Original subtitles

(thunder rumbling) (intense orchestral music)

(torpedo explodes)

World War II, the Battle of the Atlantic.

(torpedo explodes) (anxious orchestral music)

Nazi U-Boat maestro, Karl Donitz.

Like wolves, we will hunt in a pack.

And his legendary Aces bring Britain

to the brink of starvation.

There's like 20 U-Boats!

By sinking their merchant ships.

(Prien speaking in German)

Fire.

(ominous orchestral music) (torpedo explodes)

Blast.

We must deal with these U-Boats once and for all.

The Royal Navy turns to a team of women.

(typewriter keys clicking) The Wrens.

And finally, the real chairman.

Good afternoon, marm.

Sir.

Wren Jean Laidlaw.

They will become some of the greatest wargamers

of their generation.

Ladies, if we lose the Battle of the Atlantic,

we lose the war.

Our job is to find a way to sink the U-Boats.

But their legacy has been ignored.

I mean, you only helped in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Not that we can tell anyone it was us.

Now, the story of these forgotten wargamers

can be told.

So who thinks they can sink a U-Boat?

Their tactics enable the Allies

to turn the tide of the war.

And do you have a name for it?

Raspberry.

Sir?

(Laidlaw blows raspberry)

As in blowing a raspberry at Hitler, sir.

Outthink the U-Boats.

(ship alarm pulsating)

Half raspberry!

(bomb explodes)

This is war, not a petty board game!

I need results!

(guns firing)

Dive!

And defeat Nazi Germany.

The Battle of the Atlantic is unlike any other.

It is the war against our two great enemies,

the U-Boat and the cruel sea.

(majestic orchestral music) (morse code beeping)

(dark orchestral music) (clock ticking)

(intense orchestral music)

Speed up!

Compress the air on all tanks.

Flood the engines full at the stern.

Run her hard to port.

In the First World War,

U-Boat commander Karl Donitz is losing control

of his submarine.

The U-Boat is a terrifying innovation,

one of many of the First World War,

but one of the most dangerous.

Submariners were always courting death

whenever they went to sea.

(U-Boat creaking) (terrifying music)

Light! (speaking in German)

(U-Boat creaking)

We're at 80 meters.

Ah.

80?

We're all going to be crushed.

Blow out the diving tanks!

(water whooshing) (U-Boat creaking)

Thank God.

(thunder rumbling)

(periscope squeaking)

(suspenseful orchestral music)

We can't stay here.

Dive!

We're out of compressed air.

(Donitz curses in German)

How have we let this happen?

There's nothing for it.

We can't let the enemy get her.

Open the sea cocks.

Scuttle her!

Everybody out!

(water whooshing)

(solemn orchestral music)

For Donitz, the scuttling

of his own U-Boat was a bitter moment of defeat.

He was a young, aspiring officer,

and then to lose this command

in this way was certainly not only

a heavy blow for his career, but also for him personally.

Thank God I've brought us with the fishes.

Where's Jeschen?

I saw him sitting further back.

God dammit!

(dark orchestral music)

Crew's gone, captain.

We're even now.

You sunk one of my warships.

And I sunk you.

I won't say it's a pleasure.

Now, excuse me, while I account for my men.

(solemn orchestral music)

Not a word.

Not a word.

He was deeply humiliated and deeply upset, also,

to of course have lost members of his crew.

For the Kaiser!

For the Kaiser.

It must have been a deeply frustrating moment for him,

and one that he dedicated the next 20 years to addressing.

The traumatized Donitz is sent to Britain

as a prisoner of war.

People thought Donitz was so mad that they sent him

to a mental asylum in Manchester.

(church bells ringing)

He was experiencing these terrible images

of the ship going down, of his friend coming back to him

with his boots full of water.

So he was obviously suffering some sort

of post-traumatic shock.

(dark orchestral music)

(door creaking) (door shuts)

(Donitz speaking in German)

(Donitz speaking in German)

Donitz was acting very, very strangely.

