen the U-boat crews were heartless killers,

but the Germans were brave men too.

They needed courage when depth charges exploded around them,

sometimes for 12 hours at a stretch.

Eight of every ten U-boat crewmen were to die in action.

(explosion)

(man shouts in German)

They called their U-boats iron coffins.

(German man) The destroyer l met had radar

so he had me on his screen

and with full speed ahead

he rammed me for the first time.

And when l saw him it was too late to dive.

l tried to torpedo him,

but the distance, 150 yards round about,

was too close, so the torpedo wouldn't explode.

So l tried to get a bigger distance

between the destroyer and the boat.

And he was shooting during one hour or two hours with machine guns.

An officer next to me was dead

and another officer, he had got a bullet through his throat

and l had got a bullet in my chest

and l had some 30 shell splinters in arm and leg

and a bullet in my head.

Affer one hour of stress

the sailors were very anxious

and one of the petty officers, he lost his nerVes

and said, "Oh, this madman!" and, "Why don't we surrender?"

But this was the only one.

(narrator) But the time was coming when courage was no longer enough.

(speaks German)

Radio had remained essential to wolf-pack operations.

But new Allied direction-finding equipment could pick up German signals

and plot where they came from.

With short-wave radar, escorts could now locate a U-boat on the surface...

offen sighting the U-boat before her crew could see them.

The low silhouette was no longer such an advantage.

(rings)

(speaking German)

(narrator) Asdic equipment too was improving.

Escort ships could track a submerged U-boat

as she twisted and turned at low underwater speed.

There were new weapons, like the hedgehog, for the kill.

The Germans did not realise the extent of British and US technical advances,

nor did they match them.

The Germans had some very high-class scientists

and some excellent engineers,

but they didn't achieve the results they ought to have done.

Firstly, l think, because they were mucked around,

and the Germans kept altering the priorities,

and secondly because l don't believe they were ever allowed

to take any interest in the operational side,

as opposed to what happened with us,

where the scientists were made to feel full members of the operational team.

l believe this, much more than the question of weapons and devices,

was the reason why the Germans fell so far astern in technological matters.

(narrator) And the Allies were still behind in using

what would be the most effective counter to the U-boat -

aircraff with radar.

Convoys could seldom be given continuous long-range air cover.

When they were, losses were reduced and U-boat kills increased.

The problem was range. Planes now flew to the convoys from North America,

from lceland, from the United Kingdom.

But there was a vast gap in mid-Atlantic

which these escort planes could not reach.

The U-boats could and did.

ln the second half of 1942 over 3.5 million tons went down,

nearly 700 ships, many of them in the Atlantic gap.

To close this gap, escort carriers were needed

to sail with the convoys.

But few were yet available.

Or very long-range planes like the Liberator.

But in 1942 the Americans needed most of these in the Pacific.

Or Lancaster bombers, but despite admiralty appeals

the RAF kept them all bombing Germany -

although they did release other aircraff.

Bomber Command diverted six squadrons to Coastal Command,

and if you'd said it would've been better if they'd made that ten, yes,

but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

As a Coastal type l would've liked to see a few more squadrons in Coastal,

but Bomber Command were pitifully short of aeroplanes, too,

for the job they had to do.

Surely, if there had been more Liberators allocated from America

we could have improved the situation much earlier

and have saved the lives of a lot of seamen.

(narrator) More and more, the war effort depended on the United States.

Merchant ships and escorts were mass-produced

to carry the material and men for the invasion of Europe.

Unless the Atlantic was secured, all else could fall apart.

ln January 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill decreed

that the defeat of the U-boat be given top priority.

lmproved escort vessels were built.

There were now enough of these to go over to the attack.

But also in January 1943, Doenitz took over as chief of the German navy.

He paid off most of the big ships

and released their crews for the submarine serVice.

At last he could have U-boats mass-produced.

17 new U-boats were commissioned each month.

By early spring 1943, Doenitz had over 400 U-boats in serVice.

Once again, the convoys might be overwhelmed.

ln May came what was to prove the decisive battle,

around convoy ONS-5.

ONS-5 was a rather small, very slow

and, of course, unladen, empty convoy.

And we had a lot of trouble.

The weather was very bad, the ships got disorganised,

and south of lceland affer three or four days

we had several attacks by submarines,

most of which we drove off successfully, and only had one ship sunk.

Then affer a spell we had a long series of very bad gales indeed,

combined with a little nip into the ice pack off Greenland,

and at this stage my ship was running short of fuel,

l couldn't fuel from the tanker because of the weather, and l had to leave.

l got the signal from Gretton

that he had to push off to Newfoundland to get fuel

and would l come back and take over the escort?