But he was thinking very tactically.

He was playing war games with his dinner.

(ominous orchestral music)

Donitz remembered as a child the woods of Brandenburg,

that there were wolf packs.

He first thought of the idea of grouping U-Boats together

into what eventually came to be known as a wolf pack.

(thunder crashing) (wolves barking and howling)

Rise up women, now!

While Karl Donitz dreams

of U-Boats hunting like wolves,

his future adversary, Vera Laughton Mathews

is launching her own trailblazing career.

Now!

Rise up women...

Now!

Got nothing betta to do?

Go on, give us a kiss.

Who writes this crap?

Me, and others.

A team effort.

(whippersnapper scoffs)

A right gaggle of muttonheads.

If you don't want husbands or kids, do us a favor,

and go drown yourselves.

Feel free to keep it

as a gift.

Do read it.

I assume you can read.

(whippersnapper spits loudly)

(solemn piano music)

Would you do that to your mother?

Or your sister?

I look in your eyes and do you know what I see?

A cowardly little boy.

(brave orchestral music)

I've always greatly admired the courage

of the suffragettes to gain political recognition for women.

Rise up women, now!

Her family was from a naval background,

and Vera herself wanted to join the navy.

Rise up women, now!

Rise up women, now!

In the First World War, she became part of what's known

as the Wrens, which is the Women's Royal Naval Service.

They were the women who would go in

and they would do things like the typing.

They were involved in the process of running the Royal Navy.

They were involved in everything from factories

to clerical work, and some

of it was really highly sophisticated.

They were all of a sudden put into roles

of great responsibility that women had never had before.

After the First World War,

the Wrens are disbanded.

(crowd cheering)

And the defeated Germany is punished with harsh reparations.

The Treaty of Versailles was

the greatest political mistake in the 20th century.

The idea was to reduce Germany to a small power

by reducing their military forces.

The Treaty of Versailles was tough

on the German navy in particular.

They were banned from having submarines at all.

Germany, after World War I,

was a boiling pot of political turmoil.

The rise of Adolf Hitler to power

in 1933 created an environment in Germany where the idea

of overturning the unfair Versailles agreement was

almost a national obsession.

By 1935, the British, eager to appease Hitler,

signed a naval treaty with Germany.

It enabled Germany to have a U-Boat force again,

and it enabled Donitz to realize some of his dreams.

Donitz was appointed commander of the U-Boat school.

He had the chance to apply his new technical ideas

into the minds of the U-Boat commanders.

I'm sure you don't need reminding

that the navy is the cream of the German armed forces,

and the U-Boat arm is the cream of the navy.

Now, one day, you may command your own U-Boat,

but first you must meet the standards I demand.

Lesson number one, wolf packs.

Here we have a convoy crossing the North Atlantic.

Our U-Boat spots this and moves in for the kill.

With the advantage of stealth and surprise.

Yes.

We communicate.

We coordinate.

And we sink the enemy,

and then we disappear into the depths,

silently and safely.

And then we move back.

For this to work, we would need a fleet of U-Boats.

Right now our flotilla's a drop in the ocean.

Correct.

But it is our duty to turn that drop

into a lake.

(dark orchestral music)

That lake is our destiny.

The destiny of the Third Reich.

He was looking for daring, determined,

cold-blooded officers.

You could even say born hunters.

The first commanders were really elite commanders,

hand-picked by Donitz, like Prien,

and Kretschmer and Schepke.

In Britain, Commander Gilbert Roberts,

the man who will one day lead the fight

against Donitz' U-Boats,

is war gaming First World War naval battles.

Gilbert Roberts is at the

Portsmouth Tactical School teaching the very war games

of the past.

(suspenseful music)

It's all very well said.

War gaming, the ebb and flow of the battle of Jutland,

ad infinitum.

But I wonder if we shouldn't be...

Well, Roberts, it just happens

to be the most important naval battle since Trafalgar.

I should know.

I was there.

Jutland, not Trafalgar.

(both laugh)

I don't disagree, sir.

Far from it.

But in the light of the new agreement with the Germans,

perhaps we should reevaluate our tactics.

What in God's name is the point of that?

Well, take the U-Boats, for instance.

They caught us on the hop in the war.

A damn scourge,

like sharks appearing out of the blue.

It's an old story.

We knocked those rotten hearsers for six back then

with our escorts, ASDIC, and depth charges.

The U-Boat is kaput,

as a Hun might say.

Rightly or wrongly, the Germans are manufacturing them,

and I think we should be vigilant.

I've heard talk of a commerce war.

The Germans won't sink commercial shipping.

It's just not cricket.

The Germans don't play cricket, sir.

(sighs angrily)

They're not really war gaming against U-Boats

at this point because they think that their tactics

and technical advancements will protect them

from the outset.

They believe that the ASDIC sonar system will allow them

to track U-Boats under the water.

(gulls calling) (waves crashing)

I think...

One person who is preparing for war,

is Vera Laughton Mathews.

She is recruiting a new generation of young women.

Vera's background of being involved in the suffragettes

and then, obviously, her time in World War I as a Wren.

Now, once the Wren was disbanded,

she immediately understood the importance

of women working together,

and she understood the power in that.

(bright harp music)

She was in charge of the Sea Rangers,

which is almost like a sort of Boy Scouts for girls

at sea.

There we are.

Now the granny knot is not the most reliable.

It was obviously named by a man.

(everyone laughs)

The most simple and most resilient is the bowline.

If you apply pressure, it's hard and as fast as you like.

But terribly easy to release.

Huh.

If only life was so simple.

(everyone laughs) Yeah.

Well, I'm studying to be an accountant.

All the others on the accountancy course are men.

Oh, of course they are.

I've got a secret little plan.

I'll share it with you,

if you don't let on.

Yes, of course.

Sea Ranger's honor.

Ah, well.

The Sea Rangers is just a stepping stone.

In the war, there was a Women's Royal Naval Service.

But it was disbanded.

I have an inkling it'll be back soon as you like

with war brewing.

You really think we'll go to war?

Oh.

You can always trust the men of the world

to get us into trouble.

(everyone laughs)

And the women to get it out.

(everyone laughs)

Too funny, Laidlaw.

Oh, thank you.

(Vera laughs)

Would you like me to show you?

Oh, no, that's...

Vera inspired a lot of women,

including girls like Jean Laidlaw,

who joined the Sea Rangers.

Yeah. (everyone laughing)

Definitely.

She was a good Scotswoman,

and a classy one, too.

She's naturally a talent,

someone for whom the time is ripe.

(adventurous orchestral music)

In 1939, with war on the horizon,

Donitz moves his war games to the Atlantic.

Donitz actually brings 15 U-Boats with their crews

and some ships for the other side of these war games

down to the Bay of Biscay to prepare for war.

(adventurous orchestral music)

15 U-Boats will be split into 5 groups of 3.

They will track and monitor a convoy,

consisting of a freighter, a tanker, with an escort.

Understood.

The U-Boats will be stationed at various bearings.

Then, and only then, HQ will give them a time

in which to attack.

On the surface,

and from all angles.

Close together in deadly unison.

Some will draw away the escorts

to allow the others to attack the unprotected convoy.

We'll pick them off like a fox in the henhouse.

No, captain.

Not like a fox.

Like a wolf.

Like wolves, we'll hunt in a pack.

The biggest operational issue

in the mid ocean is finding convoys,

and that's where the use of the pack

as a big drift net, allows you to find the convoy

to begin with,

but the U-Boat fleet is actually not very big.

It's a problem.

(determined orchestral music)

For his tactics to work,

Donitz needs more U-Boats.

There is one man he needs to ask.