Well, he didn't say "would l?", he said, "You're in charge."

(narrator) May 3. Four escort ships have leff to refuel.

ln bad weather ten merchant ships have lost contact.

A line of U-boats is waiting.

As they move in on 4 May,

aircraff from Canada sink one and damage another.

At about half past four to five o'clock in the affernoon

the torpedoing started.

Well, l torpedoed two ships,

each with two torpedoes,

and one of these ships...

Well, it didn't explode,

but affer the explosion of the torpedoes another big explosion happened.

l looked back and l saw the captain.

l would suggest the bridge was probably...

oh, 10 or 15 feet, might be a little more, off the water

when he jumped off the wing of the bridge into the sea.

There was a life raff nearby, l know that.

Well, l couldn't stop and pick him up.

And, well, it was in...

l suppose a matter of half a minute that l got one myself.

Once more l was lucky by slipping through into a gap

between two of the escort vessels

and closing into the port column of the convoy,

and l fired the two torpedoes

and both torpedoes hit the target ship.

(narrator) May 5. The U-boats make 25 attacks in eight hours.

More ships are sunk.

The outlook for the convoy is grim as Doenitz orders in still more U-boats.

We picked up quite a lot of signals from other submarines

also getting contact with this convoy.

And so we thought that this convoy would be absolutely dead

during the next night.

Somewhere in the region of 10 o'clock the attack started

and they became fast and furious.

(Looks) Suddenly dense fog came up

and so it was nearly impossible to find the convoy again.

l tried to do it, but we couldn't find the ships again.

(Sherwood) Escorts were reporting submarines coming in,

not ships being torpedoed,

and this, of course, was absolutely...

lt was the first time it happened, certainly to me.

Staying on the surface during the dark time, now in the dense fog,

of course it was very dangerous.

They were coming up all the time saying

that a submarine was bearing so-and-so on radar

and then the next thing you'd get: "Submarine close alongside."

Another one: "Submarine just ahead of me. l'm ramming."

And this went on all night.

l got a very firm asdic contact

about 800 yards

from the nearest ship in the convoy.

My immediate reaction,

which l think was the correct one -

in fact l know was the correct one -

was to increase speed and give it a five-charge pattern straight away

to keep the chap's head down

so that it would put him off his stroke if he was going to fire torpedoes.

But l was short of depth charges at that stage

and l thought the conditions were perfect -

the night was relatively calm, a bit of fog -

perfect for a deliberate attack.

And so l decided on a deliberate attack with our forward-throwing weapon,

the hedgehog.

We saw two distinct flashes

a few seconds affer the hedgehog bombs hit the water,

and as we passed over the position

where our hedgehog bombs had hit the water,

we were virtually... our bow was virtually liffed from the water

as a result of the U-boat breaking apart and escaping air.

And there was great exhilaration on the bridge

because this was our first kill.

We had no feelings at the time, l'm afraid, of destroying 70-odd people.

One had control of one's emotions by then, affer three years of war

and it was just the thought that it's us or them,

and on that occasion it was them.

(narrator) May 6. Although 11 merchantmen have been lost,

the escorts have beaten off the largest wolf pack Doenitz can send against them.

Seven U-boats have been sunk, others damaged.

Demoralised by their failure to destroy the convoy

with the odds so much on their side, the U-boats withdraw.

l think we really felt that at last our training and technology

had got on top of the U-boats.

We sailed for the next convoy, SC-130, on the top of the wave,

and despite the fact that we had a very heavy battle

with about 20 U-boats, we sank three of them and didn't lose one single ship.

(narrator) That month, May 1943, 41 U-boats were sunk.

ln one of them, Doenitz lost his younger son.

(Doenitz) ln May 1943,

the German submarines had lost

the operational and tactical quality

of surface manoeuvrability.

(narrator) They never regained it.

Unable to range freely on the surface, the wolf packs were beaten.

lt was time to celebrate a victory in North Africa and in the Atlantic.

More than 30 U-boats were certainly destroyed in the month of May,

foundering in many cases with their crews into the dark depths of the sea.

Staggered by these deadly losses, the U-boats have recoiled

to lick their wounds and mourn their dead.

Our Atlantic convoys came safely through.

And now, as the result of the May victory

and the massacre of U-boats,

we have had in June the best month from every point of view

we have ever known in the whole 46 months of the war.

(narrator) The Atlantic lifeline was, at last, secure.