Donitz is obsessed with the idea that U-Boats are going

to be the key to winning this war that's coming.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

Heil, mein Fuhrer.

I bring news of our recent naval exercises in the Atlantic.

The verdict is clear.

Our main weapon has to be the torpedo-carrying U-Boat.

300 in total are required for victory.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

Dismissed.

Donitz was relatively low in the hierarchy

of the German navy.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

(Donitz sighs)

Fleet planning and all these things were

of course dominated by the commander in chief,

the then General Admiral Raeder.

Raeder was interested in building surface vessels,

the Tirpitz, you know, the Bismarck,

instead of doing what Donitz had wanted

and building the U-Boats.

(solemn piano music)

With war approaching,

Gilbert Roberts' career in the Royal Navy

takes an untimely twist.

He wanted to be the captain of his own ship,

and eventually he got to that position,

and after three months, he started developing this cough.

Good morning, Commander Roberts.

Not for much longer, I fear.

(doctor sighs)

I'm gonna get straight to the point.

The navy will be equally straightforward.

It has no use for commanders with consumption.

'Tis consumption?

Uh, I'm not going to sweeten the pill.

You have an extensive infection in the left lung,

and some in the apex of the right.

Thank you for your honesty.

I must recommend complete rest for a prolonged period.

You'll be paid for 90 days by the navy.

For 25 years' service.

Then I'm out of my year.

Would it suit them if I pop my clogs now?

Um, is there anything I can have brought to you?

There is, actually.

England'll play Australia in the cricket tomorrow.

May I have a wireless, a cricket scorebook,

and a set of colored pencils, please?

Of course.

Thank you.

You enjoy scoring?

Well, I won't be playing, will I?

Indeed.

(solemn piano music)

To be told that service at sea is likely

to end his life due to tuberculosis,

would've been a heartbreaking experience for him.

McKay strains for the wicket as he bowls.

Perfect line of length.

Richard's forward.

No run.

That's the end of the opening.

This war gamer tries to keep his mind active

by listening to cricket scores.

There was this sort of feeling

that his talents were being wasted.

And while he's up and he bowls,

keeps short and

down the leg side (Roberts coughs)

and promptly dispatches the ball

before cracking on a supershot.

(crowd cheering on wireless)

What a play.

He's so distraught when he's signed off on the sick.

This is somebody who therefore is keen as mustard

to get back into his naval uniform

and to prove himself. (Roberts sighs)

(ominous piano music)

On September the 1st, 1939,

Germany invades Poland.

Poland and Britain had an agreement

that if either were attacked,

the other would come to their defense,

and once Hitler invades Poland,

Britain has no choice but to declare war on Germany.

It was on a Sunday that we heard the prime minister say

that we were now at war with Germany.

We did have a bit of an idea that it was going

to be quite a strange and fierce business.

The outbreak of war is the opportunity Donitz

has been waiting for.

Within hours, one of his U-Boats is in action.

(ominous orchestral music) (clock ticking)

10 seconds.

Fritz-Julius Lemp, in a U-Boat,

saw what he thought was an ammunition ship.

Fire!

He fired two torpedoes into it.

It turned out to be the Athenia, a passenger liner.

Hit!

In the orders given to the German U-Boat commanders,

attacks on passenger vessels were banned.

117 people, including refugee children, perished

in this incident, and it shocks Britain.

It was hushed up.

This was a great mistake.

It's not what Donitz envisioned

for his U-Boats.

What Donitz needed was to prove the worth

and the fighting power of his U-Boats,

and so he set up the idea

of attacking the British naval base of Scapa Flow.

Its location means it's ideal for the British.

They think it's very, very safe.

It's far away from German waters.

Gunther Prien, who was a young lieutenant of the U47,

crept in at night, in the dark, very stealthily

into Scapa Flow.

Two enemy ships in the north.

The Royal Oak has on board at that time

over 800 British naval servicemen.

There you are.

(creeping orchestral music)

Any sign we have been spotted?

No, sir.

No, sir.

Let's cull the fattest.

Flat bulb tubes.

Set torpedoes range.

3,000 meters.

Depths,

7.5 meters.

Targets

stationary.

Bearing dead ahead.

Torpedoes set at 3,000 meters!

Estimated time of impact, 3 minutes!

Torpedoes ready!

Fire!

(intense orchestral music)

(torpedo explodes)

It's so shocking,

that when the first explosion took place,

the crewmen on the Royal Oak looked up,

thinking that the only possible threat could be

from German bombers.

It was not conceivable that a U-Boat had made its way

into Scapa Flow.

One torpedo detonated successfully.

Torpedoes two and three.

Have come to a dead end.

(Prien curses in German)

It was a very dangerous job,

and it was even more so when he fired the torpedoes

and they were duds.

Come about.

He has the nerve to give it another try.

Ready the torpedoes.

Let's finish it off.

Torpedoes set!

Fire!

(determined orchestral music)

(torpedo explodes) (desperate orchestral music)

Not bad, not bad.

All three torpedoes hit mid ship.

One torpedo straight into the magazine.

Bull's eye.

Time to go.

(dark orchestral music)

When Prien lines up Royal Oak and torpedoes it,

it's not only a catastrophic loss of the vessel,

with considerable loss of life,

it's a shock.

This is supposed to be a safe place.

(thoughtful orchestral music)

The fact that Gunther Prien could take a U-Boat

into the heart of the British home fleet,

sink a battle ship,

and get away again,

was humiliating.

Prien was incredibly popular because he managed

to do what no other U-Boat captain had done yet,

which was really win a sort of propaganda point

for the Germans.

(people cheering)

Gunther Prien was given a parade through Berlin

as a national hero.

(pensive orchestral music) (crowd chattering)

Vera Laughton Mathews is director

of the newly reformed Wrens.

(knock on door)

Come in.

Marm.

Good morning, Miss Laidlaw.

Wonderful to see you again.

Thank you for coming.

You've seen the news?

Yes.

It's very sad.

A pointless tragedy.

So close to home.

Over 800 men and boys killed.

So soon after the Athenia.

Those U-Boats are a curse.

On a happier note, Miss Laidlaw,

I'd like to welcome you to the Women's Royal Naval Service.

Well, as soon as I heard about the Athenia,

I was determined to do my bit for the country

and become a Wren.

And with your accountancy skills,

you'll be invaluable.

Whatever I can do to help.

Many of our Wrens are still tasked with making the tea

or chauffeuring officers around London.

(Laidlaw scoffs)

I'm a very bad driver.

But I do see patterns and figures, though.

It's going to be tough,

but we can make a difference given the chance.

Can you believe that women are still not allowed

aboard Royal Navy ships?

It would bring the most awful bad luck,

according to tradition.

And according to men.

I'd like you to help with our recruitment drive.

That'll be your desk.

(triumphant orchestral music)

Vera Laughton Mathews was a very tactful,

clever, really rather remarkable woman, I think.

(Laidlaw chuckles)

She can recognize that the British haven't

yet fully appreciated what women can do for the war effort.

Give them a chance, and they can show what they can do.

Jean Laidlaw is a brilliant statistician.

She's an extremely clever young woman.

She's a skilled mathematician.

She's one of the very first

female registered chartered accountants.

Numbers is her game.

In the first nine months of World War II,

the Germans sweep through Europe.

It was incredibly fast.

It shocked everybody,

and they did this through the tactics of Blitzkrieg.

(bomb explodes) (heavy orchestral music)

In June, 1940, France falls to the Germans.

(darkly triumphant orchestral music)

With the fall of France, all of a sudden,

Donitz gets access to the ports of France

and open access to the Atlantic Ocean,

and this is, of course, a huge boon for him.

(birds chirping)

(ominous orchestral music)

They now had strategically advanced bases for the attacks

on the British convoys, on the British merchant shipping

in the Atlantic.

Britain being an island country, of course,

depends on trade to survive, not only for its economy,

but for its very ability to feed its citizens.

Donitz aim at the Battle of the Atlantic was

to starve Britain into capitulation.

The U-Boat's first challenge is

to spot convoys in the wide open spaces

of the Atlantic Ocean.

Sir!

Sir, take a look.

(intense orchestral music)

That's more like it.

Time to hunt.

Sir, we have only one torpedo.

(Prien curses in German)

Ah, ha!

We need to ready headquarter and invite a wolf pack

to join the party.

Contact U48, which can't be far away,

and ask them to relay our message.

The first U-Boat to identify a convoy

sends a wireless report back to Donitz.

Donitz then uses a wireless radio to vector other U-Boats

toward that location to form a wolf pack

to attack the convoy.

(morse code clicking)

Will the wolf pack be joining us?

Yes, sir.

Good.

We begin.

You didn't see us coming.

You need some lookouts with eyes.

Let's have some fun.

You've got the torpedoes?

I only have one.

It's your lucky day, Otto.

Set torpedoes.

All one of them.

(excited orchestral music)

British convoys at this time were about 30 to 40 ships.

They're not just targeting military ships.

These are merchant ships with cargo,

which do get attacked by submarines.

It's utterly terrifying for the merchant men.

Torpedoes ready!

Fire!

Prien's one torpedo misses completely.

It's left to the other Aces to attack the convoy.

Fire.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

(torpedo explodes)

It's the most devastating

wolf pack operation yet.

All of a sudden, bam, you get this attack

by wolf packs that looks

like it's gonna overwhelm the convoy system,

and it does surprise the British

'cause they don't have an answer.

The tactics are new,

and they're all scratching their heads, saying,

"What do we do now?"

The wolf pack sinks 11 merchant ships in total.

Kretschmer claims 3, and Schepke, 7.

Prien is left with nothing.

(submariners singing in German)

(Prien shouts in German)

We did all the hard work

and found the convoy.

And who gets the glory?

Schepke.

Or Kretschmer.

If only we hadn't sent all the bloody torpedoes

to the devil before.

That tonnage belonged to us.

Prien's a bit disappointed.

He has done this big coup,

he has sunk a battleship.

Suddenly, we have three Aces in a row.

Prien's not the only Ace anymore.

There's a big rivalry.

I'm in no mood to drink.

I want what's rightly mine!

(Prien shouts in German)

(patient orchestral music)

The Aces measure their success

by the weight or tonnage of the ships they sink.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

Prien, remind me of your tonnage for the month.

So, it is

over 35,000.

What about yourself?

A very modest 50,000, I myself.

Early days.

Yes, yes.

The Fuhrer has acknowledged the outstanding work

you are doing for the Reich.

But I want you to know

that the Knight's Cross will be awarded to anyone

who can sink 100,000 tons or more of Allied shipping.

But, to count towards the prize, the ship must go

to the bottom of the ocean.

Not only is it a game that they wanna win,

but it's a deadly game.

Taking tonnage is key to Donitz' strategy

of undermining the British and Allied effort

to win the war.

No floaters.

Everything to the ocean floor.

One torpedo, one ship.

(Prien scoffs)

Would that be good?

Too many torpedoes are going to Satan.

Stop complaining.

You just don't know how to use them.

Get close enough that you can't miss.

So, you've laid down the gauntlet, Otto?

Good.

To the hunting ground.

This is our happy time.

Wolf pack technique.

This is what the Germans refer to

as their first happy time.

While they may talk in tonnage,

cargo at the bottom of the sea,

we know that also means a lot of lives.

The first happy time is wonderful for Donitz

and great for the Germans,

but absolutely petrifying for Churchill

and for the British.

(steady piano music)

The one man capable of taming the wolf packs,

Gilbert Roberts, has a new job,

but it's far from the battle raging in the Atlantic.

Attention!

At ease.

I'm Commander Roberts.

I've been given the unenviable task

of teaching you lot the finer points of combat,

ready to take on Jerry,

if and when he comes knocking.

I think of myself as a navy man,

and yet the admiralty had other ideas.

That's enough about me.

As for you,

I gather things have not been,

shall we say, up to scratch here.

That is gonna change, I can assure you.

Lesson one: killing Jerry with your bare hands.

Well, not quite, but with something readily available.

Two sticks and a length of wire.

You, would you come out here, please?

First, I roll both ends of the wire around the stick thus.

I then apply the loop around his neck,

twist it,

and tighten it. (soldier gasps)

Like a tourniquet,

except this time the intention is to end life,

not preserve it (breaks down coughing).

Are you all right, sir?

Gilbert Roberts taught the Home Guard self defense.

What it was was the men who weren't fit enough

to serve in the army.

This is for duds and old dudes.

It's not where Gilbert Roberts sees himself.

It's humiliating.

(pensive orchestral music)

(door opening)

(solemn piano music)

Beggar's belief, it really does.

These poor little mites,

trying to escape the accursed war,

left to drown.

Those U-Boats are inhuman,

sea monsters.

Yeah. (sighs)

So what do you think of the new posters?

They're bonnie.

(Vera laughs)

That's a charming way of putting it.

Well, you know what they say.

You can take the lass out of Scotland.

Do you think the new posters will inspire the women

of our fair isle to beat a path to our door?

Indeed.

"Join the Wrens and free a man for the fleet."

I think it will definitely inspire their patriotic spirit.

What do you think of the catch phrase,

"The Wrens: Never at sea."

I've heard it bandied about,

but don't you think it's a bit...

Negative?

Yes.

As though we are poor wee land lubbers,

not worthy of going to sea.

Hmm.

But there's a clever little double entendre,

to steal a French phase.

Ah, of course.

We may not be riding the waves,

but we never flap.

Always on top of things.

Just need to approve oneself, now.

(Vera and Laidlaw laugh)

I think that the phrase that really struck us was,

"Join the Wrens and free a man for the fleet."

And you could absolutely see the logic of that.

My reasons for joining the Wrens

and becoming somebody who was useful,

it was because I was particularly patriotic

because my father was in the navy.

There were all sorts of useful jobs

that the Wrens could do.

It wasn't sort of just making tea

or helping in canteens.

You might be on the radio.

You might be doing communications, that sort of thing.

You might be a plotter.

At least 500 girls are going to be handling

and managing the vessels in harbors.

(foghorn blowing)

But the Wrens are strictly forbidden

from serving as combatants at sea.

We never expected to serve on a naval ship,

but we were very aware of the U-Boat war.

If you said goodbye to somebody going on a convoy,

you certainly didn't know if you would see them again.

(determined orchestral music)

Donitz is masterminding an attack

on a large British convoy, SC7, in the Atlantic.

A hunter's moon.

Just as I like it.

Donitz comes up with this quite radical idea

that what you should do is attack on the surface at night.

Stand by for attack.

The British had come up with

what they believed was the answer to the U-Boat threat,

something called ASDIC,

which the Americans would call sonar.

But being on the surface means the ASDIC,

to identify submerged submarines,

doesn't really help the British.

Prepare for attack.

Yes, sir.

Kretschmer was the best dictitian

among the German U-Boat commanders.

He was cold-blooded, determined, and very daring.

Fire bow torpedo.

(intense orchestral music)

(torpedo explodes)

They are all but invisible,

and they get inside the convoy,

going up and down the lanes,

picking out the bigger ships,

sinking them almost at random,

as if it were some kind of 20th century video game.

So, the British send up star shells,

and the whole area is illuminated by these little flares,

trying to make out the image of a submarine anywhere,

trying to spot it in the water.

Nobody does.

We go again.

At 700 meters.

Fire.

(triumphant orchestral music)

(torpedoes exploding)

SC7 was one of the most ill-fated convoys.

Of 35 ships, 20 were sunk,

and Kretschmer alone sank 7 of them.

It was simply a massacre.

20 seconds.

That must be a record.

Let's fill our boots.

He takes his job very seriously,

and to the Germans, he is an utter hero.

(chill jazz music)

Danke schon.

We have secured the French ports

for our submarine warfare.

I am most happy about that.

Now, we must sink more Allied freighters.

The new submarines are working,

but we need more, and quickly.

We need to press home light surface attacks

and create wolf packs large enough

to wipe out whole convoys.

If we cripple convoys, the convoy system will become

too expensive to maintain.

Thank you, commander.

You have been admirably frank,

and I shall do what I can for you and your colleagues.

The one thing that it's clear the German navy could do

was starve Britain into surrender,

if they could have enough U-Boats to cut off trade

to Britain.

Winston Churchill famously said that the only thing

that made him lose sleep

during the war was the U-Boat threat.

(solemn piano music)

Oh, Chief Wren Laidlaw.

Burning the midnight oil.

It's most exciting.

I've been adding up the figures, column after column,

and we have reached exactly 10,000 Wrens.

That's quite the landmark.

The posters are doing the job.

Have you managed to look at the shipping charts?

Yes.

I, I did.

I, I found it all a bit overwhelming.

It was upsetting, you know?

So many ships going down,

so many lives lost.

And the impact on our trade?

It's pretty dire.

If we keep losing ships at this rate,

the country will be down to just a few weeks of supplies.

People will be starving to death.

I know I don't need to tell you this,

but do keep it under your hat.

Mr. Churchill doesn't want to panic anyone.

Well, I feel like panicking.

The other day, I couldn't even buy a bar of soap.

Good night, Laidlaw.

(solemn piano music)

(door shuts and clicks)

Rationing started pretty much at the beginning of the war,

but it got progressively worse.

70% of our food was coming in from abroad.

(dockhands yelling)

Ordinary people would be queuing up at the butcher's shop

for two sausages or something like two ounces of butter,

and one egg a week.

There was a great deprivation in Britain,

and there was really a great sense of fear.

What's going to happen to us if this carries on?

(crowd chattering)

It was a very severe moment in the war,

the lowest point, I think,

where we were in danger of starvation.

(Aces laughing) (wistful orchestral music)

Oh, heaven has sent me an angel.

Don't worry.

Mademoiselle, he's going straight to hell,

so he won't bother you for long.

Oh, she will like it never happened.

Let us drink.

To the tonnage that we have dispatched to the depths.

Prost. Prost.

Prost.

I'd like to propose a wager.

Let us wager on which of us reaches 250,000 tons first.

I offer to provide the three of us with champagne

if I either of you beat me to it.

And if I win, you will see to it

that I am wined and dined with suitable trimmings.

So is it a bet?

And we have a witness!

I have a toast for you.

Donitz,

and our U-Boats.

To Donitz. To Donitz.

May the enemy never know the secret of our success.

(ominous orchestral music)

Germany reveres them.

They're heroes.

Donitz wants to prove that they can win a great victory.

They will win the war.

(energetic orchestral music)

So I must ask again for the fleet of 300 U-Boats.

I will then guarantee you a victory

that will bring Britain to her knees.

(intense orchestral music)

That makes six.

We need to get in the minds of those U-Boat Aces.

Dive! (indistinct yelling)

Why the hell have you dived?

(Donitz screams)

What must become of our invincible Royal Navy?

Find that damned hearse and sink it.

Buttercup starboard.

It's clear that something needs to be done

in the Battle of the Atlantic,

or we will lose the war.

(door opens)

Find out what's happening,

and sink the U-Boats.

(heavy orchestral music)

(triumphant orchestral music)

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0